For the final time this season we lined up in the pleasant Summer sunshine ahead of our traditional August break. Here are your teams –
Yellows: Simon George, Beryl, Bogdan, Steve, Marek, Anatoili, Alan and Johnnie
Blues: Ian, Remy, me, Paul, Hector, Chris, Morgan and Nick
I am pleased to report that the final game of 2023/24 was a decent one, as the Jarvis algorithm once again came up with the goods. The Blues took a lead through Anatoili’s mate Chris, (making his Coram Fields debut), and looked to sit tight as Remy and Hector ran a tight ship at the back. Ian looked assured in goal and the team looked to ping balls up to Nick, was playing the number nine role, so that he could bring in Morgan and debutant Chris.
Meanwhile, the Yellow team gradually grew into the game and began to pose a greater threat, chiefly through the midfield promptings of Beryl, who linked up nicely with Johnnie and Bogdan to test the Blue flanks. Said pressure eventually told as the Blue defence lost its moorings and a cross-shot from Alan found its way to Bogdan who finished unerringly from all of about three inches. It may have been going in anyway, but the young undergraduate was not taking any chances.
The tenor of the game made it likely that one goal for either side would be sufficient to win it, and thus it came to pass that some reasonably slapstick defending from the Blues saw Alan ‘The Vulture’ Morgan prod home past his partner in horticulture – NB: this is not a euphemism – i.e. Ian, in goal to bag the winner.
Morgan valiantly strove to get the Blues back on terms by single-handedly marmalising a trail of Yellow defenders down the Blues’ left, while several extraordinary passages of play somehow resulted in the Blues not scoring as Ian left goal and went up front in the ‘Lord of Chaos’ role, like Forest Gate’s answer to Darwin Nunez. All to no avail.
One final vignette from Friday’s match. At one point a stray ball came onto the pitch following an errant pass from the adjacent game and cannoned into our football. The swift consensus was that this was, to use a cricketing term, ‘dead ball’ and the ball was duly returned to Ian in goal for a restart. Upon which Bogdan declared that he “was unaware of the protocol” in a cut glass Oxfordian accent. On reflection, this was probably my favourite moment of the match.
Final score: Yellows 2 – Blues 1
And so, for the final time this season, to the Skinners where me, Ian, Alan, Paul, Steve and Simon Gas enjoyed some fine al fresco drinking.
As ever, it’s as good a moment as any to congratulate ourselves on still managing to run around and ‘play football’ for an hour on a Friday after a long week at work – no matter if you are 21 or 61 this is not an insignificant achievement in an age where people are increasingly sedentary and prone to self-reflection; better to exorcise the demons by screaming at someone for failing to pass to you than exercising your thumbs by doomscrolling.
And as we celebrate Ian’s second ‘birthday’, i.e. it’s two years since he returned to life following his heart attack, here’s to another season of goals, WhatsApp polls, take-away chips and men trundling around behind the pitch to retrieve balls from a children’s playground.
Until September!
Stick that in yer blog! 