The continuing adventures of Simon Gas's Friday Night Football crew
Ice cold in Oleks
As some of you will know, Yev and I celebrated our fiftieth birthdays by taking a trip to Brussels to play football, eat chips and drink lots of Belgian beer. Here is a slightly delayed round-up of the weekend’s activities…
Arrival
Ten of us arrived in Belgium’s capital on Saturday 9th September: me, Alan, Paul, David, Steve, Geoff, Yev, Oleksandr, Danny and his girlfriend, Kim. The first day was mercifully drama free* and saw us take in the instantly forgettable England v Ukraine game in, of all places, an Irish bar, and culminated in a pleasant al fresco dining experience over some fresh pasta and white wine. Well, it did for me and Alan, anyway; assorted others – namely, the Mariveaux crew – continued the festivities past midnight in a flash bar somewhere in the centre of town. Not the ideal preparation for a 1.00 pm kick off in the searing heat…
The Big Match
Yev utilised all of his international sales experience to arrange a game against a crack team of ex-patriate Poles, who play each week at a sports club on the outskirts of Brussels. We arrived at a very impreesive set of facilities at Inter-Brussels Football Club, with an uncharacteristically detailed ‘game plan’, or series of game plans (see below), devised by Oleksandr who clearly saw the prospect for humiliation and strove to avid this at all costs.
Along with Danny, who was the Peter Taylor to Olek’s Brian Clough (or maybe the other way round), we began the game with two distinct formations; one with the ball (figure 1) and one without (figure 2).
Imagine!
It soon became clear that the Poles were, err, poles apart from us in terms of passing cohesion and ball retention became a distinct issue, not helped by the oppressive heat. The referee agreed to break every 15 minutes for hydration, and we elected to use these breaks to bring on a substitute so that everyone got a chance to rest from the rising temperatures. (I sat out the first fifteen minutes for example).
As we kicked off there were two early goals: a rasping drive into our top right corner from the Polish-Belgians which did not augur well, but for the teams in Yellows (i.e. us), salvation soon arrived via a characteristically effervescent shot from Dave that disappeared under their goalie and into the net.
Ah, their goalkeeper. In these days of inverted fullbacks, ‘nine and a half’ roles, etc. this lad was a genuine ‘false one’ – about 50% of what came at him went past him, or ricocheted off back into the path of our players.
And so a pattern emerged whereby they took a goal or two lead, and then we got the ball forward via Oleks, who was a sort of one-man midfield isthmus (we were essentially playing with a back six) and isolated their goalie for David and then Alan to attack.
Alan got an excellent hat-trick, as he played the lone frontman role to perfection; his first was a close range finish, his second was a cute interception as a defender attempted to shepherd the ball back to their keeper, and the third one a simple finish after some excellent running from Yev, who belied every one of his fifty years by defying the boiling temperatures to take the game to the Polksas down the left wing.
Speaking of Yev, his goal was one of the most extraordinary things I have ever seen on a football pitch – he shot, the keeper managed to scramble it onto the post, it came back out to him, so he shot again, but it went straight at the keeper, rebounded off Yev’s leg and tricked in. Goal!
Man of the match Oleksandr got our other goal, despite becoming the sole focus of the Poles’ efforts to stymie our attacks, as they correctly worked out that he was the best player on either side.
With vision blurring and factor 50 sun cream sliding off of middle-aged bonces and onto the astroturf the final quarter of the hour saw the Poles nudge just too far ahead for us to get back on terms, although Yev and Alan both had late half-chances. The suspicion remains that the three young Polish lads (none of whom could have been over 21) held a bit back in reserve, but the final score was:
Ex-pat Poles 7 – Coram Fields 6
All in all the game was played in a great spirit, but it was clear that the local based players were a proper team who played together (not against each other) each week, and with one notable exception, were all in pretty good nick (see next photo). The story of the game was that although 7/8s of their team were better than ours, they had The Worst Goalkeeper In The World, while we had Oleks.
Timber!
Yev decreed that we would then have a penalty shoot-out – if we won, the result would be a draw and if they won the shoot-out they would take the honours. We got off to flyer, and had it been the best of five we would have won the shoot-out 5-2 as Oleks decided to cap his afternoon by going in goal and psyching out three of their players as they sent the ball off into the Harry Kaneosphere. But our players six through to nine all missed, so we also managed to lose the shoot-out 9-8.
For the record, our successful takers were me, Yev, Alan, Oleks, and Danny.
Thereafter the hospitable locals provided ice cold Jupilers under a pop—up gazebo, served by one of the player’s pretty wives. It was a fabulous end to proceedings; I felt like John Mills in Alexandria in the famous war film, and Yev did his ‘hands across the ocean’ bit to invite them all over to London. I can only imagine the scenes in the Skinners as they are plied with pork snacks and pale ale.
Moules frites
After suitable rest and recuperation the entire touring party enjoyed a route march around central Brussels (sorry, Paul!) followed by mussels and frites and, for some, ice cream (for some others, multiple gin and tonics).
Reel around the Fountain…
In Bruges
While Yev, Oleks and Dave returned home to London, a select band had a day out In Bruges, (less the crime drama) – Geoff, Steve and Alan went up a vertiginous medieval bell tower, while me and Paul repaired to a local hostelry. Thereafter Geoff and Paul left to return to Brussels, just as a late Summer monsoon arrived to ruin Paul’s flip-flops. He was lucky not to get trench foot.
*(low level) drama
I said that the weekend had been mercifully drama free, but this is not quite true. Shortly after arriving at our hotel, (the Beverly Hills Hotel, no less), Alan realised he’d lost his passport and house keys. After two days of retracing our steps around Brussels and checking the hotel lobby forlornly searching for the lost items, he eventually admitted defeat and reported the passport lost to the police and arranged an appointment at the Irish embassy. They required a black and white photo, so we finished our Sunday evening with me trying to work out how to take black and white photos on my phone in the hotel reception at 1.00 in the morning.
I think you can all see where this is going – on the day of his departure he found the errant travel documents… in a hidden pocket in his suitcase. John Le Carre eat your heart out.
Oh, and Dave accidentally stole the Uber driver’s rucksack from the boot of his car, but Steve managed to reconnect the poor man with his belongings, while Dave got off scot-free.
Stick that in yer blog! 