Wonderful news from weekend last as Woolwich saw off the challenge of European titans Hull City Tigers. Hull, lest we forget, are twelve time winners of the European Cup, 37 time winners of the English Premier League, and due to administrative error have won La Liga fifteen times, Serie A 80 times since the Boer War and Ligue 1 so many times that every Hull City Tigers fan is automatically given the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur.
Hull’s brand of free-flowing, incisive, sultry football redefined tactics in the twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, the nineties and whatever we are supposed to call the last decade. They are the quintessential ‘glamour club’, exceeding even the glitter of Internazionale, Real Madrid or Tottenham Hotspur. And little old Woolwich managed to take two points off them. I have arranged for my personal tattooist to commemorate the occasion. And not only that, dear reader, but we avoided equalling the worst start to a season under Mr. Windsor.
Shortly after kick-off we dared to dream. We had taken the lead against Hull! Actually let me contextualise that a little more. We had taken the lead against a football team! In a game of football! Matron, string up the bunting! Fill the decanters! Find a vein! For joy unbound, we were one nil up! Mr Saunders red-hot starboard whizzbang scorched the onion bag and we were in the Promised Land! All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever, said the Lord! (Genesis 13:15).
Sadly, we dared to dream, and we woke up with a start, much like when some horrible urchin thinks it amusing to wake one up from a reverie with a squirt from a water pistol. The water pistol came in the form of ghastly cheating subhuman Mohamed Diame – who fouled Flame in the buildup, something which is in the same class of danger as Russian roulette or clubbing yourself over the head with a polo mallet. No argument on the second though – a Noggin Bobbler from Hernandez with the Middlesex Reject duo Huddlesixteenstone, the poor man’s Amaury Bischoff, and Jake Lilyliver combining. Luckily for Woolwich, we have Brazilian superhero Welé to save the day.
Wednesday eve, happily, is Laudanum eve at Gentleman Towers. Even more happily, it tends to deaden the blow of having to watch Arsenal play football upon the lantern. Through my gauzy haze, everything seemed to be fine, and in traditional fashion we went a goal behind. Is there a finer sight in European football than our defenders standing around scratching their heads whilst some unknown Belgian wheels away with his hand aloft? There is not. Luckily, Saint Whizzbang of Saunders, currently not only Arsenal’s chief cook and bottle washer but our under butler, first footman and Lord of the Manor all rolled into one, was on hand to provide vim, verve and vivvle.
I have just made ‘vivvle’ up, but it was Kanvar Khumar who provided the starboard artillery for Gibbois to finish with a textbook side-foot volley – known to connoisseurs as scuffing the spats. Then just moments later, Part-Time Ponsonby, the Deadly Stranger, was on hand to filch three points from the hands of the Belgians. I would have leapt with joy if I weren’t confined to a bath chair and under the influence of tincture of opium.
