You find me this week in a state of some psychological discombobulation. Regular readers will note that one often finds oneself in a state of advanced refreshment de booze. In recent months, in preparation for the onslaught of yuletide excess, I have pared back a little. With breakfast, only a light wine, perhaps a Brouilly, rather than the claret to which I had become accustomed. Of an evening, I have been following the old adage ‘If Jupiter be but on the wain, ‘tis time to take some Scotch again’, which not only is complete nonsense but also ensured that I have been imbibing somewhat more enthusiastically than normal. I often make up adages to allow me to justify drinking excessive amounts. ‘If the goalscorer’s Balotelli, it’s time to give the rum some welly’, for example. I have not been drinking much rum lately, come to think of it. Or how about ‘If the Arsenal struggle to win, ‘tis time to drink a pint of gin’?
This is how I came to be admitted to the medical embrace of the kindly folk at the local hospital this Sunday last immediately following Woolwich’s trip to Klanfield and then back home to yesternoon, more of which anon.
All had gone reasonably well until stoppage time. True, we had been playing like we needed a bell in the ball for 90 minutes but somehow contrived to be ahead. I take a perverse pleasure in winning a match-up despite being comfortably the worse side. Look at Manchester United under ‘Sir’ Alex Ferguson. Often awful but somehow dug out results.
Mr. Markovic, one of the non-racists Liverpool have bought to compensate for the loss of cheating racist Luis ‘El Racist’ Suarez in the summer was played in by non-racist cheat Mr. Gerrard only to be denied by the double pegs of our glove butler Mr. Sesley. It seemed inevitable that at some point Woolwich would go behind, and another defeat would be heading usward. And so it was that Mr. Coutinho – who embodies the key mugsmashing values of dishonesty and self-regard – duly put the hubcap thieves ahead just before oranges owing to our overly polite centre halves inviting him to shoot with the same enthusiasm as a young gentleman allowing young lady through a door.
So it was with great pleasure that when Saunders sent a standing-start whizzbang to instigate the highly-polished training ground routine of the Triple Trouble, a form of set-piece noggin-bobbledry not seen since the twenties. Saunders to Sakho, who was picked up like a child’s marionette and forced to head the ball to Flame, who sent it to Matthew ‘Matthew’ Matthews, who noggin-bobbled it past Jones using Skrtel’s head as a kind of billiard ball of which to score a particularly taxing trick shot. One all at oranges.
The Brigadier’s goal for 2-1 was a buxom beauty. Gibbois rampaging amain down the channel, through to Goring-Hildred, who sends Cousins to the touchline. Cousins, as calm as you like, sends it back to the advancing Brigadier, who finishes in the most annoying way possible, by navigating the Suez Canal*. Wonderfully irritating for the opposition. But sadly, as is so often the way, Arsenal are as good at hanging onto a lead as a man with no fingers and Skrtel nodded home to salvage a draw for Liverpool.
I hear the chap has had seven staples in his head. In my day you would have had a blob of Vaseline if you were lucky followed by a vigorous slap to the head to reawaken the spirit before being sent back into the fray. And so I made up the adage ‘If the Arsenal struggle to win, ‘tis time to drink a pint of gin’ and found myself at Accident and Emergency.
Back to civilisation yesterday, and the visit of Mr. Redknapp’s Rangers. Some sympathy here, as Mr. Redknapp has an extraordinary skill at sending clubs into bankruptcy. If memory serves, the only club to have survived his ‘stewardship’, are the one who most deserve to be disbanded and scattered to the four winds – Middlesex Rovers.
We never make things easy on ourselves, even with a team who are fielding Armand Traore at left-back with a straight face. The young gentleman, once of these parts, duly served up the type of hilarity that sent him to his doom at Loftus Road and upended Whizzbang Saunders. The penalty had the strange effect of making him look human after all as he feebly poked it to the QPR glove butler’s left. You can’t keep a good egg down and a rare Saunders Noggin-Bobbler put Woolwich ahead.
The Brigadier was playing like it was the 1930s when he decided to give Onuoha a puissant kiss**. Always better than to respond than to react, but if you’re going to get shown the daiquiri*** for a reaction then why not properly react rather than attempting the kind of weak seduction carried out by Goring-Hildred. Egad – You may as well murder the bugger.
Tommy Robinsons was on hand to double Woolwich’s advantage before churlish plume-plucked clotpole Junior Hoilett dived like a Canadian Narwhal to earn a consoling penalty. A second pint of gin beckoned for the Gent. With Spurs only just alow us in the English League we can only hope that Lady Luck and her sisters are with us agin Mr. Allardyce’s 19th century swashbucklers and Herr Koeman’s high-flying Saints.
We pray that we emerge yonside of the festive period with renewed vigour, fully prepared for a transfer window in which a hulking, homicidal centre-half and a vicious armoured defensive mid-fielder are a necessity. Or our hospitals will be swamped with gin-soaked gooners drowning their sorrows.
* Threading the ball between the glove butler’s legs to score a goal.
** A headbutt.
*** Shown a red card.
