A Right Ol’ Knees Up

Three days, six men and a World Cup
After months of planning, Steve, Pete, Chris and James arrived in an unsuspecting neighbourhood of leafy Hailsham on Friday morning with their lovely branded shower gel
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The accommodation was perfect
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with a lovely pond at the edge of the property, perfect for our ‘flicker profile’ interviews.
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First inside the house, Steve and Chris grabbed the two first floor bedrooms; leaving Pete the final double bed.

This left James and Stephen to fight over the bunk beds. Their argument over who should go on top due to who snored loudest or who farted in their sleep most would rage on until something we didn’t care about was agreed on….because we had nice separate rooms!

We hardly saw inside the house due to the large amount of time spent in….THE SHED, where we had set up two full size Subbuteo pitches to play the 2014 World Cup in its entirety.
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Much to Chris’ annoyance, Steve and James were intent on filming most of the weekend’s activities and with a two camera shoot, Chris just had to bite his lip and get on with it.
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With Steve and James having set up for the film’s intro, Pete and Chris reluctantly took their direction well. Filming over for the time being, we relaxed briefly before taking on the monstrous task we had set ourselves.
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By the evening we were rattling through most of the group matches
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and Stephen’s late (but thankfully safe) arrival
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after the bonnet of his car made a bid for freedom midway through his journey – gave us a well needed lift enabling us to flick on through the night.
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By 01:00 Saturday morning – slightly behind schedule – the remaining games were ‘autoplayed’ on our bespoke online system.
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With Brazil, Argentina, England, Mexico, Ghana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Australia, Switzerland, Japan, Nigeria, Chile, Portgual, Russia, Honduras and South Korea progressing to the knockout round, we retired to our beds,
proud of our achievement so far.

Early next morning James, awoken by Stephen’s early toilet visit and having been told it was 9am; prepared himself for the days’ events. Upon discovering it was actually 7:30, their argument woke Pete in the adjoining room. “It’s like having bloody kids in the next room”, he said.

Soon we were all nursing our hangovers
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which were made all the worse by the neighbours’ rather loud banging, sawing and getting on with their quiet country lives.

Well, maybe we had upset them with some overly loud talking and swearing in the small hours but the mid day toxic bonfire seemed a trifle unnecessary!

Still, we were in the shed with locked doors so they were inhaling their own nasty fumes, not us!.

After breakfast we embarked on the Round of 16 – luckily we were recording the results on Chris’ amazing online system, The Subbuteo Companion as I’m not sure anyone would remember by now.
Having made our Quarter Final draw before the start of the competition, we would find out who we would represent as the first knockout round proceeded.

In the opening knockout game, Ghana beat Colombia 2-0 meaning Chris would represent them in the first Quarter Final against Pete.
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Costa Rica beat Australia 2-1, deciding Pete’s Quarter Final team.
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James and Stephen would play as the winners of the next two games.

Switzerland 2 – 4 Mexico – meaning Stephen took Mexico in QF 2 and Brazil 0 – 2 Argentina pitched James against him in a Latin American thriller!
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England’s 1-0 victory over Japan meant Steve would take on an as yet unknown wildcard opponent in their game against the winners of Nigeria vs Chile.
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With Chile winning 2-1, our final flicker arrived in Dunstan. Having never met competitively, his place in QF 3 against Steve was perhaps the most tasty contest of the weekend.
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And of course we all wanted England to progress.

With the last Quarter Final place decided by Portugal’s 3-2 win over Russia
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and South Korea’s 1-0 victory over (the surprise of the tournament so far) Honduras
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we may well have been tired and drunk but we’d come to play the World Cup and there was a strict schedule in place.
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After some well earned Pizza, the fun was over. We returned to the shed for the Quarter Finals – now it was serious!.

The sensible money was on a Chris vs James final but with Pete’s Costa Rica taking Chris’ Ghana 1-0 in the first QF, could there be a surprise on the offing?
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Next up, favourite James as Argentina whipped Stephen’s Mexico 7-2; pitching James against Pete in the first Semi Final.
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Excitement grew as Dunstan’s first competitive match with us neared. Could Steve take the pressure of not only representing England, but taking on
the new boy?
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No – it was written! Fired up an raring to go, Dunstan’s Chile were unstoppable – winning 1-0, shattering Steve’s dream of retaining the the trophy in the process. A humiliating defeat.

In the final match of the day, two other beaten quarter finalists – Stephen and Chris played as Portugal vs South Korea respectively.

Despite a sterling performance from Stephen, Chris’ 3-1 victory took both himself and South Korea through to the Semi Finals and we were back on schedule just in time for Match of the Day.
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NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS…WE ARE EDIDAS #1

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS…WE ARE EDIDAS!

Part One – IN THE BEGINNING

It was a confusing time.

Punk’s politburo had deemed football politically incorrect and Thatcher blamed the game for many of society’s ills.

We’d fed the world, Mandela had been released and the Conservative government had “ditched the bitch” – denying us the joy of voting her out.

Women wanted a wonder bra; a topless ‘new’ man holding a baby…or undressing in a launderette while Marvin sang. Preferably all three

A very confusing time.

Chris loved cricket.

As a youngster he’d played the game ‘Owzthat!’.

Containing two six sided dice and a scorebook, one die – the batting die – is labelled

1, 2, 3, 4, ‘owzthat’ and 6.

This die was thrown by the ‘batting’ side until “Owzthat” was rolled.

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The second – umpire die – labelled ‘bowled’, ‘stumped’, ‘caught’, ‘not out’, ‘no ball’, and ‘LBW.’ was then rolled to decide the fate of the ‘batsman’ until the team were bowled out.

Just like the real thing!

Usually played between two players, Owzthat’s simple approach of entering teams, their players and performances into a scorebook also enabled boys to play it alone.

Playing many test and county matches in his room – Chris chose this route.

Steve loved football.

Aged 9 he discovered the table top game Subbuteo.

Flick to kick!

A simulation of ‘real’ Football, it involved a certain level of skill in flicking the inch high plastic figures across the pitch to score a goal.

The rules were impossible to understand but it was all pretty exciting nonetheless!

Obsessively collecting as many teams as possible, Steve played all the usual league and cup competitions including the 1974 World Cup.

Occasionally, Steve let a friend join in with these competitions too.

Pete loved football and Subbuteo.

With only his older sisters to play with, the joy of kneeling on little plastic men was a boyhood thrill he experienced all on his own.

Sidetracked by his keen interest in stamp collecting; Pete also discovered the joy of listening to Yes.

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A very confusing time.

As hooliganism and racism took a firm grip on the terraces, music, girls and being cool took centre stage for Steve, Pete and Chris.

Having failed at all three, their paths eventually crossed in Steve’s home town of Brighton in 1980.

Sharing a love of dope smoking, board games and a hatred of Margaret Hilda Thatcher – the three would regularly meet, talk nonsense and moan about the Tories.

10 years later, SHE was gone.

Steve, Pete and Chris needed another outlet for their obsession.

Then it happened.

ITALIA 90.

After Maradonna’s hand of God in Mexico ’86, England had scraped though the qualifiers and were on their way to Italy.

Not only was there an unusually good song for the England campaign (New Order’s “World In Motion”) but we had half decent players in Lineker & Gascoigne too. Could it be…?

In addition to this, post Bradford and Hillsborough disasters, the F.A. had been dragged kicking and screaming into a slightly newer age of health & safety regulation.

Ecstasy hit the terraces and stadiums became family friendly – It was almost OK to like football again.

A very confusing time!.

When Chris first introduced Steve to Owzthat they didn’t know any cricketers names to enter into the scorebook so they made up imaginary teams to while away the hours.

Mainly consisting of ‘Good vs Evil’ battles, the Thatcher led Conservative government usually represented ‘Evil’ while almost anybody else could make up the teams battling for the ‘good’ of society.

Steve quickly became frustrated at the level of skill needed to play the game – zero.

However, he loved both the concept of the battle against Evil and the complicated scoring that went with the game.

Steve’s idea of hell was being dragged around boot sales on Sunday mornings in search of “bargains”.

It was during one such nightmare, push chair in one hand, doughnut in the other that a beautiful greenish glow caught his eye on a stall.
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Head swirling with justifying Thunderbirds toys for the kids and getting home as soon as possible – the legend “Subbuteo” drilled deep into his subconscious.

The stall owner was fully aware what that glazed look meant and, throwing Steve a basic kit of goals, teams, pitch and ball; said “take the lot, I can’t use it anymore”.

Quickly throwing “it” into the cavity at the back of the Maclaren pushchair, Steve felt strangely content.

Back home, with the kids in bed – Steve stared at his new acquisition…What’s a boy to do?

Call Pete!

Having ironed the green baize cloth, the two set about trying to remember how to play the game.

Taking their lead from the Owzthat! teams, The “Independent Grocers” took on The “Multi National Supermarkets”.

Neither of them can remember the score now but the beginning had begun!

Beautiful!

Cricket and Rugby was his bag, so Chris had never played Subbuteo before.

When Steve and Pete introduced it to Chris he was intrigued by this new game.

Although he struggled at first, as the elder statesman of the trio, Chris was determined to crack this nut.

As time went on, the three of them would regularly get together to play round robins and each of them began to form a team borne of their own identities or interests.

Steve’s interest with fascists led him to form The Fascist FC but soon ran out of interesting dictators of Hitler & Thatcher’s calibre.

Ronald Reagan was his centre forward; being both a former President AND a crap actor – this gave Steve an idea.

With Reagan qualifying on both counts, Steve announced the arrival of FCA – the “Fascists & Crap Actors”.

In the spirit of Good vs Evil, and an attempt to play the ‘good guy’, Pete put together a collection of black activists along with some faded celebrities he had worked with.

His “Davenport Town Shitters” boasted Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Chuck Berry along with the relatively unknown Dave The Motherfucker.

Meanwhile, Chris’ hatred of the Conservative government’s hypocrisy was busy influencing his choice of players.
One by one, Thatcher’s heirs were getting themselves sacked for breaking their own rules….while lambasting the rest of us for it. From this germ of an idea, Chris formed the “Tory Rejects”

If you’d been sacked, you were in.

The likes of Jeffery Archer, Norman Lamont and Geoffrey Howe eagerly awaited former colleagues to join them, post humiliating interview at the mansion house gates with the red faced but “supportive” wife – in tow.

This triumvirate of madness seemed unstoppable….could they recruit another lunatic to their group?

Another former flicker was Steve’s old boss from his days at Virgin Records – Steve Pulling.

Mr. Pulling, whose equal love of Tottenham Hotspurs and jazz cigarettes formed “THC FC” and was integral to the formation of a Premiership with Steve, Pete and Chris in 1993.

However, Mr. P preferred to play a classic 60s Spurs squad and quickly distanced himself from the ‘fantasy’ nature of the other teams.

Feeling he wasn’t being taken seriously, he never turned up for the competition and THC FC were thrown out of the league without ever kicking a ball.

In the inaugural ’93 Premiership, Blackburn Rovers narrowly beat FCA to the top spot; but to be honest, nobody really knew how to ‘flick to kick’ properly – despite the retro rule books being pored over for days on end.

Steve Pulling briefly returned to the fold for the 1994 World Cup and despite reaching the final (via the “comeback of the century” against Steve during an LSD trip) he went down 13-14 to Pete in a thrilling ninety minute final.

While the makers claimed ‘realistic action’, Steve and Pete wanted more.

Not much could be done about the size of the ball in relation to the players but somebody had to try to reconcile the ‘official’ Subbuteo off-side rule with the Premier League’s ultra confusing new one.