Andy Gray's sacking inspires a return to form for the Corinthians.

In 1991 my parents finally accepted that I enjoyed football and that it wasn't just a pretend game that I had made up and was telling them about. Little did they know that the rocky waters of vegetarianism lay just around the corner and that this uncouth sporting phenomena would soon be a non issue by comparison.

In an attempt to embrace my enthusiasm for the sport, my mother, out of love, bought me the 1976 Aston Villa annual. Retrospectively , this has proved to be a vintage item containing fascinatingly out of date journalism. It is with un-bridled joy that I read of the sale of Chico Hamilton in contemporary context, knowing that the now forgotten striker bagged 48 goals for the club is a source of retro intrigue to me.

However in 1991 I was 11 and my mother had handed me a football album that was 15 years out of date and about a club that I didn't support. As I received the offending item with a confused but grateful smile I was confronted by a massive picture of Andy Gray's thunking great head on the front cover.

It struck me like...well, like Andy Gray's head. His receding hair line, 70's mullet and empty grin immediately made me feel as if an Aston Villa kit clad mental patient had burst into my room and started to rape me whilst rattling off a running commentary of events.

As a consequence, I don't really like Andy Gray, or Aston Villa, or being raped.

Ever since then, Andy Gray has been slowly creeping into my life. He suddenly popped up pitch side with a microphone a few years ago which I recall finding quite unsettling...then into the commentary box...then out of no-where he was gabbling on every time I turned on the PS2, with commentary so out of context to the game play that it could really have been him....

As his fame peaked, it is no surprise to me that the Corinthians faltered. His dull droning voice rotting our enthusiasm for the game, gradually forcing Cenamor into an early retirement with depression, Finnegan's legs were so upset, they refused to work any more and Brown's bones went brittle. It's all Andy Gray's fault.

The good news is of course, that he's been sacked for....well, for being Andy Gray and has killed himself.
.
.
.
.
I mean, not got a new job yet, he could never kill himself, how would he do it? His head is indestructible and he hasn't got a heart.

Free from the shackles of Andy Gray, a new look Corinthians stepped out to face a first derivative team who have in recent times has the better of us.

Lewis
Knight
Ahmed
Lisk
Dante
Tjaadstra

After a short bedding in period, the football was electric.

Highlights included:

Lisk pulling a pass back from the corner for Lewis to wrong foot the keeper and sweep into the net first time (a highlight on the merit of it being so unlikely).
Dante zipping across the park to deliver tackles so crunching you could actually hear bones fracture.
Knight launching rockets from the half way line that left the first derivative keeper with smoke on his gloves.
The sight of Ahmed in full flow, a fitness the Corinthian have not since....well....ever
Tjaadstra, ever the journalist, quizzing Waz after the game......

Waz: 'we'll be playing at a different pitch next season, not sure where yet'.
TJ: Where?

TJ: Will it be near here?

Waz: hopefully, should be near

TJ: Will it be long before it's sorted?

Waz: shouldn't be

TJ: What kind of pitch will it be?

Waz: um

TJ: will it be a similar size to this one?

At that point I left as I could feel Waz's pain, and it hurt.

So in short, a 5-2 victory which should have been more.

We're back and Andy Gray is gone.

A co-incidence? I think not.

Corinthians 5 - 2 Bloomberg 24/06/10

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Corinthians 4 - 3 ABG

A sunny afternoon, an unbeaten start to the season and next up ABG, a team the Corinthians have hammered in the past, everything looked on course for another league victory, however the Corinthians were without their influential goalkeeper Gomez and skipper Lewis, and with ABG boasting some new big money signings this wasn’t going to be the walk in park so many (well me and Jim) had predicted



In the absence of Gomez the Corinthians operated the tried and tested (and previously disastrous) rotation policy in goal with Cenamor starting between the sticks. The Corinthians started lacking their usual fluid movement giving ABG too much space which left gaps at the back for the opposition to exploit. With the sun beating down it looked like it could be another one of those days where the mighty Incisive are held by an inferior team.



However anyone who knows anything about the Corinthians knows they don’t start playing until 10 minutes into the game and this week was no exception. Kieron, Aidy and Jason linked up well up front interchanging positions all the time to keep ABG guessing, Frankie played like a young Roy Keane going from box to box, Jim was solid at the back while still supporting the attack, Finnegan spent most of the game daydreaming about his wonder goal from the previous game and feeling angry about the injustice that Al hadn’t written a match report last week.



After a hard fought half an hour the Corinthians found themselves 4-3 up a winning position they should have been defending but instead chose to launch wave after wave of attack, the emergence of skipper Lewis from the bench for the final 2 minutes was a tactical move to bring a calming presence onto the field but instead he too got caught up in the free-flowing attacking football. Fortunately despite leaving gaping holes at the back the opposition couldn’t get the ball off the Spanish like Corinthians and the final whistle blew on a 4-3 win, another 3 points and the perfect start to the season still in tact.



Your Corinthains last week were:



Jim – Alienated many of his teammates early on with strange pre-match comments offering the rest of the team use of the johnnys in his wallet, but won most of them back round with another solid performance.



Aidy – Penultimate game of his loan spell and his best performance to date. Direct running and great link up play with Kieron led to most of the goals



Frankie – the returning Corthian put in a good performance with plenty of running. A welcome return from his loan spell in France. Jase has offered use of his old astros for the future which have at least 6 or 7 more games in them thanks some sellotape and elastic bands.



Kieron – Another quality showing which will continue to keep Olly Nevill confined to the reserves. Provided the base for the majority of the Corinthian attacks. Shares the man of the match award with Aidy.



Jase – Full of running, pace and endeavour out on pitch (which he claimed was mostly down to his new Astros), however looked uneasy in goal. The fans continue to take issue with his tracksuit bottom stance.



AL – Cameo performance for from our captain who turned up with 2 minutes left to play, but a solid 2 minutes it was. He has assured the rest of the squad that he will fining himself for turning up late and paying everyones match fees for the next 2 weeks.



Chris – Did very little, but then was stupidly given permission to write the match report, 10/10,



All in all a good performance and another important win. However next week is game on with Bloomberg lying in wait filled with confidence following their victory over us last season. Time for the Corinthians to prove once again who owns this league, that when it comes to big games we step up to a level other teams simply cant imagine let alone match, that when history talks about the greatest of 5 a-side teams it will reserve special praise for those players that graced the Attlee youth centre and destroyed every team foolish enough to stand in their path!



With that said Tj do you mind giving this week a miss – cheers

Corinthians 5-2 JTP 10/06/2010

Cor-in-thi-ans

Cor-in-thi-ans
They’re coming
They are coming home
(x4)

Everyone seems to know the score
They've seen it all before
They just know
They're so sure

Cor-in-thi-ans will
Show them the away
Gonna blow them away
We all know they can play
Cos' I remember

CORINTHIANS on their shirts
Plastic trophy still gleaming
30 Years of misses
Hasn’t stopped Lewis shooting

So many jokes, so many jeers
But all those oh so nears
Wore him down
Through the years…(to about 5ft 8)

But I still see that
Tackle by Al
And when Finnegan scored
Murray belting the ball
And Browny dancing

CORINTHIANS on their shirts
Plastic trophy still gleaming
3 seasons on the trott
Hasn’t stopped Gomez saving…

I know that was then
But it could be again

We won last week
We won last week
We won 5-2
We will win again
(x4)

CORINTHIANS on their shirts
Plastic trophy still gleaming
30 Years of misses
Hasn’t stopped Lewis shooting….
(repeat to fade)

Corinthians 16 - 2 CITI 03/06/10

Every man born with that innate comprehension that a ball should be round....not oval and that it should be about the size of a mans head and possible to kick without breaking a bone...not the size of a fist and likely to be smashed at your head with a linseed oil soaked plank of wood....

Every one of these men, lives every day of his life filled with terror that the summer lull in football broadcasting or the break from activity of his beloved 5 aside team may, just may, never end. That he might wake up one morning bereft of football shakes him to the core and results in wild behaviour; Wild erratic behaviour that renders the female gender proclaiming confusion even bafflement (not a word until now) at how their bearded, beer bellied opposite numbers behave.

This is the little known secret of behavioural nuances such as men huddled round warm flat pints of lager in dingy, damp stinking public houses, muttering about and cackling at absurd idiosyncrasies rather than returning home to their loved ones lucid and awake at the pre-agreed time.....

This, this and of course that fact that we just spent 8 hours at work aware that our partners have spent the whole day updating their profiles to read:

'SATC2 tonight Sooo excited'
comment:
'Oh wow we're seeing it tonight too, where you goin'?'

'Let's all dress up like the SJP and go for cocktails first woooooo'.


It takes 9 pints and 3 hours of reminding yourself that it doesn't have to be that way to wipe out the realisation that your beautiful intelligent partner is in fact a mentally ill 6 year old with a Barbie house instead of a brain....that or 9 pints and 3 hours to build up the momentum to go home and exact horrific domestic abuse, but that is a personal thing and you go the way that you feel is right.

So then........it is with fervour & perpetuity that the re-start of the Corinthians 5 aside season is awaited.....

Towning
Lewis
Finnegan
Nevill
Murray
Cenamor

Lined up to face the un-to-now force unknown of CITI bank.

Initial observations did not strike fear into the Corinthian Lion Hearts as the opposition took to the field adorned in a variety of cheap beach wear. The outfield players looked more like a lost group of British tourists in 80's Tenerife, looking for the beach but somehow ensnared in a game of 5 aside football, a game that they had previously never heard of.

It became clear that the CITI outfit really meant business though, when the goal keeper adorned a pair of Gardening Gloves, an audacious break from goal keeping tradition.

Recent times have seen defeats and static play from the Corinthians, but possibly inspired by the return of club all time top scorer Andrew Towning the play was fluid and the movement inspired.

It was at least 2-0 to the blues before CITI had chance to settle and to so much as touch the ball.

Move of the game began with Jim Murray, spying an opening down the middle of the pitch he launched a through ball to Towning, but the ball was at about stomach height. Towning launched himself into the air, recalling the skills he had developed at county level hurdles and turning 180 degrees scissor kicked the ball against the cross bar. There was almost applause.....despite the fact that there was no crowd....

The goals included

A hatrick for Murray, capped off with a 10 yard shin strike, the ball foxing the gardening glove clad keeper, by slowly bouncing directly past his leg...

2 for Finnegan including a rocket strike of a penalty and just barely muted Stuart Pearce vs Spain celebration...

An unending flow of succinct strikes from the men charged with the goal tally, Towning and Cenamor.

None for Lewis. More concerned with peppering the goal mouth with long range wonder strikes, Lewis once again proved that his Lampard thunderbolt needs considerable training ground work.

Nevill in goal, charged up by the terrifying potential of the game finishing late and his better half illustrating vocal disgruntlement, adorned in professional looking goal keeping strip, he gave Gomez a real challenge between the sticks.

It was a Rob Green vs Mexico esque performance and many fans are excited by the prospect of a competent number 2. Gomez though has been rumoured to have undermined the challenge by sending Italian Mafia clad 'kiss o grams' to the Nevill abode...a lightly shrouded death threat if ever there was one.

All in all a triumph and exactly the start that the season needed....Now on to the tough games.

29/04/10 Corinthians 7 - 3 JTP

22/04.

Soon that date will ring with the same resonance as 09/11. The day the Corinthians fell. A mourning public dressed in black for a full week after the Corinthians were defeated 4-1 by Bloomberg in a game that President Obama described as, ‘A dark day for football, a dark day for humanity and a day that I give you my word as President, will not be repeated’.

The Corinthians await the funding and support of the entire American nation.

Just as soon as they cleaned up the 40 billion tones of oil that they’ve splattered all over the globe, probably wiping out every endangered species on the planet in one foul swoop.


It had to be rectified. The unfortunate recipients of the wrath of a wounded giant were to be JTP. But not just any old JTP side. Contained within their ranks was a snake in the grass, a guerilla in the mist, a Gorilla in the office…..one of the Bloomberg football terrorists, a ginger bubble bursting bastard with the playing style of Vinny Jones and the social graces of…..Vinny Jones.

The Corinthians lined up to warm up:

Lewis
Finnegan
Gomez
Cenamor
Murray
Brown
And er, Barry.

With one confidence annihilating swipe at the ball, Finnegan launched the football 163 miles in the air and sliced off down the hill. Retrieving the ball he then attempted to rectify the situation by dropping the football back into the warm up area with a simple dink over the netting. Unfortunately he has a bionic leg and a soapy foot so the ball instead this time reached 194 miles in height and landed lost, forever trapped in the balcony of the attached office building.

Confidence shattered, the blues took to the field.

It was a slow start, the Corinthians clearly suffering from an inertia that seems suspiciously linked to the beginning of the summer ‘party season’.

Football is game of priorities and looking around the field a heavy legged Lewis was slow into his tackles, Cenamor seems to have chosen a diet of 40 cigarettes and a KFC per day over new trainers, having bound the flapping sole of the shoe to his foot using some sort childrens plaster and Gomez seems to have become so pre-occupied with whether or not to by new goal keeping gloves that he was once caught dreaming of that halcyon purchase and beaten from an absurdly tight angle.

None the less the Corinthians were on top.

It wasn’t long before a 1-0 lead opened up.

A great Dave Brown finish getting the team back where they belong: In front, up top, swanning about like champions.

The cameoing ‘Barry’ showed why Scotland isn’t all a land of Colin Calderwood’s with an excellent performance that helped boost the under performing Corinthians with some intelligent movement and excellent passing vision.

There were cracks though. The Bloomberg cuckoo in the JTP nest was causing problems. Eventually the equalizer arrived after in the style of the talentless but relentless Geoff Horsfield he charged down the flank forcing 2 superb stops from Gomez (who incidentally made some sublime saves throughout the game) off rebounding balls before slotting home. Entirely Lewis’s fault who simply stood behind him watching. Presumably still dreaming of his Paris sojourn and re-acclimatising to just how ugly people in Britain are capable of being….


There was though little cause for concern. At times Corinthian passing movements touched every man on the field before finally forcing a stretched save from what should have been an easily beatable keeper.

There was a penalty given to the Corinthians that caused flutters of concern amongst those present on the catastrophic 22/04.
Both Brown & Cenamor had done their family names an un-reversable shame and missed penalties, so as soon as the decision was given Murray took control. ‘THIS IS MINE’. There was no way another Blue was getting his mitts on the ball without a fight.

And who fights with a Scotsman? Only a Scandinavian in a horned hat on LSD or English gentry wielding considerably more advance weaponry is who…..or Roy Keane and he was busy.

Murray executed perfectly.

Cenamor slotted home 2 excellent finishes despite playing in shoes that he appears to have found on the side of a railway bank

Brown found time for a second

Lewis blasted home his first in 3 games

And then there was Finnegan……….

The nick name developing Finnegan (Fingers Finnegan in the office…..his alter ego GEORGE ..ask me later about this one….)…

A torrid 8 minute spell saw Finnegan strike the ball at angles only ex disaster signing Alex Ferguson was previously thought to be capable of. Launching every ball that came near him over the nets and into the distance whilst under little or no pressure was clearly beginning to wear on George Fingers Finnegan, the shame clearly apparent on a beetroot red face……

…Was it all over for him? Politicians have resigned over less….Full of the steely will characteristic of Corinthians though, he would not give up regardless of the scale of gaff…much like Gordon Brown…..

Unlike Mr Brown though, it eventually paid dividends….

Chris, George, Gordon Brown, Fingers Finnegan, composed himself and approaching a dropping ball from just inside his own half, caught the perfect ground skimming volley and smashed the ball past the defeated JTP keeper for goal of the game.

All was forgiven and Lewis called off the sniper hit man with a wave to the ramparts.

7-3

Back to winning ways but as the new tops draw ever nearer, vintage class must greet them in the next exciting installment of….


…THE CORINTHIANS.

Corinthians 6 -6 AIR World Wide

Gordon Brown has called his election. Parliament will soon be dissolved. Every voter from the furthest left to the furthest right is screaming at the top of their voices…’I DON’T WANT TO VOTE FOR ANY OF THESE CLOWNS’.

Re-invigoration of the voter, the political landscape and the economy are all eagerly awaited…..

….not so eagerly as the re-invigoration of a Corinthians side on the wane……the characteristic swagger, the ease of gear change over any footballing terrain…….all present but encumbered by the assumption of victory, a lack of punctuality and an unfortunate case of CHAD GOMEZ AND THE WRONG TROUSERS (the dramatisation of which will be available on DVD in the summer).

Air world wide were out early, warming up in team formation, they were making a case for a ‘game of it’. As per 6pm KO tradition, the majority of the Corinthians were scattered across London like soldiers on a 1916 battle field desperately searching for their own limbs.

Racing out with the best that they could make the field with:

Chad Gomez: - sporting a different pair of track suit bottoms for only the second time in his Corinthian career
Dave Brown: - incensed by the ineptness of his compatriots
Alex Lewis: - with one operational leg after being brutally cut down in a previous game
Kieran Gardner: - playing as a paid professional after Olly Nevill covered his fees

Already 1 nil down due to lateness it quickly slipped to a 3 nil deficit. A mis-cued trickler skimmed past Gomez and a rocket from the right found the net.

As usual the football from the blues was intelligent and well structured, but the shot’s that peppered Air worldwide’s net hit posts, bar and goalkeeper, never the net.

On a slippy pitch the Corinthians couldn’t get going, taking 3 touches just to get the ball under control meant that the intelligent man on man marking strategy of AIR limited pace and encouraged a rushed pass.

Davison arrived to make the 5 with Murray & Dunkley emerging as 6th & 7th man as the case for the counter attack began. Slowly the competence crept back into the Blues always probing for that first goal….

Then suddenly, Murray slotted home the first, his finish (silver) foxing the keeper and finding the left hand corner. The game was afoot.

An expected thunderous onslaught never quite emerged though. The Corinthians WMD’s turned out to be little more than vast oil revenues to be strategically plundered….

As the AIR FIFTH bounced off the foot of an unfortunate Lewis and left Gomes travelling in the wrong direction and trickled into the net….a 5-1 gap had opened up and to a neutral, the game must have seemed over.

Luckily the Corinthians are adorned with the arrogance, madness (and libido’s) of Lord Bath and the kind of wildly unjustified sense of self belief that follows Kieran Richardson around but used to follow Robbie Savage around until he caught a glimpse of himself in a Derby county football kit in the mirror…then probably had to be counseled down from a roof top.

All was not lost. The fact is that we had been playing well and all we needed to do was stop letting them score! A simple philosophy.

Despite some scintillating exchanges opening the opposition up between Lewis, Davison and Gardner the game simply wouldn’t swing. Even the Lewis trade mark free kick off the heel into space left Brown & earlier Murray wrong footed and considering smashing Lewis’s face through the wall for trying to be clever whilst 5-1 down.

Gradually though opportunity evolved….

A penalty, dispatched by Brown in front of Sunderland scout Davison can only have served to further his life long dream to be picked in a first team ahead of Darren Bent….

Davison slotted home from close range to finish off a fine move..

A Murray strike bouncing off the inside of the wall and back into the AIR net

Suddenly it was 5-4

Surely, surely now…….but like all good stories, on the cusp of a sweeping victory one final setback emerged……

A SIXTH AIR goal.

The curse of Gomez’s tracksuit bottoms hung heavy over the Blue’s. The last time that Gomez had adorned alternative goal keeping attire a defeat to JTP had been the result and here we were with 4 minutes left, 6-4 down.

Rumour has it that Gomez doesn’t have different pairs of tracksuit bottoms, he actually has 2 pairs of legs. It’s just that the ones in the grey tracksuit bottoms are in fact bionic.

There was still time for drama…..

…Brown stepping up for a second penalty. There was no way he could score twice, not by hitting the ball the same way? Surely, our luck just wouldn’t hold?

GOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLL

6-5.

Substituting himself for Dunkley, Lewis watched from the side lines resigned to defeat, helplessly watching from the side as Davison, Dunkley, Gardner, Gomez and Brown faced a back 4 of solid green determined to protect their lead for one last minute….it had something of the Dunkirk about it and the Corinthians needed a more of a ‘bridge too far’…….glorious defensive effort underpinned with eventual retreat and failure…..

Dunkley collected the ball on the left, turned his man, raced down the line into the no mans land of the corner of a 5 aside pitch. He cut in toward the goal wrestling off the rough housing defender, he drew back the trigger….


…..’DON’T F***ING SHOOT FROM THERE’ Lewis screamed in his head…….Dunkley prepared to squander the final attack of the game…all was lost, the fans baying for Lewis’s managerial blood, why oh why had he brought Dunkley back on at this critical juncture………..

The shot rifled from Dunkley’s foot squeezing between keeper and near post, busting the net, instant heroism, instant legendary status, instant comeback!


The official greatest comeback top 3 in the guiness book of records now reads:

3- Britain (WW2)
2- Liverpool vs AC MILAN
1- The Corinthians vs AIR


That….is…..a…..FACT.