Your Favourite Team’s Favourite Team

“There is currently no football of note taking place anywhere in the world,” I hear you shout. “Please help us STT, we are bored and it is over a month until even crap like the Emirates Cup starts!” Collective readership, prepare for your prayers to be answered. You see, this summer there was only one tournament ever really worth your attention, and it certainly wasn’t the one that finished last week in a couple of indiscriminate Northern European countries. No, it is based in the sleepy East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and kicked off last night.

That’s right, the Wednesday night 5-a-side Power League held at the mesmeric Mile End Stadium finally has started, and the country’s most loveable football blog was there to line itself up against the best that this delightful part of the city had to offer. Appropriating the more subtle team name of Boafista, part of the STT editorial staff was found strutting his stuff against two mighty behemoths of enclosed-space football. With kick off approaching, the nerves were dangling, and as a steady stream of pseudo-gangsters began to crowd around the courts to make fun of our shirt and haircuts, the pressure was well and truly on to produce a fearsome performance in the opening match of the competition.

First to dash themselves against the uncompromising rocks of Boafista were an unknown little outfit called the Southwark Lions. Starting with just four players, they looked dead in the water from kick-off, but an unorthodox tactic of just consistently passing the ball back to their goalkeeper frustrated the ambitious ‘Fisters. With games lasting only 17 minutes in total, the Lions set out to get a valuable point while waiting for their fifth player to find the Stadium. Following almost 15 minutes of neat passing, but no end product, the deadlock was finally broken by a quite spectacular drive through their goalkeeper’s legs from all of 7 yards out. The crowd went absolutely chicken oriental, and Boafista were flying high thanks to the insurance-protected right foot of yours truly. Another goal followed shortly afterwards to confirm the win as the Lions’ fitness was stretched, but there was no time for laurel-resting for the heroic men in yellow (i.e. us).

The second game of the evening started straight away, with an infamous squad known as Heritable Bank FC chomping at the bit outside of the court. Dressed in all white, they were an underwhelming physical prospect, but 17 minutes of intense running in the beating sun was already taking its toll on Boafista. Hammies were tightening and lungs were filling with fluid, but pride refused us any respite. A bright opening was marred by a tragic penalty miss by the Ginger Pele, Alaninho, but he soon made up for this with a cracking little finish to keep the ‘Fisters buoyant. They then responded with a penalty of their own, before sliding in two more fluke efforts while we were making substitutions to take the score to 1 – 3 halfway through. The tide started to turn however with the introduction of quite tasty little ringer, who hit a quick fire hat-trick to spare the Boafista blushes. Last laugh of the day fell of course to Alaninho though, who silenced any dissenting critics (i.e. me) with a long range left-footed effort which flew into the bottom corner leaving their goalkeeper languishing on his back like a date-raped turtle.

So two games, two wins. Not a bad start I think you’ll agree. And while the expected fluidity hasn’t quite manifested itself just yet, there were certainly sparks of brilliance around the team that signalled the force we will become over the next few months. Shout outs of course to everyone that contributed last night, it was a valiant team effort. Apologies for the lack of action photographs, no-one thought to bring a camera so you’ll have to wait until next week.

Finally an open invitation goes out to all local ladies that want to come down next Wednesday at 7:15 to watch some of your heroes gracing the fancy fake-grass in Mile End. They’ll be plenty of opportunity to get parts of your body signed should you wish, and obviously the local paparazzi will be alerted to take some snaps for the local right wing newspapers. We are also on the lookout for a couple of cheerleaders, someone to cut up some oranges for half-time, a couple more girls to throw their underwear at us at full-time, and of course several non-English-speaking masseurs that aren’t averse to rub ‘n’ tugs. Applications to the usual address; we look forward to hearing from you, and have removed the limit on our inbox if you decide that a video might help sway the application process.