TWFC

Full house for the first match of the year. We had not played in nearly a month due to a combination of festive period bank holidays falling on Wednesdays and lack of pitch availability. We thank Coach Hagenius for dialling in the team sheets.

We commenced 2025 with a clear battle of styles.

Let the official annals of Tottenham Wednesday FC and its descendants record that the first goal of the 2025 year was scored by MSGomes. The same player would go on to talk, cajole and verbally pull his team through a convincing victory over their opponents. Indeed his discursive contribution was such that he even talked his opponents out of decisions they might otherwise have reasonably contested.

The Mufti took an early lead and then, as the White Bibs attempted attacks, each loss of the ball resulted in them executing swift counter attacks. There were no cameras but some of the free flowing, one touch, moves by the Mufti were indicative of an intuitive grasp of space and where to be in order to exact maximum damage. We know, or should know, that Jimmy9, Leonalexis and Mash10 (The Three Musketeers) may have played together for years on end. This was clear in as much as in counter attacks the White Bibs hardly ever wasted a shot and it was quite natural to see a two or three person attack move the ball to the best player to ease the ball past the keeper. One might say the Mufti had a policy of 'think of scoring the goal and nothing but the scoring the goal'. This is inexorably different from a policy of 'shoot on sight'.

Football is actually a very simple game. The team that scores the most goals will eventually win. It is not so much a game of chance where the number of shots determines the eventual outcome.

Ellislewis123 of the White Bibs would reflect after the match on the downfall of not keeping the ball.

Credit must be given to the high quality of the Mufti goalkeeping. There were a number of significantly important saves from on target White Bibs' shots. Elvis and Leonalexis particularly distinguished themselves in goal with exceptional reflexes.

Kudos must be given to Eddie117 who impudently scored what I can only term an Alice in Wonderland goal where his shot audaciously nutmegged both the defender in front of him and then the keeper before the ball rolled into the net. The reference is from the croquet game in the Walt Disney Pictures animated classic Alice in Wonderland. On a serious note, one hardly ever sees a goal of this type in a real life competitive match.

Reading the above, one might think it was all one way traffic and the White Bibs were simply destroyed, well in truth this was not quite the case. VIIGeorgeVII, who is a somewhat indomitable person, did actually open the scoring for White Bibs with a long range power shot and also contributed to the second goal. BILZ96, JonF and Leon94 had some measure of success at eventually reducing the deficit. There were two possible penalty appeals and a goal that were each overturned by MSGomes's powers of persuasion. He would then go on to console his opponents that perhaps they were still working off the excesses of festive gammon consumption. He had less of a field day when he tangled with Ellislewis123 as the altercation inspired Ellislewis123 to make sure he got himself on the score sheet. The mid game wobble of the Mufti was stemmed when they benefited from the reprieve of decisions not going against them and returned to hitting the White Bibs on the break. The more clinical team eventually won and this was summed up quite eloquently in post match interviews from both teams.

Post Match Interviews

[Click here to listen to interviews with Elvis for the Mufti and Leon94 for the White Bibs...]

Having been unavailable for a post match interview MSGomes simply took to social media and shared a rhythmical rhyme celebrating the victory. We have decided not to call it a rap because it lacks the recurring, almost staccato, beat pattern required in that genre.

Final Score

Mufti 10 - 6 White Bibs

Match awarded to the Mufti.

Let's do it all again next match at Tottenham Wednesday FC