Here’s the latest instalment in the tale of Howard’s Jukebox, London’s least-successful five-a-side team (so far), told by our man on the team, Charlie WB…

“Driving towards the astro-turf pitches, I contemplated feigning an injury just to avoid playing in such cold weather, perhaps I could just wait in the car with the heating on? I looked around the car and judging from everybody else’s expressions the feeling was mutual. Alex was shivering, Olly was snuggled up in a scarf, Kilshaw was pulling his football socks far above his knees, and I was frantically trying to find a t-shirt to wear under my string-vest to prevent me catching pneumonia.

We arrived at Haggerston Park. No sooner had we exited the car than Olly managed to recapture his form from last week. In an attempt to rally the troops, almost like some kind of war cry, Olly booted the football as far as he possibly could. As far as he possibly could turned out to be on top of a nearby building. The following fifteen minutes were spent in true Chuckle Brothers fashion, trying to climb a makeshift ladder and retrieve the ball. Finally Alex B, our goalkeeper turned handyman, managed to climb onto the rooftop and rescue the football, and find another whilst he was up there.

After that commotion we met up with the rest of the team. This included regulars Rob and David, and some fresh foreign blood in Locky and Steven. We explained the slightly strange league rules to them, no balls above head height and all that jazz. I also let them know that picking the ball up with hands was not allowed, just in case. Howard’s Juicebox regular, Jack, was stranded somewhere in Devon and would not be making it tonight, such a shame.

In our attempt to warm-up, we stood in a circle of eight and passed the two footballs around between us. The idea was that if we could play with two balls at once, when it came to playing with one we’d be amazingly good. Needless to say we weren’t very skilled at passing two balls.

I offered to start on the bench, still trying to be recognised as a Solskjaer-esque super sub. Watching from the sidelines I could see that the game was going to be tight. What the opposition lacked in a star player they made up for in their ability to flow as a unit. The scoreline was goalless as I entered the fray, but that didn’t last long.

I was instantly at fault, marking the wrong person, allowing a striker to stroll in and slot one past Alex. I looked down at my shoes, as if somehow it was their fault, as if they had carried me off in the wrong direction against my will. I lingered on my shoes for a while longer, just to avoid the eyes of my teammates. Silly old shoes.

It didn’t take long for a chance to present itself, a chance for me to make amends for my earlier woes. Rob powered up the left wing and attempted to get a cross in, there was nobody in the box so it was definitely a good thing that their defender put the ball out for a corner. After some sneaky hand signals I escaped my defender and ran to the front post, the low cross came to me and I somehow managed to have my back turned to goal. It was like one of those chances on Pro Evo that leaves you saying “that would never happen in real football”. Well it did happen. I managed to pull the outside of my weaker left foot around the ball and flick it behind me. I definitely felt like I was Brazilian for a couple seconds afterwards, thats how cool it looked. What wasn’t so cool was that the ball rebounded off the post and back into their keeper’s arms.

At the other end of the pitch Alex, our custodian, was pulling off fantastic save after fantastic save. He was keeping us in the game like he so often seems to. After what seemed like Alex’s eight hundredth save we conceded another. In a cruel twist of fate, it was one of the other team’s tougher chances and all Alex could do was parry it into the net.

Again our team was stretched and it soon became apparent that the fittest player on our team was in fact our goalkeeper. Constantly coming off his line to smother the ball, it was a shame that one of the league’s silly rules is that the keepers aren’t allowed to leave their boxes, otherwise Alex could have injected some much needed pace. So in our stretched state we let another goal in and the deficit became three. Although it seems silly, considering we had never let less than four goals in before, this did actually seem alright to us. We just had to hold on and not concede again. In our relaxed approach one of our international players, Steven, was able to break on his own and without anyone to pass to, took the ball past three of their players and buried it in the bottom corner. That was our silver lining. I could have made the silver lining it bit beefier, but spurned a chance late on. My shot, which was surely destined for the back of the net, was blocked.

The final whistle blew and we emptied out bits of astro turf from the inside of our boots, in what has become a weekly ritual. Someone suggested going for a victory pint due to the fact that we had never let in such a small amount of goals, but it didn’t seem right, so we went our separate ways. With Alex clutching his man of the match ball, the one he found on the roof prior to kick off.”