Forget the World Cup

For the year's most important football game took place yesterday. Yes, Astro and Cosmic finally played their inter-departmental 5-a-side game, with Astro looking to find some consolation for what has been a disappointing season, and exact revenge on Cosmic for their 2-1 win last season. I must confess to having lost sleep over the skillful nutmeg Ray Sharples subjected me to with his last minute winner some twelve months ago. I wanted them to suffer.

The teams lined up: Astro (Harker, Davies, Crain, Swinbank, Angulo), Cosmic (Schurch, Ross, Bielby, Harrison, Brown, Wake, Middleton). Cosmic's larger squad offering an early psychological advantage as Astro pondered whether, without regular Eke, their fitness might last the distance in a sweltering Maiden Castle sports hall.

Astro struck early. Angulo's 3 blistering goals in the first few minutes threatened to kill the game, but plucky play by Brown earnt Cosmic 2 goals of their own to resurrect the game just before half-time. With Cosmic stealing the initiative, they turned the screw by introducing Wake's fresh legs. Astro, looking tired, turned to Italian tactics and shut up shop. Cosmic found no answers to this more stoic defensive approach, and with a final throw of the dice introduced Middleton. As the clock ticked Cosmic must have hoped their subs' energy might steal them something, but with seconds to play Angulo showed why he's Astro's top hitman, and rounded the diving Schurch for a tap-in that earnt Astro a 4-2 victory and brought bragging rights back to the Ivory Towers of the ICC for the next twelve months. Football has indeed come home.

EDIT: As Ross (Cosmic, Durham) pointed out in the comments, I forgot to mention that Cosmic had an equaliser disallowed. In my defence, I think this was a fair omission since there was never any doubt of the illegality of the "goal", thus rendering the incident a non-event. To clarify: Cosmic were awarded a free kick with Astro 3-2 up, but it was taken some two yards forward of the correct position, with the ball still moving. Whilst Brown (Cosmic)(EDIT: Ross, not Brown - apologies) fired the ball home beautifully from the laid-off free-kick, the sheer audacity of the attempt to gain an unfair advantage resulted in much mirth from the Astro players and the referee, and no attempt was made to challenge the ball.