THE Green Man is a fabulous cider pub just a short walk from Oxford Circus.
On Friday evening it was peopled mainly by local office workers, with tourists cheerfully beyond the ken of the pub’s tucked-away location.
Many tipplers were huddled smoking outside on the pavement, despite the inclement February weather of Storm Frank, Godfrey, Henrietta, Ivanhoe or whatever the Met Office have begun overzealously renaming the same kind of wind and rain each week.
Inside the bar faces the front door and large windows. A high ceiling provides patrons with plenty of headroom to enjoy the multitude of beers and ciders. The Veltins and the Thatchers Old Rascal were delightful.
For a Kenna transfer window it was cramped. Managerial grumbles were heard of the pub’s unsuitable aspect on more than several occasions.
Against this dissent the show went on, as the league packed around a high corner table to make themselves heard over the din of ad agency creatives who regularly take deliveries on late Friday afternoons.
Business was conducted swiftly and with the minimum of fuss. In fact, it was so Bramble free an emergency meeting was convened immediately afterwards between the chairman, vice chairman and whoever else happened to be waiting for bar service nearby at the time.
The chairman summed up Kenna HQ’s dilemma at a press conference this morning.
“The simple fact is: managers aren’t drinking enough,” he said upon showing a deadly Periscope video replay of a bunch of managers crowded around a small table full of pint glasses carefully studying lists of available players.
“We need to introduce some sort of spirits imbibing system into league meetings. No one’s Brambling, no one’s resigning in anger halfway through auctions and no one’s almost coming to blows over whether a contravention of made-up, fantasy-football-league regulation minutiae constitutes a breach of gentlemanly conduct,” said the chairman in reference to the acrimonious 2012 Emmanuel Olisadebe Euros auction.
“Four years ago we had a shot of tequila midway through the Euros auction and look what happened. When it comes to the [2016 Jean-Alain] Boumsong auction in June managers should prepare themselves for carnage.”
An increase in entry fees to cover rounds of moody top-shelf spirits is among rumours to be on the drawing board.
The chairman was heard to say after the press conference that plans a manager would drink a shot for every player bought would ‘be the next vanishing spray’.
Kenna table – week 24
Weekly scores
| Manager | Points | Goals | ||
| 1 | Young Boys | Andrew D | 83 | 2 |
| 2 | Pikey Scum | Jack | 82 | 3 |
| 3 | Wandsworth Network Solutions | Will | 75 | 1 |
| 4 | Thieving Magpies | Phil | 68 | 3 |
| 5 | Judean People’s Front | Sholto | 67 | 4 |
| 6 | KS West Green | Stix | 64 | 2 |
| 7 | Headless Chickens | John N | 60 | 2 |
| 8 | Dynamo Charlton | Alex | 60 | 1 |
| 9 | Newington Reds | Ben D | 55 | 2 |
| 10 | Team Panda | George | 55 | 2 |
| 11 | Carles | Carles | 54 | 3 |
| 12 | Northern Monkeys | Hugo | 52 | 1 |
| 13 | Cowley Casuals | Stu | 52 | 1 |
| 14 | Hairy Fadjeetas | Aiden | 48 | 2 |
| 15 | Bala Rinas | Lewis | 48 | 0 |
| 16 | ISIL | Abdi | 47 | 1 |
| 17 | Uncertain | Pete B | 44 | 3 |
| 18 | FC Tescticuladew | James N | 40 | 0 |
| 19 | Lokomotiv Leeds | Ben S | 30 | 0 |
| Points | Player | |||
| Player of the week | 19 | Huth, R – LEI – DEF | ||
| Club | Uncertain |
