Ultimate political grudge match today: Bluebirds v Demon Eyes

Hudson Roe is the captain of AFC Bluebirds, a five-a-side team made up of players from across Westminster. The team are proudly sponsored by Conservative Home. Follow them on Twitter.

We’re ready for our biggest challenge yet, Bluebirds take on the Labour Party’s Demon Eyes* today.

As has been written in our previous match reports (including Andy Johnson’s piece this week), the Conservative Home Sponsored Bluebirds are playing the Labour supporting Demon Eyes*, sponsored by Labour List, today.  Our opponent’s alumni include New Labour luminaries such as Balls, Burnham, Purnell and Miliband, D.

The match falls on the 118th anniversary of the first time Labour candidates stood in a general election.  This will be the inaugural game in what we hope will be an annual fixture, probably matched only by the Budget in the political calendar.

In an era where rotten boroughs still existed (yes, yes, some might argue seats like this remain) and the Liberals were still a electoral force to be reckoned with, the Tories walked the election with a Blair-like majority of 153.  Labour did not get a single MP elected with only 44,325 votes (the Tories received over 42 times more votes!)  I cannot promise that we will be able to replicate such a massive victory, but we will try and do the guys at ConservativeHome proud.

We’ve been in good form over our past four matches we’ve played, winning three and drawing one, so we are confident that we will be a challenge for a team that regularly plays 11-a-side (we’re usually a 5-a-side team with a rotating cast).

The weather is going to be beautiful, apparently reaching 30 degrees, so if you are free please do come and watch us play.  We’ve somehow convinced Paul Goodman to come and watch, so he’d probably like some company in supporting us!

*If you’re interested in why our opponents are called Demon Eyes, click here or watch this.
The match is being played in Islington on Market Road at the Aquaterra centre.  Kick off is at 2pm.