Mere months ago, nobody had ever heard of AIRheads united... most likely due to the fact that mere months ago AIRheads united did not exist. The genesis and rise to (almost) glory of what would become The Atlee Youth Community Centre Thursday night five-a-side leagues most notorious and revered team has become the stuff of legend. Nobody can be sure where, or with whom, the dream began, it seemed to envelop the London office, permeating the ether, the sense of something great was looming, lingering just outside the veil of conscious thought until that fateful day when Air London finally hired enough lads to make a football team and the vision, that was the AIRheads, crystallised and was made flesh. Led by their indomitable spirit and guided by their fear of (talis)manic player/manager Tom “Sir Alex” Hughes the AIRheads burst onto the scene with a glorious opening victory declaring to the world we’re here, and you had all better check yourselves before you all wrickadie wreck yourselves! The score on the night a whopping 7-4 to the boys in green, incidentally summing to the same number of bottles of champagne consumed by the players at the post-match after-party. Confidence was high and with hat-trick heroes Kevin “He’s just a fat Spanish waiter” Fletcher and Chris “Cloughie” Marsham in the form of their careers and the prime of their lives, Airheads lined up for only their second match ever, against the perennial champions In(de)cisive media in a top of the table clash which saw the AIRheads rudely awakened in a staggering 6 goal thrashing. Tails between their legs and with the bitter taste of defeat (and John Smith’s) in their mouths the players trundled off to regroup and face the hair-dryer treatment from Sir Alex for the first time. What was said in that dressing room will never venture beyond those four walls but whatever it was must have worked as the AIRheads powered forward with victory after clinical victory, brushing aside all who dared oppose them. With powerhouse signings such as Phil “the pain train” Lewis and Scott “the butcher” Beatty, backed up by the pace and flare of Giovani “I’m south American, we only have one name” and John “I must be somewhere by 8 o’clock” Alarcon all tied together through the niggle and endeavour of James “shot like a rocket (as in they climb rapidly before eventually coming to a geostationary orbit above the earth)” Simpson, the AIRheads had become a force to be reckoned with. The opposition were right to be scared, international law firm Alan and Overy argued their way into the referee’s book and out of the running, Urban architects JTP London and Haworth Tomkins played some beautiful football but in practice it just didn’t work while local youth side Atlee FC proved that Alan Hanson was not all wrong when he famously declared “you’ll never win anything with kids”. As other teams tumbled, fumbled and eventually crumbled towards the end of the season the title race was gathering pace as AIRheads took the top spot for the first time with Incisive media snapping at their heels. And so it came down to the ultimate face off, the race for first place, as AIRheads and Incisive took to field, our heroes seeking to cement their place in AYCC league football as the only team to claim the title in their first season, while the villains clung desperately to their dubiously deserved title. As so often with games of this importance, the predicted fireworks turned out to be more like sparklers in a tense game where nobody wanted to give anything away. In the end the experience of Incisives seasoned professionals was just enough to edge ahead of AIRs youthful (in spirit) enthusiasts going on to win 4-1 and dealing a crushing blow to AIRheads hunger to be forever immortalized in the annals of football history. The boys in green will take heart, however, in a spectacular first season and will return with renewed vigor to claim their rightful place at the top. They will be harder, better, faster, stronger and, with Sir Alex’s proposed season-long ban on coitus, combined with a rigorous regime combining extensive steroid and amphetamine use they will be so full of the milk of human aggression that neither man nor beast shall be able to stand in their way. Watch this space.