A beautiful game, honest!

There is no credence in the footballing rumours about Taxation: this magazine has never sponsored games in exchange for a Gola grip bag stuffed with used fifties.

It is also untrue that our continued backing of the annual Brewer Morris five-a-side competition is reliant on having it held next summer in North Korea.

A climate of suspicion and accusation is a blight on the beautiful game no matter how wee and tax-prone – but it was in such a climate that this reporter attended the eighth successive tournament, with a beady eye out for shady goings on.

My suspicions first rose when I learned Brewer Morris team manager Alice Gardner was also the event’s organiser.

There was a potential conflict of interest and chance for shenanigans, plus Alice’s tactics sheet seemed disingenuously simple and her player selections included Hu Kabir, whose love for Liverpool FC was intimidating enough to provoke the introduction of a “no biting” rule.

In the end, Hu posed no Suarez-like threat and the fatigue-prone Brewer Morris chaps were roundly dumped out at the group stage, by which time I’d turned my attention to other competitors and the possibility of them fielding ringers. 

Was the Deloitte guy playing keepy-uppy actually a skilful semi-pro? No – and there’s documentary evidence to prove it. Maybe the women fielded by Diageo were on loan from Arsenal Ladies. Not if the booze giant’s 5-0 reversal to the boys of Frank Hirth was anything to go by.

Hold on a minute! Was that Alice’s dad, Russell, appearing for Hill Dickinson? It was! And was the ball I received to my face during the law firm’s opening game an attempt to warn me off investigating a connection between nepotism and match fixing?

Well… my sunglasses cracked slightly in the frame, while Hill Dickinson were destroyed by HW Fisher, who went on to lift the Taxation trophy for the fourth time – thanks in no small part to danger man and tournament star Amandeep Deol. (The damage to my shades was what you get from putting too much trust in safety netting surrounding an artificial pitch.)

What, then, was iffy about the 2014 Brewer Morris five-a-side charity contest in support of children’s hospice organisation Shooting Star Chase?

Maybe it was the Baker Tilly lot. They were suspiciously out of place by not having the company’s logo on their shirts. “We don’t know what the firm’ll be called this time next year, so we’re hedging our bets,” they offered by way of explanation. Oh, all right, then.

In fact, the only thing fishy about the afternoon at Powerleague, Shoreditch, was the KPMG badge. Literally.