The Diary

06 December 2004: Santa Is An Albion Fan?

I first spotted him in the entrance to a pub carvery this lunchtime. Not that I could ignore his sorry plight, of course. White-haired, red-nosed, drooping shoulders, rheumy, sad eyes, and both arms hanging limply downwards in an attitude of what looked very much like total and utter dejection to me, coupled with the strong suspicion he?d imbibed far more of the alcoholic beverages on offer over the bar counter than was really good for his long-term health. Right then, all the cares of the world seemed to hang on those ample shoulders of his; in short, a pitiable sight indeed. One of our supporters late back from Pompey? Nope ? just an inflatable Santa Claus that had sprung a slow leak somewhere along the line twixt storage-room and doorway, but I have to say that on spotting the suicidal-looking old sod, blow-up though he might have been, total empathy quickly overwhelmed me; truly, it takes one to know one.

Since yesterday?s final whistle, another thought?s flitted through my brain. What with that awful ?oggie? of ours yesterday, and everything, mightn?t it be prudent in future to brief our defence to not only to keep tabs on the opposition, but also deploy a permanent man-marker on bloody Darren Purse, who now has TWO to his name thus far this term? And why stop there? Howzabout donating him a really crunching tackle whenever he looks about to turn the ball in a direction uncomfortably likely to give Houlty something to really lose sleep over? Come to think about it, can you award penalties for clobbering someone from your own side, instead of the opposition? Either that, or arrange for the strategic deposition of a large-size banana skin on the deck just as he?s about to emerge from the players? tunnel?

Perhaps it?s just as well I?m now able to rearrange my facial features into something vaguely resembling an expression of mirth; either that, or bawl the bloody place down, I suppose. There were a couple of plus-points to be gleaned from yesterday?s little caper, one of them being the solidity of Big Dave at the back ? my goodness, the amount of work he got through - and the emergence of Clem as one of the very exclusive band who came from yesterday?s fixture with any degree of credit. That amazing run of his that led to the first goal ? OK, just like Darren?s, an ?oggie?, but an important strike, whatever its provenance ? was worth the admission fee on its own. He?s been much maligned of late, has the lad, and, yes, I?ve been just as guilty as the rest on several occasions, but he is a genuinely nice guy when you get to talk to him, so I?m really pleased his career seems to be gradually hauling itself out of the primeval swamp into which it appeared to have fallen not so very long ago.

Looking at what our leader had to say about yesterday?s game, I reckon he had it pretty much spot-on. Yep, we gave the ball away too easily, yep, we failed to use our bloody initiative out there, and yep, we tried to defend that 2-1 lead when we most certainly should have kicked on, and given everything to put the game completely beyond Pompey?s reach. The first Robbo can?t do an awful lot about, save grab a handy pair of boots, get out there and give a practical demonstration (I wish; even at the age of 40 or 41, he could still turn it on for Daryl Burgess?s testimonial game, when he made Danny Gabbidon look very silly indeed!), but the second? Surely that?s something only the manager can sort? I am fervently hoping that by the end of the week, The Prodigal will have well and truly given up that awful habit of his of constantly ejecting his pacifier from his perambulator ? as I said the other day, The Prime Cause is now over the hills and far away ? and come this Saturday, we can finally let him loose on Curbishley?s lot. I didn?t attend our last reserves game, but from what I?ve heard on the mailing-list, our grossly-underperforming midfielder got through more work in the whole of that 90 minutes than he had for about the last five or six times he?d turned out in the stripes. Sure, he might not be totally match-fit ? training with the kids does have that demoralising effect on you ? but that?s why you have subs on the bench. That, and to act as a ninety-minute-long lightning-rod for your gaffer?s ninety minute-long ire. Get him on, get him to work the old magic, help Earnie or whoever stick a couple in the old onion bag for us. Take him off, if knackered. Job done.

What?s beginning to concern me now is whether our chairman might simply become resigned to eventualities, and as a result, become rather reluctant to chuck good money after bad in the forthcoming transfer window. A lot will depend upon whether or not we?re able to at least make some effort to extricate us from the mess we?re in right now. At present, we?re bottom, but still in reasonable touch with the rest of the struggling pack. Give it a couple more defeats, mind, and it might then be a case of ?Goodbye Vienna?. To turn things around at this stage in the season will be incredibly difficult, to say the least. Remember, the benchmark for survival is around 40 points or so. (Didn?t West Ham get relegated on 42, by the way?) That means at least ten wins chucked in somewhere between now and the end of the season, plus, of course, a few more drawn games; right now, we have but a single three-pointer to our name, versus Bolton. Which, in plain English, means from here on in, we?re going to have to turn it on to pretty-much European qualification standard, nine wins from the remaining 22, plus the additional single-pointers necessary to bring us up to scratch. Worrying, or what?

And, should we crash and burn come May, what then for our more expensively-acquired and high-maintenance performers? Kanu will be gone for sure and, I suspect, the likes of Gera, Koumas, Earnie, Sakiri, plus Gaardsoe, possibly. People such as The Horse, who have already demonstrated a modicum of ability to perform at Championship level, will become more valuable than ever before. Will our chairman be willing to sort out suitable replacements should the worst happen, or will we simply cut our clothes to suit our more lowly financial cloth, instead?

In the Dickmobile, following yesterday?s game, all of us expressed great concern that should we dip this time round, it might be very difficult indeed to bounce straight back for the second time in a row. West Ham and Leeds, both of whom were Premiership regulars for yonks, have not found it at all easy to regain their former glory-status. The gulf between the two leagues, already massive, is widening every season, and the day can?t be all that far away when The Prem, out of sheer self-interest, draws up the ladder, and leaves those still remaining in the briny to either sink or swim.

And here?s another depressing thought to chew over until the urge to reach for the Valium finally overtakes you. Yesterday, much of our pre-match time was spent nattering with other supporters apropos the subject of whether following the club away on a regular basis was really stretching finances to the limit. We further asked various ?regulars? whether they could ever see a day when they would stop going to every single away game; unsurprisingly, the answer, for the main part, was a resounding ?yes?. The whole thing is increasingly impinging upon people?s already tight budgets, and the club?s additional administration charge for away season-ticket holders doesn?t help at all. That, plus swingeing ticket charges for some away games. Interesting to note today that Charlton supporters became refuseniks for their local derby versus Palace; even for those born within sound of Bow Bells (or its various London equivalents), ?35 for what turned out to be a crashing bore of a game, by all accounts, and live on Sky anyway, was a rip-off too far for quite a few.

We?re certainly going to call a partial halt to the madness next season. Not an easy decision for someone like me, who has watched the lads for around 40-odd years, both home, and, shift work and illness permitting, able to travel away. Or, come to think about it, The Fart, who is a pensioner and on a necessarily-tight budget anyway. Plus The Noise; joking apart, it isn?t easy, trying to bring up two young girls on what virtually amounts to one income, and go to football every week as well. My other half has an unbroken record of away attendances stretching right the way back to 1994, including trips to places like Florence, Salerno and Brescia for the Anglo-Italian Cup. Breaking that splendid run will be a hell of a wrench for ?Im Indoors, but once you?ve gone and done it, the next time becomes even less of a drain on the conscience, and the habit of regular and unthinking attendance is quickly lost. And, judging from the ?straw poll? of regulars we?ve been conducting of late ? yesterday was just one of a series ? there will be many like us not renewing their away season tickets next time round, and for precisely the same reason.

As The Fart so pertinently pointed out yesterday, apropos the increasing influence of the bean-counters on our supporting-life, there?s a hell of a difference between a supporter and a ?customer?, and it?s this failure to fully appreciate that subtle distinction that?s going to do for them eventually. And there?s another dissimilarity that sets us apart from other business/retail sectors; the inability of our club (or any other in a similarly-fortunate financial position) to reward their most regular and loyal ?customers?. Only football could come up with the idea of imposing a swingeing ?administration charge? on such people, and by doing so, effectively penalising those who take considerable time and trouble to watch their favourites away from home. It?s not compulsory, remember, and not going will give us a chance to catch up on other things we might want to do instead. The words ?coffee? and ?smell? don?t half come to mind right now.

So ? it?s Preston North End in the Cup, is it? Oh, how I love this time of year, the day I stuff both earholes with great wodges of cotton-wool, preparatory to the moment my beloved emits a succession of loud neighbour-worrying screams, then performs a series of agonised contortions in front of our TV set the veryy instant those all-important numbered wooden balls begin to emerge from the hat ? or, in this case, bowl. Credit my cats with considerably more intelligence than I?d previously thought they had; the moment that chappie from FA HQ appeared on screen to ? erm ? start the ball rolling, that was the signal for all four moggies to up sticks and run like hell for the safety of our back garden. All of them being about nine years of age or thereabouts, they?re more than acutely aware of the symptoms by now.

Still, our Cup fate could have been a hell of a lot worse; imagine the thought of going to lowly Yeading, for example? Sure, I realise the thing would have had to be played at a neutral ground, but you take my point; more than enough banana-skin potential to be going on with for the moment, n?est ce pas? Memories of Woking and what that defeat eventually led to still burn strong in my mind, don?t forget. The venue being Deepdale, what I will also be expecting any day now is a call from my middle sister asking me to sort out tickets for my nephew, Lee, who now lives in the area, along with his ?ready-made? missus-and-four-kid family.

Other ties that caught my beady little eye? Well, there?s Man Urinal v Exeter for a start. Talk about manna from heaven for The Grecians. My goodness, did they pray for the late Mother Teresa to intercede on their behalf, or what? The problem, as I understand it, is that the Devon club are currently in hock to a considerable sum of money, which has to be repaid by the end of the season, otherwise it?s curtains for ?em. Is it something of the order of ?2.5 million they currently owe? If right, although chickenfeed by our lights, it?s one hell of a sum for a club in their position to find. For them to fold really would be a sad affair; I do have happy memories, still, of our 1993 Third Division game at St. James?s Park, the one where we came back from 2-0 down, to eventually snatch the prize with three quick ones over the last 20 minutes of the game. That, and the sight of one of our more adipose followers gleefully ?boinging? in a local hostelry afterwards, and accidentally cracking one of their wooden benches. The thing is, what with all the appearance money from the FA ? not sure what it is at that stage of the competition, but it can?t be all that far short of ten or twenty grand ? the gate money from the Old Trafford appearance, plus any extra from Sky, plus, if the clotted-cream consumers are commercially cute enough, a considerable rake-off through sales of scarves, hats and other sundry items, that lot will certainly go a tidy way towards keeping the financial wolf from the door.

Moving on rapidly, there?s also The Dingles versus Millwall. If ever there was a match made in Heaven, it truly has to be one involving those two. Given the sheer potential for violence of this fixture, perhaps it might not be such a bad idea to switch it, say, to Australia?s Nullabor Desert ? well, it?s around 400 miles worth of nothing, out there, and if it can cope with 1950?s atom bomb tests, it can sure as hell cope with our local rivals ? then just leave ?em both to get on with it. Or even the Moon; not that much different to seedier parts of Wolverhampton, when you come to think about it. Birmingham-Leeds? A few years back, I might have simply said ?ditto?, but as far as the Yorkshire club are concerned, I have mellowed slightly in my view of them. And anyone with potential to wipe the irritatingly-gormless smile off the face of a Bluenose will do all right by me. As for Sheffield United-Villa, given the home side?s continuing reputation for ?robust play?, I suspect there might well be a little bitsy ?seal-clubbing? involved in that one. And get this; the other day, in one of the broadsheets, guess who was pouring great gobs (pardon the pun) of vitriol on the continuing tendency of Bolton?s El Haj Diouf to give opponents rather more liquid than they originally bargained for, orally speaking? Pots and kettles spring to mind with that one, they really do.

And that?s about it for another fun-packed weekend, folks. Not. We?re off to Edgar Street on Tuesday night, to watch The Bulls in Conference action, which should be lots of fun, not to mention restore our sanity.What little we still possess. And there?s a spanking-new fanzine to take delivery of, later still. In the meantime, as Supporters? Club head honcho John Homer would say, ?Keep aert the ?oss-rode!?

 - Glynis Wright

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