The Diary

22 April 2005: The Baggies Renaissance Bandwagon Rolls On!

Welcome to my little world, once more, now officially sponsored by Bryant And May, match manufacturers. Or should be, I reckon. Why? Easy; because early this morning, the only thing that stood between my falling into the welcoming arms of Morpheus, god of sleep, and getting my little piece onto your screens within hours of my arrival back at GD Towers was precisely that ? two little matchsticks, inserted into the upper and lower lids of each eye, and propping both well and truly open. Also, a belated confession ? although trying my utmost to keep the weariness factor to a minimum, several typos still got through, all of them of cringeworthy standard, and for that I sincerely apologise. Mind you, during my frantic efforts to launch last night?s match thoughts well and truly into the electronic void, I completely lost track of time, and, by the time I?d finished, I wasn?t half astonished to see streaks of light finally penetrating the nocturnal gloom, and birds gleefully embarking on their daily rounds, all singing like crazy as they did so. No point in going to bed by that stage, so, when I?d finished everything, I shifted downstairs, and caught up with some outstanding Sunday newspaper supplements. It all finally caught up with ME, though ? come eight am. full-blown sleep deprivation symptoms set in, and this time, I was forced to call it quits and retire to my pit, from which I finally emerged around four hours later.

That wearisome little episode didn?t half remind me of the time when I had to do shift-work on a regular basis, and the many reasons why I?d be somewhat reluctant to work such antisocial hours ever again. It?s most certainly a young person?s game; when you?ve been up and on your feet for well over 24 hours, your mental thought-processes are not of the best, to put it mildly. But ? hey ? what am I doing, casting a dark aura of gloom over yet another Albion mile covered on the road that leads to safety? Hell, last night?s draw now means that over the course of the last seven games, we?ve won three, drawn three, and lost one ? the solitary defeat being versus Chelsea, at their place, and that by the narrowest of margins. That?s quite some form, isn?t it ? and not just the death-throes of a club trying to salvage some semblance of dignity from the inevitable occurring, but standards more typical of a Premiership side much higher in the table ? or, dare I say it, one pushing for a place in Europe next term? And, bloody Rob Styles notwithstanding, not just the once, but FOUR times this season?

Whichever way you want to look at it, what I saw at White Hart Lane last night wasn?t exactly ?kick-and-rush? type fare born of griping fear. Nope, our current performances are ruled not by the constant bowel-loosening worry attached to relegation, but the burning desire to play attractive football at all times, and irrespective of the current League placing of the opposition. In tonight?s E and S, former Baggie-turned-Spurs-manager Martin Jol paid us the ultimate compliment of opining that whoever it was heading for the municipal dump come the end of the season, it most certainly wouldn?t be us ? and, more and more, I?m beginning to subscribe to that viewpoint myself. Last night, we didn?t just match Spurs, for a significant proportion of that game, we were actually battling as equals, maybe better, and given a modicum more luck, we might well have grabbed a sneaky winner. Sides who play as consistently as that, and, more to the point, over a period of seven games on the bounce, just don?t deserve to end up in the lower sphere. Three wins from our last five will do it, I reckon; with another one if we really want to operate on the ?belts and braces? principle. And, no question about it, now, such a feat is very do-able indeed. We?ve got a game in hand on most of our rivals, so despite last night?s draw, and that unexpected Norwich win, things are still very much in our own hands. It?s all about BELIEF, in both self, and playing colleagues ? and, as recent events have already shown, we?ve got that in heaps.

It?s also quite remarkable just how many of our players we?d previously regarded as more-or-less surplus to current requirements have come up trumps over the latter half of the current season. Take Clem, for starters; his form, of late, has been absolutely superb, a far cry from the error-prone liability he?d been in earlier times. Paul Robinson?s another lad who has taken to the Prem like a duck to water, and positively revelled in last night?s bump-and-grind. Come on ? had there been a straw poll taken among Baggies at the start of the season to ascertain who they thought would readily adapt to the demands of the higher sphere, I?m winning to bet my best pair of frilly black knickers Robinson?s name wouldn?t have been among those mentioned. Houlty? The improvement in form has been revelatory over these past few weeks, and last night?s performance was no exception. A couple of superb but timely saves kept us right in there pitching. Quite a turnaround for someone whose back condition was giving rise to such concern so recently.

I?d heard from somewhere that earlier in the season, our first-choice custodian had been quietly given the ?gypsy?s warning? ? ?any more goofs, and you?re out?. How true that is, I?ve no way of telling, but assuming I was given pukka gen in the first place, he hasn?t half responded well to that putative threat to his current position. And as for ?old man? Kanu, his scintillating performance up front certainly belied the number of years he?s been on this planet of ours. Or is the answer really ?28?, as some still claim?

And, turning away from our established performers for a moment, wasn?t it good to see Richard Chaplow ? little Dickie from Accie? ? adapting so well on his Premiership debut. In fact, as the game progressed, the stronger he became ? and, had it not been for their keeper being so alert, he might well have carved a niche for himself on the score-sheet, not to mention a possible winning goal. That horrible goof where Houlty had to save his blushes apart, Tommy Gaardsoe is yet another player who has answered the call, and gone on to make that defensive berth his own. Come the end of last season, he was the Albion player I would have happily laid serious money on successfully making the transition from the Nationwide to the Prem ? and up to comparatively recently, I would have most reluctantly conceded defeat to the bookies. Such an unassuming chap off the field, so I?m really pleased for him that everything worked out so well for him in the end. Inamoto? Blimey, after his lengthy sojourn at Ninian Park, I?d almost forgotten he existed, in Baggie terms, but much to my surprise last night, he proved to be more than up to the standard required at this level. Not that I should be surprised, of course ? he?s no stranger to the Prem, having performed at that level for both The Arse and Fulham ? but I had thought him incapable of bridging the huge gap between the Prem and Cardiff City over such a short space of time, and after such a lengthy absence out on loan.

As you can readily see from those few short notes, picking my personal ?man of the match? from last night?s White Hart Lane caper has proven almost impossible. Do I give it to The Great Zoltan for that well-taken strike of his? Or Houlty, for the superb stops that kept us in it? And young-but-bald Chaplow, surely, must be in with a shout? Blimey, talk about difficult, but I reckon the Great Zoltan just about nicked it for me. Not just because of that strike, his work in the middle and (sometimes) deeper still was exemplary also. I can only hope we do stay up; now he?s seen ?Gay Paree?, should we drop, depreciatory boardroom noises nothwithstanding, we haven?t a cat in hell?s chance of ?keeping him down on the farm?. But that?s for the future to decide ? right now, we?re most certainly occupied with the present, and that, come Saturday, means Middlesbrough. As I understand it, we haven?t got the better of the Wearside mob at either place, Ayresome or otherwise, since 1952. Mind you, should you wish to invoke an omen, of either good or ill import, then here?s one direct-delivery from GD Towers; the last time we brought back the full ration from that area was the year of my birth!

More about that in tomorrow?s piece, of course, but tonight, I thought I?d zap you with a few more details of our other footballing activities while relaxing in wildest Herefordshire last week. Nothing whatsoever to do with the football side that bears the county town?s name, more a casual dip into the recesses of the West Midlands League once more. Not Wellington, this time, lovely though their ground may be; nope, last Saturday, we headed on out for Kington, just on the Welsh border (those of a nervously-anti-Welsh disposition should look away now ? our holiday home sits just two scant miles from Taffy-land!) and yet another encounter with a Black Country side, Coseley Town. If I remember correctly, prior to our departure, I likened their current league position to ours prior to the mini-revival we?ve so recently embarked upon. They really are that league?s whipping (or should that be ?whopping??) boys; study their current form, and you?ll see what amount to ?cricket scores? randomly-scattered about their League record. But, what the hell; it was a nice sort of day ? hell, that Saturday represented the only warn and dry day we had while we were there, just about ? and football at that level is always entertaining, so that?s where we headed on out.

Just one thing we?d forgotten, though ? kick-off times, at that level, can be ?flexible?, to put it mildly; in this case, on arrival at the ground some ten minutes prior to the advertised start, the dearth of paying punters indicated immediately something wasn?t right. Judging from the number of tracksuited Knighton lads warming up on the pitch, something was going to happen eventually ? but when, and, more to the point, why the delay? The answer came from a very sweet elderly lady ?manning? the turnstile hut, a grand title for a wooden ?something? overseeing a wide gap in the low brick wall surrounding the place. It turned out that the opposition hadn?t. Turned up, I mean. And, moreover, this wasn?t the first time they?d pulled a similar trick on the home side; the previous Tuesday, the date originally scheduled for the game, Coseley had rung beforehand to say they hadn?t been able to raise a team, so wouldn?t be coming! At a higher level, that would have meant stinging fines, the game given to the opposition, or points docked, but I?ve since been told such occurrences are by no means rare ?down there?.

Luckily, there would be a happier ending for this one; the opposition had rung to say they?d be merely late, not missing, which meant a start an hour later than previously scheduled. Not to worry, though; first off, there was the delightful chat we had with an Albion supporter ? while ?Im Indoors was talking to the turnstile lady, I?d already spotted the tell-tale stripes lurking underneath the bloke?s coat, so before you could say ?Bryan Robson?, there I was, asking him the dread question. Yep, that?s precisely who he supported, and not from the Black Country, either; the guy only lived just up the road from Kington?s ground. A home season-ticket holder, he was, and revelling mightily in our new-found Premiership form, of course. Oh ? and the fact he bore a distinct resemblance to former Baggies striker Mickey Evans, now of Plymouth Argyle!

Having grabbed ourselves a cup of coffee in one of those dinky little tea-shops you tend to find in every small community ? talk about parochial, though; no sooner had we set foot in the place, although rather busy, silence, total and absolute descended like the Iron Curtain of Cold War fame within microseconds ? we then repaired back to the ground, just a hundred yards round the corner. Yep, this time we had a game, that being apparent from the much-hoped-for presence of the Coseley lads out there, finally, so we then took ourselves to what passed for a stand there, and settled down to watch the fun.

Mind you, when describing what happened next in terms of sheer risibility, I am gilding the lily to a certain extent. Within minutes of the kick-off, it became immediately apparent what Coseley?s battle plan was, and being of Dingle extraction, we shouldn?t have been too surprised. The problem was, the Knighton side we were watching bore no resemblance whatsoever to the skilled but rugged outfit we watched in action just two seasons before. Those players had since moved on, and in their place had come a crop of youngsters, only 16, some of ?em. The visitors were of somewhat mature extraction by comparison; while seriously lacking in footballing skills, the main reason they were stuck at the bottom of the table, they most certainly made up for this small deficiency by going into every single tackle with malice clearly aforethought.

You really had to shudder at some of those challenges, the more ?robust? of the species, I mean, one such ending up in an out-and-out brawl between both sides. Had this been a feature film, the British board Of Film Classification would have immediately stuck an ?X? certificate on the thing, no messing. It was intimidation, pure and simple, the sort in which Leeds United both excelled and revelled during the late sixties and early seventies; after the fourth consecutive Coseley player got booked for behaviour that would have made even regulars at a dockland pub look askance ? how their number 7 still remained on the park until the final whistle was a complete mystery to me; so appalling was his behaviour, you really did start to wonder how Darwin had got it so spectacularly wrong in that instance - you could clearly see the younger element among the home side looking at one another and deciding, there and then, to enter into a non-aggression pact for the remainder of the game. And all that, with just 20 or so minutes gone!

What with that young Knighton side not wishing to partake of hospital food in the near future, and the referee failing abysmally in his duty by giving their players no protection whatsoever, Coseley?s task was made all the more simple. It wasn?t long before Knighton fell behind, and the visitors doubling their lead within minutes. Sure, the home side managed to pull one back in the second half, but lacking the will to mix it with their ruffian opponents, the visitors won in a walk, 3-1 being the final score on the doors. Oh, well ? nothing for it but to shift to their clubhouse, where a TV set was busily blasting out the Beeb?s results service. Time to check up on our relegation rivals, and what inroads they?d made on our nascent escape bid, and also that of Hereford United. And what a pleasant shock we had; despite going two behind versus Southampton for much of the game, The Claret And Spew had done us a favour for once, and not only pulled it back, they?d gone on to win 3-2. One of those moments when you wondered precisely what our Chairman had said to Deadly Doug last Sunday ? something on the lines of: ?If you don?t get three points at St. Mary?s, we send the minders in!?? Or, even: ?If you don?t get three, blah, blah, blah, we send The Noise to tell you all about his American holiday ? you feel lucky, punk?? Also splendiferous was that Norwich-Palace 3-3 sharing of the spoils; in the driving seat, at long last. Whoopee! Nul points for The Beeb, though, who somehow contrived to get the Villa final score reversed; the mistake was quickly rectified, of course, but it didn?t half get us going for a bit. Hereford? They just kept on rolling along, with a win that boosted their play-off chances enormously.

Oh ? and a sudden afterthought about that 3-1 result for the Kington-Coseley encounter described above. When we casually glanced in the results pages of one tabloid the following day, the final score was given as 4-4! And, when we did similar with yet another Sunday red-top, there it was again! Now I know it is quite possible to miss a goal at games like that ? our friendly at Bristol Rovers a couple of seasons ago was one embarrassing example of a time when we did precisely that ? but FOUR? No chance, especially as we?d both seen the game (and all the goals) with our own eyes. Thank goodness for the website ?Im Indoors later discovered, giving the correct score, finally. Had we not done so, I reckon our return would have seen us consulting our GP, with a possibility of having tests done for some degenerative brain condition or other!

Back tomorrow night, with a look at our Great Escape exodus to Middlesbrough, and whatever other stuff I can glean from all the usual sources, but until then, I?ll leave you with a tale related to us by the Baggies-supporting Mickey Evans look-alike I mentioned earlier!

And finally?? As I?ve mentioned before, the West Midlands League is a pretty broad church; not only do you have sides emanating from the sticks competing at that level, as you might expect from the league?s title, not a few outfits hailing from the Wolverhampton-Birmingham conurbation are in there pitching also. And, not so very long ago, it came to pass that Wolverhampton Casuals were scheduled to play Knighton away from home. As I said, not an unusual occurrence in itself at that level, but what was surprising about the fixture was what happened during it. At the time, Knighton were hitting a rich vein of form, but they really hit the mother lode with this one. With the minimum of effort, and before the Casuals quite knew what hit them, they?d powered into a crushing seven-goal lead over their visitors ? and that?s when it all happened, folks. The basic problem was that being of Wulfrunian extraction, and, by inference, displaying prominent Dingle tendencies at all times, the native savagery still lurked just beneath whatever thin veneer of civilisation they?d managed to accrete over the course of the season - and didn?t their keeper just demonstrate that very fact, and very publicly, too?

The problems began when the bloke received a red card following some serious infringement or other. Although rapidly reaching the stage when it seemed just a matter of time before he got to drumming on his chest and pulling down twigs and branches off the trees to eat, the guy did eventually take the ref?s hint and walk in the direction of the dressing-room ? but just seconds after he got there, the tranquil rural calm was quickly shattered by the expensive sound of glass being smashed in quantity. All heads turned to look in the direction of the away dressing-room, of course, now in the process of having its sole light source and protection from the elements forcibly removed by the banished lad. Oh, whoops. So far, so much criminal damage, but then someone discovered that during his valiant attempt to improve upon current visitors? dressing-room ventilation arrangements, Chummy had somehow managed to sever a major blood vessel in his forearm/wrist as well. Emergency ambulances, anyone? Oh, well ? it just goes to show that once a Dingle, always a Dingle!

 - Glynis Wright

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