The Diary

24 April 2005: Boro: We Came, We Missed, We Were Conquered!

If you really want to know what happened to us at The Riverside today, then look no further than my title piece, which gets right to the nub of the situation ? no fancy paragraphs, no big words, just the unvarnished truth. It in no way contravenes the Trades Descriptions Act, I promise. Around 3,000 eager Albion supporters passed through those Riverside Stadium away turnstiles early this afternoon, as did the same number in the opposite direction come early evening ? but vastly different was their mood as they exited, to that as they entered. Crestfallen, despondent, woebegone, angry, even ? and those few words only tell part of the tale, my friends. Imagine a cheese souffl? taken out of the oven before it?s properly cooked, and the vast amount of deflation that happens to the dish as a result, multiply by 3,000, and you?ve got it in one. Haven?t quite got the message, yet? OK ? let me introduce you to yet another well-known saying that neatly encapsulates the sorry catalogue of unfortunate events at Boro today; how does ?Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? grab you?

You really have to hand it to our favourite football club, and those who are paid handsomely to wear the blue and white stripes. Everything augured so well for us this Saint George?s Day; a beautiful late spring afternoon, powder-blue sky, cotton-wool clouds dotted randomly about the firmament, and blazing sunshine which offset to a large extent the chill-factor generated by a biting wind coming straight off the North Sea. Free transport to the game laid on by Albion, and Biblical numbers of our followers mentally willing their favourites to carry the day, and by doing so, put yet more clear blue water between them and the reminder of our relegation rivals; add to that the brilliant PR wheeze of Albion theming the entire operation after ?The Great Escape?, laying on some 40?s-era military transport to impart a bit of added fun to the whole venture prior to departure, and we were set fair for a famous victory, or, at the very least, a much-needed point. Not too much to ask, surely? After all, before today?s game, Boro had won only one of their last six home games, while our last away defeat had been at Stamford Bridge, and that by the narrowest of margins to a side virtually certain to be crowned Premiership Champions ere the current season is through.

Because both Norwich and Palace won their own games today, that awful four-nil stonking means we?re no longer in the driving-seat as far as escaping the drop is concerned. Instead, it?s all going to hang upon what we do on Tuesday evening, when we ?entertain? ? if that?s the right word! ? Blackburn Rovers at The Shrine. Lose that one, and we can forget it; we?ve gone ? it?s as simple as that. And do you know what really annoys me about all this? Simple ? all that hard graft we?ve all put in these past few months, those hard-fought victories and draws, expenditure of vast amounts of energy, both physical and emotional ? supporting can be just as stressful as playing, sometimes! ? a genuine feeling of ?one-ness? with the players in their hour of need, and everyone, from boardroom to boot-room pulling together for once - it?s all gone completely down the gurgle, all been for nothing. And for why? Let me put it this way; when you somehow contrive to stuff up five copper-bottomed, cast-iron, Triple-A sitters within the space of the opening twenty minutes, you begin to see a certain pattern emerging, don?t you? Fair play to Boro, though, who managed to bag the opener against the run of play ? then another, and another. And even when we were three down, still we were missing chances a ten-year old Brownie could have buried. I really do despair, sometimes.

But it all could have been so different; as I said above, the entire day seemed set fair for the lads carrying the day. Making an earlier journey to the Hawthorns than most ? fanzines to flog, and The Noise to grab, of course ? by the time we got there, even then, the Halfords Lane car park was filling rapidly. The best bit, though, was when we took the short cut through the back of the Smethwick to the East Stand equivalent? coaches, scores of ?em, Jeeps, Army lorries, a Steve McQueen look-alike on a motorbike, natch, and dolly-birds in camouflage clothing (courtesy T-Mobile, who organised the whole shebang in conjunction with the club). Oh, and not wishing to be outdone, the local media, seemingly mob-handed. True to their promise, the club had also laid on oodles of bacon butties, plus tea and coffee, all served from one of the refreshment points in the East Stand itself, but not wanting to indulge ? nerves, pure and simple ? I sought out The Fart instead, admiring the ancient military hardware from afar. ?Blimey, Tel,? I said, ?Remember that sort of stuff when you were in uniform, then?? ? and, before he could get a word in edgeways ? ?Oh dear, I forgot; didn?t they have to make do with just horses and carts in your day!?

Just as well he?s got a sense of humour, really! A slow meander around the car park to grab some pics, and I encountered yet another novelty ? a young Staffordshire Bull Terrier, complete with proud owner, and very, very boisterous. No, they weren?t travelling to the game, just seeing someone off ? but having owned Staffords myself in the past, I simply couldn?t resist giving the canine lots of love and hugs. Thoroughly slobbered over, I was ? then having done, I let a young girl grab a piece of the doggy action also. Not being really used to that type of dog, she quickly ended up on the floor, and laughing like a drain. The dog?s somewhat lively antics (not to mention some pretty powerful head-butts, coupled with serious use of a very sloppy and soggy tongue!) prompted some Black Country wag in the crowd to christen the poor mutt ?Dingle? on the spot! Sacre Bleu, the poor animal! A job for the RSPCA, surely?

Flogging done, ?Im Indoors and The Noise quickly reappeared in the vicinity of our coach ? oh, and just to show what a close-knit community us supporters are, I also discovered our near-neighbours lurking in close proximity; not travelling with us, but in the coach next to ours! A short hiatus to allow the media to finish their task of giving T-Mobile the maximum exposure necessary (a bit like the delay you sometimes get at kick-off in order for Sky to finish off their adverts, if you like), and we were off, Jeep, trucks, Steve McQueen, the whole works. As per the Sunderland caper last season, the Brummie Road traffic had to be held up to allow the convoy to get out. As The Noise commented when we reached the Astle Gates, and our turn to hit the road: ?I?ll bet you anything there?s blokes there waiting, and thinking to themselves: ?oh, no problem, it?s only just a few coaches? ? then getting one hell of a shock when they see what?s actually coming out!?

Come Junction One roundabout, the ?military escort? had to fall out ? something to do with all those ancient engines not being able to take the stresses and strains of motorway travel, apparently ? which left some forty-odd coaches to set out on the long haul to Boro without further let or hindrance. Then, much to our surprise, we pulled off the motorway again, into a services this time. What, a break? Blimey, we?d only just got started! But the reason soon became apparent; the plan was to pick up both John Homer and his good lady; that done, business as normal was quickly resumed.

Come the outskirts of Sheffield, come the ?proper? stop, for half an hour ? ample time to grab coffee, bat the breeze, whatever. And, being among the first arrivals, the first to get served also. Interesting to spot loads of Leeds United followers, all resplendent in their ?colours?; I bet our little ?invasion? turned a few heads before we ?mounted up? once more! Time to return to the bus, then ? and calamity! The Noise had somehow mislaid his stock of Cadbury?s choccies; catastrophic, because that is The Fart?s principal function en-route to away games, handing out those small chocolatey cubes and spheres, all guaranteed to drastically elevate blood sugar levels first time, every time, of course. But, within a few minutes, panic over ? there they were, all secreted within The Bag. And, as The Fart removed them, I could have sworn I heard the blasted thing burp.

As we advanced further northward, the grey pall above our heads gradually gave way to much brighter conditions, the sun finally putting in an appearance as we entered North Yorkshire. Clearly, spring had finally sprung up there, which was more than could be said for the polluted West Midlands sky. And, following on from John Homer and Dave Holloway?s sideways look at all things Albion, another video curiosity ? or should that read ?nasty?? Earnie?s recent ?A Question Of Sport? appearance; caught me out, that one did, because I knew sod-all about it the night it first graced our TV screens. Blimey, the lad hadn?t been at the club five minutes, and now The Beeb had our baby-faced striker on one of their ?flagship? programmes! Quickly, my mind whizzed back to the last time I?d seen one of our finest appear on the very same show ? The King, around 1970!

Curiosities. A pub, situated on a parallel minor road, two blokes supping quiet pints in the bright sunshine ? and the awed look on their faces, as the true size of our convoy actually began to sink in. Absolutely priceless, it was. Then, The Great Middlesbrough Magical Mystery Tour, as recommended by the local constabulary. How many times did we pop in, then out of that city boundary? Still, it was a nice day for that sort of thing, and a vast improvement on the time both ?Im Indoors and myself came to get the ground in not long after the Riverside opened to paying customers. Playing Coventry, they were, that day, but what we hadn?t really reckoned with was the fact most of the surrounding area was more or less a building-site, still. To get to the ground, you not only had to take your chances in a crush of bodies in a nearby underpass, you also had to take a rocky path through a newly-demolished portion of the old docks that ran very close to the water?s edge indeed. No lighting anywhere ? but no real problem, providing it was daylight of course. Try the same stunt at night, and there was a very real possibility of missing the lie of the quayside, and going ?tinkle, tinkle, splash? through blissful innocence ? as neither of us can swim a single stroke, not a delightful prospect, I can assure you.

Returning to the present again, we quickly docked in the coach park adjacent to the ground, and as there was so much time to kill, still ? 12.45 arrival to you, squire ? the three of us decided to explore further, incorporating their massive club shop in our itinerary. That mopped up some of the time, but with the area so sadly lacking in other amenities and attractions, and us having already shifted all of our surplus Dicks, there was no help for it but to go into the ground. Through the turnstiles, a crazy, singing, heaving, boozy mass presented itself. Talk about the first day of the winter sales; even at that early hour, it was rapidly getting to the stage where it would soon become physically impossible to insert even a credit-card between that huge inchoate lump of Baggie bodies. A pause to check the progress of others on the TV display screen overhead, then to our seats it was.

Now, come on, someone tell me ? exactly what was their PA announcer trying to do in that last half-hour before kick-off? Sure, I know from bitter previous experience that whipping up a Riverside crowd to a semblance of frenzy isn?t the most rewarding of tasks, but using short excerpts from both classical music and heavy metal, including, God help us, The Anvil Chorus, to achieve that aim? The Noise reckoned they were testing the sound system, really, but as far as I was concerned, it was my bloody hearing they were testing ? to destruction, complete and utter! And, in any case, you could squander half British Oxygen?s entire stock pumping the stuff into that home crowd before kick-off, and still you?d end up getting far more response from a comatose tortoise.

Team news? A bit of a shock, really ? Earnie to start, for once, with Campbell as striking side-kick. Scimeca in midfield, Albrechtsen at the back, and junior slap-head Chaplow in the middle also. No Kieran Richardson, sadly ? that ?dead leg? of his had failed to resurrect itself in time, which was why Chaplow still soldiered on out there. And, as both sets of protagonists embarked on limbering-up exercises prior to the start, our followers quickly ratcheted up the noise-level within the stadium to ?maximum?, something that didn?t sit at all well on the old eardrums, especially during that spine-tingling moment we commenced chanting ?WE ARE ALBION, SAY, WE ARE ALBION?..!? as if we really meant it.

So there we had it, dear reader, all the necessary ingredients. An away end well up for it, a home end doing a passable imitation of a five-toed sloth under the influence of high-potency cannabis resin, the sun blazing fit to bust above, everything looking hunky-dory for a continuation of our newly-resurgent form ? and, right from the kick-off, we blew it. No half-measures, here, mind, a game positively begging to be won, almost - and we completely stuffed it up. As I?ve said before, it takes a certain sort of aberrant genius to bring about such a colossal muck-up, and out on that field today, we had players who quite clearly demonstrated they?d not only attended the training course, they had graduated with full honours.

The seeds of our destruction were sown by our astonishing ineptitude in front of the sticks. Within five minutes of the start, we not only had Boro on the rack, we were preparing to use the old BBQ marinade in anger for the first time. First ?offender? was Kevin Campbell, a normally-reliable sort of cove, whose thunderbolt was snuffed out by a Boro defender before he could pull the trigger; shortly afterwards, Campbell?s second attempt was foiled by their keeper. Then, it was Boro?s turn to have a go, but in direct contrast to our efforts, theirs were of a much more weedy nature, at first. Having said that, as the first half lengthened, had we properly bothered to heed the warning, we would have realised Boro?s attacks were quietly gaining in accuracy. But, we didn?t of course, and in any case, play had swung once more in our favour; Earnie was put through by a smashing ball from the busy Campbell, and he only had the keeper to beat. To lob, or to whack? That was the question ? so the lad tried Option A, in the fond hope the wretched keeper would get a rampant case of finger-paralysis, or something, within the next few seconds. But he didn?t succeed, and the ball went for yet another corner instead.

Once more, Campbell had the ball, and once more he let fly; this time, the thing rebounded to the lad in the stripes, but Tommy G was caught stone-cold, sadly. Again, the Boro keeper was the winner of that encounter. Seconds later, Chaplow set up Earnie once more ? and yep, the end result was the same. Despite being inside the six-yard box, and probably finding it easier to score than miss the thing completely, guess what? A simple application of toe to ball, a but like telling the lad to write his own name, really ? but the defender got there first.

With around 20 minutes gone, and that Boro goal having suffered more aerial bombardment than Baghdad on a bad night in that time, you didn?t need to be Doris Stokes to see what was going to happen ? and it did. I?m sure Lady Luck had a bloody good snigger when she contrived to allow the home side to gain possession once more; very much against the run of play, they struck. First off, Hasselbaink had a pop at Houlty?s netted domain, and that one he kept out ? but not the rebound, unfortunately. Nemeth was the lad who did the damage, and as their players jubilantly trooped back towards the centre circle, throughout the entire length of that away end, you could almost hear the collective dropping of Albion jaws, with a resonant ?clang?.

OK ? so we?d gone one down, and in circumstances that would have given even professional depressive Leonard Cohen an unstoppable fit of the giggles, but the way we?d been playing out there, comparatively little damage done, surely? I wish?.. A couple of minutes later, and despite yet another attempt from Earnie that proved unsuccessful in the meantime, Boro went and did it again. From being a potential dream fixture for our finest, this was rapidly assuming the mantle of a nightmare instead. was first to have a pop, and when Houlty couldn?t deal with the incursion properly, in nipped Hasselbainke to finish off what his chum had started. Three-up for Boro minutes later, courtesy of Nemeth, who only had to assault a Houlty-less net, completely finished off our chances of getting anything whatsoever from the game for good.

The daft thing was, though, that even at two down, we might still have been able to salvage something from the wreckage ? and even after conceding again, yet another nailed on sitter we missed just three minutes before the break, plus a second golden opportunity laid on by Wally Wallwork, and for that brace of incompetence in action, Earnie should really hang his head in shame right now. It?s a basic principle of life in the Premiership, my lad ? chances, decent ones, are pretty hard to come by at this level, even at the best of times, and you?ve got to have pin-sharp reflexes in order to maximise your chances of banging ?em in when they drop in your lap. Behaving like a dribbling idiot in front of goal might be excusable, just about, in the division you?ve just left, but pull the same kind of stunts in front of players who habitually eat international appearances (and na?ve strikers!) for breakfast, and you?ll be punished, make no mistake.

Half-time, and three down already. The way this was heading, the possibility of a ?cricket score? loomed large. Time to change it, then, although by then, it was plain to all that any remedial action taken would consist of the ?stable door bolted? variety only. Two changes, then ? off went Campbell and Albrechtsen, and on came Nippon?s surprise-packet Inamoto, along with Kanu. The second 45, once underway, was largely a repeat of the first, but without goals, either Boro or Baggie, although both sides went close in the initial exchanges. A brief surge of hope when we got a free-kick on the edge of the box, thanks to The Mighty Zoltan being upended at a crucial moment, and Clem lined up to take the wretched thing, but to little avail.

From then on in, although other chances popped up for either side, the flame burning underneath this boiling saucepan was gradually reduced to ?simmer?. Well, what the hell was the point? Boro had got the three they wanted, and we were still stuck in the starting-stalls. ?Just get the bloody thing over, so we can all go home and smoulder? seemed to be the predominant mood in the away end, a feeling compounded when Gera was replaced by The Horse with around ten remaining on the clock, still. And, talking of which, who put the seal on a day of complete misery by fluffing his shot directly in front of the target also? No, don?t ring me, I?ll ring you.

But Fate hadn?t quite finished having loads of mirth at our expense; there was one remaining twist of the knife in the corpse to come ? and in injury time, just to give everyone an additional giggle. Deep in stoppage time, Boro were given a free-kick, on the edge of our box. The wall was duly constructed, and as we took a seeming age to manoeuvre our troops into their correct defensive positions, you could almost see the speech-bubbles forming in fine tribute to Conservative election posters everywhere. ?Are you thinking what we?re thinking?? is their current slogan, and when the ref blew his whistle for the kick to be taken, that?s the precise but chilling thought that ran through our followers? pretty little heads. Forget Doris Stokes; the tea-lady in the Council House could have seen this one coming. A shame that Houlty didn?t ? once more, that awful back ailment came back to haunt him as he somewhat disconsolately picked the ball from the back of the net.

Well ? after such complete and utter dross, what more can you say? I suppose you can go for the ?glass-half-full? option, and point to the positives ? had we, not Boro, scored first, the entire outcome of this game might well have been completely different ? but we?ll never really know, will we? Some opined that this was just ?a bad day at the office? on the return journey. The theory goes that because of sorely-wounded pride out there, we?ll be very much on the rebound come Tuesday evening. Those who must have had their fortunes told to them in great detail after today?s game know full well that anything short of a 90-minute-long bombardment on Blackburn?s goal will be deemed totally unacceptable. They have to produce ? and if that?s the case, then Blackburn might well be the fall-guys come Tuesday.

The ?glass-half-empty? option is the theory that just like Boro did today, any side that adopts a full-on ?in-your-face? attitude towards us will end up making us look very silly indeed. Am I correct in thinking Southampton also made life very difficult for us during our home fixture, the result being no matter what we tried, we simply couldn?t deliver that essential ?killer ball? the reason for that being our inability to get the bugger back off the opposition? I sincerely hope this isn?t something that?s been recently ?rumbled? if it is, then we?re really in trouble.

Sure, admission costs to The Riverside and sundry expenses like food and drink apart, the Boro trip was a ?freebie? for us ? but think on again. There were a goodly number of loyal, totally committed supporters in that crowd today, and what they witnessed there must have really hurt. You provide the entertainment out there, but we give of our best off the field of play also. To return to my opening paragraph once more, all that hard work, all that sweat, all that bump-and-grind in getting us to higher ground, well away from the tsunami of relegation ? and, in a few mad minutes, we blew it completely. We know it ? and they know it. We?re owed one big-time, lads; to slightly turn around Tom Silk?s infamous remark after the Port Vale game, the season we ended up in The Third for the first time in our entire history: ?It wasn?t us that missed all those bloody sitters!?

Back tomorrow, by which time my droopy eyelids will have been well and truly restored to their normal position, I hope. After the many travails of today, though, my mood is not of the best. It won?t surprise you unduly to learn that because of the unforeseen events of late, my ability to conclude this piece with a merry quip or two has been severely compromised. If you want laughs, then try the hyena pen at Dudley Zoo instead.

 - Glynis Wright

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