The Diary

03 May 2005: An Undeserved Hawthorns Mugging

?Come quick ? there?s been a mugging at The Hawthorns!? That was my beloved?s instinctive response to the sight and sound of an ambulance pulling off the bit of tarmac by the Police Post at the Smethwick End, and blasting its ?blues and twos? into the crowded Black Country night, much to the annoyance of nearby mothers with kids in bed, no doubt. Couldn?t have put it better myself. What happened tonight, save Arsene Wenger actually entering the away dug-out just before kick-off with a pair of nylon tights over his head, a rubber truncheon in his hand, and a mean expression on his face, was captured perfectly by ?Im Indoors?s perspicacious post-match comment, which neatly summed up what the North London club were about tonight.

Don?t get me wrong, though. I?m not implying any dereliction of duty whatsoever on the part of our troops tonight ? each and every single one of them out there gave their all, and that we Baggies duly acknowledged come the final whistle: as they left the field of play, suchg was the amount of cheering clapping and encouragement from their masses, you?d have thought they?d just won a major trophy, not more or less blown their last chance of salvation ? it?s just the manner of our defeat that left me somewhat deflated come the end. We played our of our skins for most of that game, and at times, The Arse seemed genuinely unsure as to what to do about our impressive efforts to tear the script into tiny little shreds, but what we couldn?t handle was making sure they were locked down as thoroughly as the Cat A Wing in Belmarsh Prison.

After a blistering but solid first 45, and a fair bit of the second doing precisely the same thing, we took our eye off the ball for just a second ? literally ? and were punished horribly for it. Their second? A bit of an injury-time fluke, that one ? with just about everyone in the stripes committed up front, they managed to get a lucky rebound in the middle of the park, and it was all they needed, wasn?t it? Trust me on this one, that ?two-nil? tag at the end really flattered the pants off The Arse ? and they must have known it. Put another way; I?m willing to bet anything you care to mention the vast majority of their players knew that?d been in a bit of a game by the time they finally trudged into that away dressing-room.

A penultimate home display that turned into a wake? Quite possibly, and just like that very Oirish manner of marking a death in the family, we weren?t too maudlin about it, come the end. And why should we be? After all, we?d come through the entire ninety minutes with heaps of dignity, not a little skill ? and, I reckon, not a little respect gleaned from our opponents, even grudgingly so. Until tonight?s encounter, The Arse had only lost one in the league away, and had only conceded one goal for a frightening number of games, which serves to put everything right into perspective, really. No, despite the grave implications of that defeat, we can all still walk proud tonight.

Exciting as our game may have been, for ?Im Indoors and myself, The Arse wasn?t the sole ?dish of the day? on our footballing menu; earlier still, we?d watched the Conference ?hors d?oeuvre?, Stevenage Borough versus Hereford United, on our TV screen. Well no, actually ? just the first 45, our ongoing Albion commitments preventing us from tarrying further. When we?d left our house, come the interval, both sides had yet to draw blood, but several minutes after setting up shop at the Smethwick End, a kind informant told us that the game had finished all-square, at 1-1, which was as much as my other half could have hoped for. Annoying to hear that an ex-Albionite, Carey Bertram, had put the Bulls ahead, only to see the home side regain parity once more late doors. No ?away goals count double? rules for this one, so it?s all on the second leg, which we?re attending. As are the Hayden family, and (maybe) Malcolm Boyden, who just happens to work for Hereford and Worcester radio these days ? and also sits six or seven rows in front of us in the Halfords.

Tonight was a weensy bit different for us Dick Eds, though. How come? Easy ? Steve The Miser was otherwise engaged this afternoon, and would be arriving late, so it fell to us to distribute the last Dick of the season among our valiant sellers, and to do that, we?d given the pub a miss, and asked The Fart and The Noise to be around to assist. After dropping off all our stock, ?Im Indoors had to park the Dickmobile, so it was just a case of my joining them by the police post. The trouble was, though, the wildly-contrasting emotions! The Fart was most certainly ?glass-half-empty?, while The Noise tended towards the ?glass-half-full? school of thought. Even when I joined them, they were both engaged in the throes of heated debate ? and fair play to Tel; anyone who wants to chance debating ANYTHING with The Noise, I wish them nothing but the very best of British luck! Not to mention an intact set of eardrums by the time they?ve done!

Having sorted out their stock and change needs to their mutual satisfaction, it was then very much a case of sorting out ourselves. After a pretty slow start ? not helped by many of the Gooner persuasion erroneously thinking our publication was the programme! ? things began to pick up. We heard the Hereford result, of course, and not long ofer that, who should turn up, but my old mucker Ollie, from the wilds of Scandinavia. And what a nice chap he was; not only did he pay for two Dicks he grabbed from us around October last year (so long had it been, I?d clean plumb forgotten!) he also gave all the change to the Dovedale Day Care Centre Fund. Well done Ollie, for boosting that appeal total enormously thanks to your generosity.

From then on in, geographically-embarrassed Arsenal supporters and high-speed squirrels apart, things went very quietly for us. Most of the usual suspects turned up for their ?Dick fix?, and all with nerves blasted completely to shreds, even poor Bryn Jones plus missus, who?d temporarily left the treadmill of academia in order to give the lads a bit of the old vocals. But even they had to bite the bullet and go in, and, eventually, so did we. Through our so-called ?lucky? (yes, before you say it, I will ? it ain?t, not any more!) turnstile, and inside, noticing my other half having a conversation with another Baggie, collecting our huge stock-bag from the chap on the main door. It was only when I returned, though ,that I realised sundry unpleasantries had taken place between the two of them. Turned out that ?Im Indoors was getting the blame for something written on Ceefax ? which is NOT our responsibility, but The Fart?s. It?s a bit like blaming a brewery for one substandard pint served in one of their boozers; sure, the piece has our name on the mast-head, but because the job?s delegated to a third party, we exercise no control whatever over the contents. Not that it matters, now ? as you subbers out there will appreciate within a day or so, the current one will be the last GD ever.

More about that in a forthcoming post ? the subject-matter?s a bit too comprehensive to leave to just a paragraph or two buried in the middle of this particular offering ? so back to tonight?s doings again. After finally extricating ourselves from Chummy?s verbal clutches, it was time to grab my usual hot chocolate and head for the old seat, for the penultimate time this term. And once in-situ, the discovery Matthew was performing heroics trying to whip up our faithful to a half-decent noise-level. As for the chaps and chapesses in the away end, they?d come mob-handed, too. In stark contrast to the puny efforts Blackburn had made the other week, this time The Smethwick had a multiplicity of Arses occupying those behind-the-goals seats. Looked very much like a full house for them; as for the rest, I guess you could say about the same.

Team news? Interesting. Big Dave was back, and so was Jonathan Greening, from suspension (and writing books about cannabis as well? See my ?and Finally? piece below for more!). That meant young Chaplow had to become the fall guy; most certainly no reflection on the way he?d played those three games our Jesus-lookalike had to sit out, and certainly no reflection on Geoff Horsfield, who made way for Big Dave, either. The Arse? They were minus Thierry Henri, their main man, but unlike us, they had a plethora of international-standard ?fringe players? to draw upon instead.

Well whatever the final score, you certainly couldn?t say the crowd wasn?t up for it; no sooner had the first strains of ?The Great Escape? boomed over the full length and width of the stadium, just about every single one of those wearing the scared stripes was joining in, clapping enthusiastically to the marching beat, thereby imparting something of a ?cup-tie? ambience to the proceedings. My goodness, even The Halfords was joining in at one stage, so some particle of emotion, some vagrant soupcon of feeling, must have finally permeated all those ?Stay-Prest? faces around me, if only for a fleeting moment. The result? Come kick-off, the entire place positively twanged with nervous tension, the Brummie, the Smethwick, The East Stand ? the whole bloody lot, in short.

And, by way of reciprocation come the start, our finest didn?t get off to a bad one either. As far as the opening manoeuvres were concerned, both sides skirted warily around one another for a few minutes ? then it was so nearly Zoltan who drew first blood. And, had it gone in, what a way to do it ? a bicycle-kick so audacious, even 70?s Scottish ball-wizard Willie Johnston would have been proud to claim it for himself. A shame about the angle from where Gera let fly, though ? had it been more perpendicular and less acute, I reckon their keeper could well have found himself digging the ball out from within the netting, not the side of it. All that from a Richardson free kick taken from the Halfords side of the ground, and a fortuitous rebound from an Arse.

It was a shame, though, about Viera; being the highly-skilled performer he is, his tendency to foul everything that moved in a blue and white striped shirt during those opening minutes was depressing, to say the least. The guy?s skill levels being what they are, there was absolutely no need for it; even more depressing was the match official?s seeming inability to mark any of those four early transgressions with a yellow card, if only for ?persistent fouling?. Certainly, had I been on the wrong end of his ?handiwork?, I don?t suppose I would have been particularly amused either.

Come the 17th minute, yet another chance fell our way. This time, it was Greening?s turn to have a go from some distance, the effort not possessing similar ?lan as that of his diminutive chum?s, but even when going wide, it certainly reminded the division?s current runners-up they had a game going on out there.

Another feature of those early minutes was the differing attitudes of the respective gaffers; on the right of the tunnel, there was Wenger, arms folded, grey hair, grey suit, severely pursed lips, as per usual, a case-study in imperturbability, complete and utter, while to the left of it, there was our man himself. He, too, had arms otherwise engaged, but in his suit trouser pockets (ooer, missus!), only occasionally gravitating upwards and outwards in order to make a particular tactical point to his warriors out there. The trouble was, whenever he chose to do so, he didn?t half remind me of the old ?tic-tac? men that used to abound on racecourses during the latter part of the 20th century. Or, maybe, someone at an auction, trying to get a decent bid in for a hopelessly-undervalued piece of furniture? Off the field of play, the East Stand were certainly doing their bit to get things zinging, and in a surprising sort of way ? ever heard of a Mexican Wave starting at such a tense time? Yep, that?s what happened, and fair play to them for hitting upon the idea in the first place.

And, as for our players, they were genuinely busting a gut. Richardson positively revelled in the exalted company he found himself in tonight, as did Big Dave, but for differing reasons. He was only there to do one thing ? stop the visitors in their tracks, and by using his massive bulk to achieve that aim. Two minutes after Greening?s punt for glory, it was us that almost needed a hefty dose of smelling-salts; the image I still have in my mind is a rampant Viera charging with the ball towards our goal, firing on all four cylinders as he did so, and defenders trailing in his wake ? and, in one of those moments of supreme irony, the scoreboard chose that very moment to tell people: ?KILL YOUR SPEED?! Mind you, by then, the atmosphere was incandescent-hot, and all round the blasted ground, as well. How far off were we before spontaneous combustion finally kicked in, I wondered?

Viera was foiled that time, but that wasn?t the end of him, not by a long chalk. With about ten minutes to go before the break, the Arse began to turn up the wick, and suddenly, our finest found themselves under siege, not once, but several times. Panic abounded among all our matchday neighbours, John Homer loudly opining that the ref would perversely book one of ours before he?d even look at booking one of theirs ? and then there was ?The Bloke In Front Of Me?. Sharp-featured, freckled, and with wisps of fair hair to his name, still, his contribution to the proceedings was a bit depressing; mostly consisting of remarks like ?Rubbish!?, with the occasional spitfire ?Crap!? chucked in for good measure. A bit unfair, I thought, especially as we were playing some lovely defensive stuff out there, the end result being The Arse weren?t having it all their own way, not by any means. In fact, until the end of the half, you could count the number of decent shots on our goal on the finger of one hand, really. And, we should never lose sight of who we were playing, and what that expensive assemblage of talent they had out there was truly capable of doing given half a chance.

The first player to feel the effects of The Gunners? upsurge in work-rate was poor Houlty. Suddenly, he found himself having to go at full pelt to beat away an Arse effort from the edge of the box, the perpetrator of the damage being Viera. Strange, that, he can exude brilliance from every pore on one occasion, then act like a First Division clog-merchant on a destructive day the next. Sad, because there?s no need; his superb talent should be doing all the talking right now, methinks. Shortly after that, Houlty was in action again, as we foolishly lost possession in the box, not once, but an amazing three times. ?JUST GET RID OF THE BLOODY THING!? was my despairing wail, the third time we embarked upon this suicidal course of action. And, a Wallwork effort sent over the bar, was about that for the half.

Come the interval, and come a truly-veteran Albion supporter. Winning a Premiership supporters? award for his pains, similar to the award the Fart received two seasons ago, Vic was celebrating his sixtieth year of Baggie watching, only having missed five both home and away, but his first game ever, would you believe, was back in 1924? Just to put everything into perspective for you, that was the year Lenin died, and for the first ever time in the history of Parliament, we had a Labour government, even if only a minority one, headed by Ramsay MacDonald, but only for a short period ? the infamous Zinoviev Letter, a forged (by our secret service sadly) document purporting to come from the USSR, and falsely claiming the Labour Party was secretly plotting a communist revolution. As you can see, so-called ?dirty tricks? were kinda old-hat, even then.

But back to the footie. Once more, our faithful raised a head of steam enough to shift even The Flying Scotsman along its tracks at a fair old lick, and once more, the lads emerged to the tune of the ? yes, I won?t even bother finishing, you know already! And, once more, albeit unwittingly, the TV screen caught the moment perfectly, by informing everyone there was a ?No Smoking? rule in the place. A bit past that stage, chaps ? by then, most people were looking for someone with a joint or two spare; anything to assuage the unrelenting tension.

And we continued in much the same vein we?d started the first 45; Paul Robinson was unlucky in having an effort blocked, and suddenly, we were winning those crucial balls. Five minutes into the half, the entire ground reverberated to the sound of three-and-a-half sides all giving it the old: ?Albion, Albion, Albion?..? treatment. Me? I wasn?t getting involved, my reasoning being it was better to do thus than get emotionally involved. That way, you don?t end up with your heart broken come the end ? and what a wise decision that proved to be. But returning to what was happening right then, Clem, Big Dave, Robbo ? they were all playing out of their skins, doing us proud, in fact. And, in response, the atmosphere ratcheted up another 400 volts or so, crackling tension, everywhere. And, astonishingly, the Brummie, the entire lot of ?em, all remaining standing. Totally engrossed in what was happening out there, and clearly beyond any form of orange-jacketed threat or persuasion to make ?em use their botties in anger once more.

But that?s the sort of encounter this was, heated, passionate, a turmoil of physical effort, from both sides, and, come the 60th minute, the general noise-level was augmented considerably by the strains of the 23rd Psalm reverberating around the ground. God alone knows what sort of television this encounter made; must have been one of those where they shove a warning/disclaimer on screen for the benefit of those of a nervous disposition watching! Somehow, I don?t think that was the script the way The Arse would have liked it, and they must have been quite perturbed to find we weren?t just going to roll over and die, to order, but were going to give them a game, instead ? but just as it was looking as though the breakthrough would come within minutes, The Arse got theirs first instead.

With around 22 minutes to go, the unthinkable happened; the Gunner who fired the fatal shot was Van Persie, whose turn caught Clem on the hop, poor Houlty having no chance at all with the absolute belter he let fly from about 15 yards out. Bugger. Time to bring on fresh blood, now, and go hell for leather at ?em? Not just yet, and even before the decision was finally made, Reyes nearly bagged himself a second, the chap who scored the first turning provider this time. Our defence was shot to hell, and that left only Houlty, who was quickly drawn. All the guy had to do was apply the coup de grace, which he did ? cue for Clem to rush from seemingly nowhere, then shift the blasted thing right off the line, and into the grateful arms of our keeper instead. Then, just as quickly, play switched to the other end, where Richardson had let fly with an equally-nasty shot, one their keeper could only parry.

Time for some judicious subbing, then ? but THREE? Yep ? attackers all, and waiting for the chance to make their mark on the pitch. But The Arse were playing cunning; by not allowing us to gain possession, and passing among themselves, they could prevent us engineering a subbing, and as you might expect, those negative tactics didn?t play at all well with the home crowd. But the deed was eventually done, ten minutes to go, Kanu, The Horse and Earnie being brought on, at the expense of Albrechtsen, Gera and Campbell. Fair play, they?d all done their best; time for fresh legs to have a crack at it. And, to be fair, they did try their damndest to restore parity, but we just couldn?t get past the visitors? defensive brick wall. There was even a moment to appreciate Big Dave?s cat-like antics in denying The Arse the ball at what could have been an awkward moment for us, then, by turning his entire body 360 degrees, almost, while horizontal, winning the ball back again, then clearing it out of danger.

Throwing caution to the wind, we entered injury time ? and that?s when we were hit for a killer second, which The Arse only gained via a walloping, wobbling great chunk of strawberry conserve, as manufactured in bulk by Messrs Hartley. What happened? The Arse latched onto a lucky interception, then threaded the through-ball to Edu, home free. One almighty rocket later, and it was two to The Arse, and us relegated, bar the shouting. Certainly, should we lose come Saturday, that most certainly will be it ? unless the other three manage to stuff up spectacularly, of course.

About a minute after that, the final whistle went ? but ours was not a sorrowful exit. No siree, wakes are not mournful miserable occasions. Every single one of those players leaving the field was given a huge round of applause, and both The Brummie and the Smethwick made it be known in no uncertain terms that we were proud of the whole damn lot of them. Which we should be, of course. At least with Robbo, we?ve given it our best shot, and we supporters couldn?t have asked for more. Those players gave 100% out there, which is all you can ask for. I?ll never, ever berate an Albion side for try8ing their hardest but failing, largely through no fault of their own. Had we not made that change of manager, I reckon we?d have dropped in much more miserable circumstances; my only regret, echoed by many as I exited the ground, was the fact both dismissal and appointment hadn?t been made around a month sooner than it was. Had that been the case, I?m fairly confident we?d have been sitting pretty by now, and not staring the trapdoor in the face.

Back tomorrow night, with the inevitable post-mortem, but before then, I?ll leave you with yet another gem culled from the annals of Albion-supporting lore.

And finally?. Ooh, it really looks as though one of our finest has been spending a lengthy period of time on the sidelines profitably. It all started on Sunday night, when I spotted a particular tome being reviewed somewhat enthusiastically in last Saturday?s ?Guardian?. Its subject-matter? Cannabis, pure and simple ? if cannabis ever can be termed ?pure and simple?, of course! A very comprehensive piece of work, this; how to grow the stuff, both in the ground and hydroponically, how to construct a ?bong? (no, not a ?boing?, Grandma!) and what sort of medical research info you should know before subjecting your mind to the stuff on a regular basis. All enthralling stuff, and very thorough, too; everything, in fact, you?ll ever need to know on the subject, right between all those pages. In short, a primer on how to give the old THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) some good old-fashioned TLC. And the author of this wonderfully-informative piece ? and lucid, given the somewhat unorthodox nature of the subject matter! - of work? Take a bow, ?Jonathan Greening?!

 - Glynis Wright

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