The Diary

23 August 2005: In Fond Remembrance Of Fellow-Supporters Departed

I had intended to begin tonight?s piece by waxing lyrical about our forthcoming trip to the Metropolis, but for two excellent reasons, I?ve desisted. The first? Plonker that I am, I neglected to notice that our Stamford Bridge game takes place on Wednesday evening, not tomorrow. (Yes, I know, you can?t get the diarists these days??..) The second? Well, if you?ll permit me to allow a much more sombre note to creep into tonight?s piece for once, it?s my sad duty to report upon the untimely deaths of two Baggies fanatics, one an away travel regular, the other confining most of his support to Hawthorns games, but none the less dedicated because of it. The reason I?m doing this is simple; I?ve always regarded our supporters, both home and away, to be one huge extended family, and whenever I hear of bereavement occurring in our ranks, I do feel obliged to let others know of our loss via my piece. If one of our number ails, or passes away, so do we all grieve. Many thanks to Steve Sant, and ?Sauce?, drinkers? away-travel organiser, for supplying the details; any reporting errors found here are most certainly mine, and not theirs.

The first obituary refers to away travel regular (always to be seen on Sauce?s service, but also well-known from the time she used to frequent the Tividale Baggies? away coaches) Jackie Lister, who lost her lengthy but brave battle against cancer on the 5th of August of this year, aged just 47. Known also as ?The Iron Lady? because of the wheelchair she used because of her illness, she was also a well-known regular at the Billiard Hall pub in the town. She?d had the disease for quite a long time, but it never seemed to get her down:?Bubbly, outgoing, gregarious ? loved football, and above all, loved the camaraderie of Albion away travel; the baseball cap she used to wear to hide the effect of the chemotherapy on her hair was a familiar sight on such trips ? said ?Sauce?, when I spoke to him tonight. Unfortunately, just before the end of last season, her condition took a turn for the worse, and she was admitted to Sandwell Hospital, but eventually rallied enough to permit a return to her home during the close season.

It was hoped that she would be well enough to resume supporting the club she loved this season, but it was not to be; around late July, Sauce rang her partner to ask how Jackie was, and the news wasn?t good. Her condition deteriorated further on the 4th of August, and the following day, her partner rang Sauce to say that she?d passed away approximately 10 minutes after that telephone call just 24 hours previously.

The funeral was held at West Bromwich Crematorium, Newton Road, on the 15th of this month, but I?m told it wasn?t a sad affair. Many mourners wore Albion colours, shirts, the lot, and by all accounts, the service was well-attended. Sauce wants me to make it known that he?s currently in the process of starting a collection, in conjunction with Dave, his Tividale Baggies away-travel organiser counterpart. The main bulk of the collection will take place on the Sunderland trip, on both lots of coaches, so if you?re planning to go, and are using either mode of travel, your contribution will be very much welcomed. All monies raised will go to the ?Macmillan Nurses? charity; just in case you weren?t aware of the duties these nurses perform, they are specifically trained to give people suffering from the advanced stages of the disease the optimum palliative care ? pain-relief, that sort of thing - and right where most of their patients want to be: in their own homes, so they can pass away with a little bit of dignity, free from pain. Jackie leaves a partner, and two sons, both in their twenties.

Steve Sant gave me details of the other death I have to report tonight, this time that of a lad called ?Gregg?, an Albion home game regular, it seems, and at the even more-untimely age of 31. Unfortunately, the details I do have don?t include a surname, so profuse apologies to any friends and relatives of the deceased reading this. Steve tells me he too had cancer, diagnosed about two years ago. In the spring of this year he was declared to be in remission, got married and even came to the Pompey game in May, looking thinner but decidedly well, considering. Unfortunately, come early August, he too passed away, and quite out of the blue, apparently. On the Wednesday before he died, he complained of severe pains in his back. He went to bed, then got up in the night feeling breathless. Clearly, something was seriously wrong, so in the early hours of Thursday morning, at the behest of his wife, he went to the hospital, and was admitted. Come the following Sunday, he was dead, the cause, apparently, a blood clot which formed either during or after the surgery he'd had for the cancer many months earlier; this dislodged, somehow, ages after the event, then passed through the heart, killing him.

Gregg was a home fan in the main, he did go with Steve to the odd match away, but rarely travelled as a rule. He held a season ticket for both campaigns prior to his illness, and on the same row as Steve, as well. Besides football, in common with most, he was fond of a fag and a pint, but his real forte was a dry but hilarious sense of humour. So well regarded was he, in excess of 500 people turned out for his funeral. I didn?t know either of these supporters myself, although in the case of Jackie, I would probably have known her by sight, if nothing else, but it goes without saying that my heartfelt sympathies go out to the relatives of both in their recent sad loss.

On a more cheerful note, now, and research for ?Im Indoors?s book steams full speed ahead. We now reckon we?ve got John Osborne more or less wrapped up, and all credit for same is due to Norman Bartlam, who has an eclectic collection of Albion memorabilia dating back to when Adam was a lad and way before that, so it would seem. Tonight, we made the short trip over to his house, where he?s turned one of his spare bedrooms into what amounts to one vast archive. My other half had already been admitted to this ?Holy Of Holies? some three days previously, and was by now rendered suitably un-fazed by the dazzling sight of such literary riches, but for this column, it was my first ever look at Norm?s latter-day reconstruction of Aladdin?s cave. I kid you not, there?s more Albion-related stuff secreted within the boundaries of those four walls than there is in the entire West Bromwich library system ? amazing, truly amazing, the stuff we found lurking within those well-crammed box-files and folders. Enough, I kid you not, to keep a dozen researchers in business for a good few years.

Not that my other half?s trip to the library earlier this evening was entirely unproductive. A couple of gems were unearthed, courtesy the Midland Chronicle of 1919, but absolutely nothing to do with football; sure, the Albion stuff caught my attention, but so did the one-column strip occupying the berth next to the Albion report. All about the proceedings of a recent sitting at Oldbury Police (now Magistrates?) Court, and provides ample food for thought for those who constantly reckon life was much safer ? and young people far less antisocial - in what are now popularly termed ?The Good Old Days?.

It appears that large groups of yobs hanging around local streets and causing a nuisance are nothing new; the piece I discovered reveals such activities to be a social malady that has affected the area for at least 86 years, and probably much longer than that. But back to ?The Midland Chronic?, where the court reporter tells us that three Oldbury youths, ages 15, 16 and 17, were charged the previous Tuesday with loitering and obstructing the footpath in the middle of the town centre, and fined 5 shillings (working on most historians? presumption that ?1 then was the equivalent of around ?40 today, present-day monetary value of the fine amounted to about ten quid). According to the police superintendent bringing the charge, this was a common problem. ?There have been many complaints of this kind. Young people congregate in hundreds in the narrow parts of Birmingham Street every Sunday night. They simply would not move and were a source of danger to passing traffic.?

And, as if that wasn?t enough, we then have examples of youths using obscene language in the same street, an offender, aged 19 this time, being fined 20 shillings (about ?40 in today?s money). According to the copper giving evidence, the defendant, in company with many other youths, appeared ?very excited, but not intoxicated?. Mister Plod then went on to say, ?He was using very bad language!? Sadly, I don?t have a record of precisely what it was the youth said that so offended the sensibilities of the law! In the same sitting, yet another youth (no age given this time) pleaded guilty to a charge of using indecent language in Bromford Lane and was fined 5 shillings also. $p ?The good old days?, those halcyon times of yore, when, according to present-day popular myth, youths didn?t dare cheek either their elders or Authority, it was safe for vulnerable people to walk the streets without let or hindrance, no matter what the time of day, and an age when everyone left their front doors unlocked as a matter of course? Yeah, right. Only a small sample represented above, of course, but even looking at the subject from my somewhat narrow viewpoint, it would appear to me that there might have been just a little hint of selective memory applied in some cases. Not to mention rose-tinted spectacles.

After my small venture into the realms of local history, normal service resumes tomorrow evening, when I tell all about the varied frustrations resultant of trying to follow the Stamford Bridge fortunes of the lads via the medium of steam radio. Toodle-pip!

And finally?.. Trust our obnoxious near-neighbours to set the tone for the same era. In the Midland Chronicle of a month previous to the above, there?s a report of a massive pitch invasion at ? yep, you?ve got it, Molineux. Apparently, they were all trying to get at the poor ref, who ended up having a police escort, both off the pitch, and from the ground! It?s good to know that some things remain reassuringly familiar!

 - Glynis Wright

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