The Diary

25 September 2005: Charlton - The Good, The Bad, And The Just Plain Ugly.

Know something? I reckon there?s two ways of looking at what befell us earlier today. The first I liken to the predicament a group of American airline passengers found themselves in last week, after learning their jet was having to divert and make an unscheduled landing not that long after it had taken off.

And they probably would never have realised the urgent necessity for such a drastic alteration of schedule had they not seen with their very own eyes their plane figuring in a live TV news broadcast and, ironically enough, one being piped straight to their individual seat-mounted TV screens. Result? On the one hand the cabin crew were all desperately trying to put their somewhat optimistic spin (well, they have to, don?t they?) onto things while, right in front of them, in realtime, the passengers were all getting full graphic (and gory) details from various studio aeronautical wonks, all of them slavering at the leash at the very prospect of some ?brilliant TV? via what could (would?) go wrong if the captain didn?t call the landing shots right. What a situation to be in: watching your own personal air disaster and possible demise unfold on the screen (ad breaks optional, presumably) and not being able to do sod-all to stop it happening.

Something so surreal, it could easily have come from the disaster-spoof ?Airplane? but happen it did, and as a result, I reckon most of us in that ground this afternoon all ended up sharing similar feelings of helpless horror as the full implications of that awful first half unfolded before our disbelieving eyes. On the other hand, you could take the course of least resistance, and simply come to the conclusion that today?s game was truly ?one of two halves?. The choice is up to you, of course, but of one thing I?m certain. Our problems during those murderous opening 45 minutes stemmed largely from deeply-flawed team selection, and had we gone for a wiser choice of starting eleven, I?m pretty certain we would have been good for a point, at least, and possibly something better.

Annoyed? Too true I am: in fact, ?bloody furious? would be a better description of my mood as we exited come the final whistle. Charlton might have been in second slot, they might have won all their games on the road to date, but if that second half brought one thing home, it was the fact that the visitors? current reputation was founded upon feet of clay. They are not, and never were, supermen. Nor will they ever be, either.

?And now for something completely different?..? That?s what I felt like telling the world after I?d patronised the bar in the Throstles? Lair. Monty Python about three decades too late, as per their famous ?Cheese-shop Sketch? or, if you?re into retro-Soviet icons, a Moscow department store, circa 1950, The reason? The mightily-surreal conversation I had with yet another of the serving staff there, and it went roughly like this:

Me (spotting the (lighted) Bankses Bitter sign on the pump): ?A pint of Bankses Bitter, please.?

Barman: ?Sorry, that one?s off?.?

Me: ?OK, then ? two bottles of Coke??

Barman: ?Sorry, no bottles of Coke, either. Will cans do instead??

Me (somewhat testily by now): OK, cans will do, and I?ll have two bottles of Apple and Mango J2O as well, please.?

Barman: ?Sorry, no apple and mango ? will orange and passion-fruit do instead??

And poor Carly (proudly predicted by her teachers to get all A* and B GCSE?s, apparently: if there?s one thing I can?t stand it?s a bloody smart-arse!) who was assisting me at the time ended up wondering why I was suddenly bashing my head against the counter. Very hard indeed!

And, of course, while we were in the place, there was much discussion going on apropos our League Cup opponents for the next round, whom we?d seen emerge from the bag not long before we?d set off for the ground. Fulham? At their place? Midweek? Ooer. ?Im Indoors isn?t all that keen, but I?m up for it ? so it looks as though I?ll be accompanying The Fart ?dahn the Smoke?, then. Unless they don?t do concessions, of course, in which case I won?t!

Strangely enough, there was also a certain ambivalence about our visitors from many supping Baggies we spoke to before the game. With some, it was a case of ?Oh, it?s only Charlton,? while with others, it was: ?Charlton are the club we aspire to be some day?..? And not a little trepidation when I learned of the referee?s name. Chris Foy, whom we all got to know and love last season. Remember Fulham, at our place?

And then, as I was further updating my material for this piece in my notebook, the ambient light, never of the best in there, was suddenly extinguished. Nothing to do with Alan Cleverly et.al neglecting to pay their power bills, just Scandinavian Baggie Ollie arriving as threatened, and casting a ginormous shadow while he was at it! A sort of total eclipse of the Swede, if you like! Truly, the only Baggie tall enough to look Peter Crouch in the eye. Over for the game, he was ? and I can only hope he didn?t go away too disappointed come the end! Oh, and a story from Carly: earlier on, he was in the club shop, when he heard yet another of his countrymen talking in his native language. Unbelievably, further enquiry revealed the stranger came from the same town as Ollie!

Time to go and get the dirty deed done, now, so we swiftly took our leave of our other companions and headed on out to the turnstiles. And would have gone through ? well, ?Im Indoors, at least ? except for one small snag. Try as he might, my other half?s card wouldn?t work. Luckily help, in the form of a nice little bloke wearing a brightly-coloured jacket, was closely at hand, and it was the work of but a moment to follow me inside. And that, dear reader, is when our hero finally discovered he?d been trying to gain entry using last year?s card! Perfectly legit, of course, as we?re fully paid up for this year also, but at least it served to shut the lad up about giving (very loud!) voice to the multitudinous failings of modern turnstile technology!

Still some 15 minutes to go, but a beautifully sunny and fairly warm autumn day out there, so straight to our perches we went. And, as what passed for the borough?s glitterati assembled in the VIP area directly behind us, I spotted a very familiar face indeed. My former GP-turned-occasional club-doc, no less. Wearing a very snazzy suit ? most certainly not from Top Shop, that one ? plus a very trendy set of reflective mirror-shades, too. Cool, or wot?

It was while I was reflecting upon the good fortune of my upwardly-mobile former doc in nabbing the Albion job once more that both sets of combatants emerged from the players? tunnel. Sadly, my hopes of a Duke-Earnie combo, with Kanu sitting in the hole behind were not to be realised. Campbell and Earnie, it was, and, not only that, for reasons best known to himself, the inclusion of AJ in the middle. And Wallwork. Strange, to say the least; twin appurtenances to our game that were to prove about as useful as flippered feet on an elephant ? and about as ungainly-looking, as well. And, talking of ?strange?, the announcement shortly afterwards that today was ?World Fair Play Day?, this combined with an entreaty for all and sundry to ?stop fighting?. Good job they didn?t have it in Wolverhampton, then, wasn?t it?

And that, dear reader, was about the only thing that did go right for us today ? the all-too familiar ritual shaking of hands, I mean. From the moment the ref first blew to start the game, it all went downhill from there. I won?t go into a blow-by blow account, if only to spare you the gorier details ? I reckon you?ve all suffered mightily already - but suffice it to say that within around ten minutes of the start, we then found ourselves in the ridiculous position of conceding a penalty. A totally unnecessary one, too. Watson was the idiot creature at fault: bang to rights, no complaints. And just what Charlton wanted, too ? yet another early-doors goal.

And from that? Oh dear, what a disorganised mess. Passing, movement, everything ? completely up the spout, totally and utterly. I don?t expect the visitors to have an easier ride on any remaining ground they go this season. Chances, genuine ones, were non-existent on our part; the nearest I saw to us even coming close to ruffling their feathers was a Clem free-kick that whistled harmlessly over the bar with around 20 minutes gone.

But the visitors, taking a leaf from my mousehound tom cat?s book, weren?t finished yet. By now, it was only the magnificent efforts of Kirkland between the sticks that kept the deficit to just one. Not once, but twice, but the writing was on the wall. With around 15 minutes of the half to go, The Addicks did it again. This time, the pass that really did the damage came from an unusual source, a lucky bounce off the body of Greening. Straight to one of theirs, lurking on the right, it went, and from there, thanks to some defending of truly shocking standard, straight into the back of the net, via the busy limbs of the completely-unmarked Murphy.

As you might expect, conceding in such a shocking manner didn?t go down at all well with the troops, some of whom were already as mad as a Komodo Dragon with a mile-high cocaine problem. Boos and catcalls were the order of the day, most of them directed towards Messrs. Wallwork and Johnson, both of whom were perceived by the audience to be somewhat remiss in the overall performance of their Baggie duties that sunny afternoon. Angry? Let me put it this way: had this been the Deep South of the US, and the crossbar a handy tree, then a rapid lynching for both might well have been in order.

And, as you might expect, supporter opinion in The Halfords was merely a microcosm of what was being said behind either goal ? very little of which was repeatable in polite company. Even John Homer, seated in front of me and slightly to my right, was giving it big licks by then. First off, it was the elegant, lovely and talented Mister Foy getting on the wrong end of his massive store of Black Country invective ? ? ?Aer ball, yer pillock! Come on, ref ? thank you!? An immediate mental note from me to ask Jean, his other half, if he possessed a similar degree of animation when deep in the arms of Morpheus! Later still, it was our finest getting the ?hairdryer treatment? from our bespectacled and balding chum. As for The Bloke In Front Of Me, a character of distinctly unstable temperament, even at the best of times, the varied shortcomings of our lot this time had rapidly rendered him devoid of sensible thought, and frothing at the mouth, almost. The machine-gun delivered signs and symptoms ? ?Lookatit, go on, lookatit, thay bay good enuff ? CRAP!? I recognised instantly.

Fair play, the visitors did ?frustrating? brilliantly that half. Well, that and the fact just about everything we tried kept grinding to a complete and utter halt whenever the ball got to within half a mile of their box. So awful was the display, what had been partially-suppressed groans from the groundlings, were now giving way to full-on boos and catcalls, closely followed by concerted cries of ?What a load of rubbish!? emanating from behind both goals, And, from behind me this time, yet more agonised shouts, individual ones, this time, of ?Bloody well change it then, Robbo!?

Nearly time for the interval, and time once more for John to give full vent to his already horribly-hurt feelings. ?Come to the ball, Campbell!? was the cry, as our veteran striker once more let a chance slip through his grasp, closely followed by a sotto voce muttering of ?I wouldn?t pay ?im in clothes-pegs!? Then, deep in injury-time, a mad scramble for the ball during the course of which the visitors loudly claimed that an Albion infringement had taken place. Shouted an even more exasperated John: ?Yow bay ?avin? anuther one, yow?ve ?ad one already!? followed by a pretty-accurate summation of Wallwork?s decidedly-minimal contribution to the game thus far, when yet another pass went astray: ?What yow doin?, Wallwork, yow fat lazy donkey?? Suffice it to say that John wasn?t best pleased as the whistle finally went and both sets of players exited the scene of the disaster!

But, there was still more wit from our hero, as what were described as ?The Wednesbury Crew?, street football champions, apparently, trotted onto the pitch to receive a trophy for winning their league, or something That brought a cry of complete anguish from John, even louder this time, of ?Get ?em on for the second ?alf!? And, as we awaited the re-emergence of our lot for the second sitting, a timely reminder from my other half. Charlton, in fact, had saved our bacon twice, the first time being when Megson had just joined, and we were in great peril of going where Nottingham Forest are now, the second being their last-gasp thriller at the Valley, the one that kept us up! Makes up for all the times when they turn us over then, doesn?t it?

Out for the second sitting, and a change. As good as a rest, I know, and this one doubly-so. Off came the useless AJ, and on came Kamara, to loud cheers from behind both goals once the implications of the subbing had been fully digested by the blue-and-white-clad incumbents massed at either end. Good idea, that one; within seconds of the change, they?d backed off to the point when we?d actually looked dangerous, for once. And, thus heartened, we piled on the pressure even more ? and suddenly, it was panicky Charlton back-pedalling, Some neat work on the flanks, from the busy Kamara, especially, was also getting results. The visitors didn?t care for such sustained pressure ? and we finally got our reward with around 15 minutes gone. The scorer? None other than ?Little Dave?, as those nice chappies behind the Smethwick goalmouth were to suddenly remind us. Oh, whoops ? an exciting Albion finish! Whatever next, I wondered.

Later still, Robbo decided to pursue other goalscoring options available to him. With around 20 minutes to go, the bench suddenly elected to chuck in both The Duke and The Horse, and bring both Earnie and Campbell off. A complete change of striking styles, then. Could The Horse?s ?erm ? ?Horse Sense? see us through, I wondered, as the lad held the ball up so brilliantly for us in true Geoff style, not long after starting. But, as Edith Cavell once reminded us all, patriotism, not to mention attack-mindedness, was not enough. Having said all that, what with Kamara?s steady influence out there on the right, steadily cutting and carving away at the visitors? rearguard, plus the aforementioned arrival of ?fresh legs?, it was Charlton?s turn to go on the defensive once more. Corner after corner they conceded, and goalmouth incidents galore abounded, one of which, an Ellington effort, only narrowly missed the target. Gripping stuff. ?Lookit ? They?m a-panickin?!? roared The Bloke In Front Of Me, in full ?optimism mode' for once.

Then it was The Duke?s moment to wow the crowd. A marvellous display of ball trickery, ghosting past one, two, three Addicks on the bounce, saw the lad get to within yards of the edge of the box ? then he let fly. Just over the crossbar, sadly, but better, Baggies, better. Come on, you sonsofbitches, you can do this! The visitors, realising they were now in great danger of relinquishing what they?d grabbed that awful first half, then resorted to shamefully-obvious delaying tactics, a double subbing spun out in that way for too many precious minutes. Eventually the ref tired of their nonsense, and had a few pertinent words with their bench. A late tussle between a worried Addick and The Horse drew yet more vituperative comment from the ever-vigilant John Homer. ?Leave ?im alone, Geoff ? yow do? know whar ?ee?s got!? Ooer - but how do you know, John?

Injury time, some four minutes of it, thanks to the aforementioned creative time-wasting from Charlton, the ref having duly piled it on come the end of the normal span ? and serve them right, as well. And we could quite easily have emulated our Sunderland last-gasp equalising stunt of seven days previously. Two corners, and it was suddenly a case of ?everybody up? even Kirkland, once excavated from his little den. Twice the ball whanged tantalisingly over the goalmouth, and twice the Baggie head rose to meet it, but we simply couldn?t convert this time. One nutted attempt even hit the side-netting: so near, yet so far. The ref blew, and we were three from bottom, undeservedly so on the basis of that incredible second half revival. But, of what happened (or, more pertinently, didn?t) during the first, the least said the better.

Only one point from the last four, now, and if we are to avoid a repetition of the bother that assailed us last season, we really do have to find a win from somewhere, and quick. Get back into that negative feedback loop of constant losses and we?re sunk. Blackburn, next Saturday, perhaps? Memo to our manager: If you want to avoid a repetition of the unpleasantness that blighted the first 45 minutes of today?s game, for goodness sakes, stick Kamara on right from the word go! Had we done so then, in my opinion, a point, at the very least, would have been ours for the taking. Charlton really do flatter to deceive, and it was only our manifold shortcomings today that made ?em look good. They may be many things, but genuine runners-up material, they ain?t. Once we had someone who knew what they were doing out there on the flank, they didn?t like it one little bit. And, as for the likes of AJ, Wallwork, and all who sail in them, the answer?s simple. Whatever you do, don?t let either one within forty miles of Ewood Park next Saturday. You know it makes sense!

And Finally?.. One. Now for some good news, for once. Annette, matriarch of The Drinking Family, is now a proud grandmother. I know because she showed me a picture of the little shaver in the Hawthorns Hotel before today?s game. His name? Darren ? and no, nothing whatsoever to do with the former Baggies player of that name, either. One puzzling aspect about the whole thing, though ? why didn?t the wee fellow follow current family tradition and have a pint glass of bitter held in his tiny fist?

Two. More nocturnal tootling around the web apropos my leetle Pluto tale of yesterday reveals things have moved on somewhat. The newly-discovered bodies I?d thought were lacking names now have them, it seems. Or some of them do. Along with Sedna, the object hitherto known officially as 2003 UB313, bodies called Xena and Quaoar (pronounced kwa-whar) have since been identified at the edge of the solar system. And already, Pluto?s been omitted from the American Museum Of Natural history?s display of The Solar System, a bit like Aldershot dropping out of the League in the middle of the season several years ago, if you like. Their results and points were immediately expunged from the records, and that?s what seems to be happening with their planetary equivalent.

I?ve since learned the goalposts regarding qualification for ?League status? may well shift further, but not quite in the way I?d thought. To be considered a pukka A-list planet in future, the aspirant will have to go under a sub-heading: e.g. anything including Neptune and beyond could well become lumped under the generic term ?trans-Neptunian? planets. The scientists are still slugging that one out like good ?uns, but should that convention be accepted and adopted in future, it will immediately consign poor Pluto to Z-list status, and only available in future for daft reality shows like ?I?m A Celebrity Planet ? Get Me Into a Better Orbit!? or similar. My dears, the indignity of it all! Well, dahleengs, it?s either that or take bit parts in grotty American feature films about rogue asteroid-like bodies zipping in from the edges of the Solar System to Threaten The Continuance Of American Civilisation As We Know It. Mind you, on the other hand - do they take bookings?

 - Glynis Wright

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