The Diary

21 November 2005: Mission Control To Robbo - Are We 'Go' For Lift-Off?

Having started on this piece not long after watching ?Rocket Man? on the box, the one about the bloke totally driven by a mission to make and build in his own back garden a chemically-fuelled projectile capable of near-orbital flight, I couldn?t help but think there were many parallels between that Full Monty-ish tale, and what?s happening to our favourite football team right now. To properly get my drift, just think on a little about the so-called ?Race Into Space? that so enthralled the world during the late fifties/early sixties; there you had two countries, poles (no, silly, not the one currently In Goal!) apart, ideologically-speaking, both enduring many set-backs and false starts, but finally achieving their respective aims around 1961, when Yuri Gagarin (USSR), then John Glenn (USA) both made it into orbit.

Comparing our past and present Premiership track-record with the history of manned space flight is easier than you might think; the first time we tried, for various reasons, not necessarily adverse ones, our rocket was faulty right from the start, and blew up around the time we attempted to separate the first stage from the second. So back to the drawing-board it was, then; same Mission Control, same Flight Engineer, only the flight crew slightly different. Once more, we paraded a newer and better type of craft before our expectant public, tested it to destruction, almost, once more we made the attempt, but that time, the Flight Engineer miscalculated the type of fuel needed for the mission. We were still up there, and heading towards escape velocity, but because of the propulsion problems, the mission was in grave danger of being aborted, so the poor Flight Engineer had to go.

Enter a newcomer with a radically-different approach to the problem. With our metaphorical craft still very much in flight, but rapidly heading into trouble, every adjustment to the spacecraft?s electronics had to be done from the ground, and very much off the cuff. No time whatsoever for refined physics or mathematics ? and much to our astonishment, it worked, and at the very last minute, too. Our second test-flight finally managed to achieve its aim of staying Up There, sure, but only just; now, our tiny space capsule is in serious danger once more of orbital decay and eventual return to earth, a somewhat messy affair for all concerned should it happen, not to mention one seriously bad for the project?s financial future.

There?s been much tinkering going on in the testing-shed of late, too much in some cases, one might want to argue, but now it might just be our Flight Engineer has finally hit upon the correct chemical formula for the fuel used in such missions, and reliable electronics, too. That doesn?t mean I?m going to be breaking out the champagne in the near future; I never once said I was daft, did I? No, there?s still one hell of a long way to go before we can even pretend our fragile little sputnik?s capable of staying up there with the footballing equivalent of the International Space Station, but yesterday?s emphatic (albeit one somewhat fortuitous in nature; yes, I mean YOU, Dermot Gallagher!) win set a glimmer of hope flickering feebly but defiantly at the far end of the tunnel at the time of writing.

Enough of all that tedious simile and metaphor stuff, then, it?s right back down to terra firma I come, and some more observations about yesterday. Some I consigned to the Boing list in truncated form very early this morning, but my thoughts run along these lines, more or less. There were many positives to take from yesterday?s performance ? but not, I hastily add, a series of horrible defensive clangers that made me seriously wonder as to whether or not certain of our finest had been secretly enrolled in the Kamikaze Club by Nipponese team-mate Inamoto. Despite that outstanding performance of his yesterday, even he should put his delicate little Oriental hands up to one such error, if my memory serves me correctly. That?s one reason why I used the word ?fortuitous? to describe our overall performance, the other being the curiously-eccentric style of the man with the whistle; had I been an Evertonian, I would have come away from that one seething with absolute rage, but as I said to ?Im Indoors earlier today, you really know you?re making progress when an outbreak of similarly-perverse refereeing decisions suddenly start to fall your way, for once.

Another thought; yesterday?s game sees the last of Paul Robinson?s three-match suspension ? and it?s my contention that we?ve missed him far more than we thought we would. That will leave Robbo with an almighty selection-dilemma for next Sunday?s jaunt to The Smog-Monsters ? NBC protection suits optional dress, I?m reliably informed ? and it?s a really ticklish one. Does he stick with what worked yesterday, or does he shuffle the pack further before picking up the next hand? Would that mean Watson, say, relegated to the bench, in order to make way for the prodigal, I wonder?

Ideally, I would stick with the well-tried footballing maxim that you don?t muck around with a winning side, which is why if it were left to me, I?d stick with both Kanu and Ellington to start, and leave things at the back where they currently are. Will someone now please explain to me what it is about having kids that does so much for the lad? Never having had the dubious pleasure of rearing one or more of the little sods to maturity and beyond for myself, I wouldn?t really know ? but whatever it is, perhaps it might behove our manager well to invest heavily in substantial supplies of Viagra, and in pharmaceutical-sized quantities and packaging as well, just to be on the safe side!

Since the beginning of the present campaign, our tame Wigan import has only had two proper cracks at it, one of which was in the League Cup tie versus Bradford, the other yesterday. Sure, our gaffer?s former lot weren?t exactly the most testing opponents on the surface of the planet that night, but back then, the Duke-Kanu thing paid off handsomely, as it did yesterday, so why not give it another go, give both a proper chance to develop a much better mutual understanding of each others? capabilities and limitations?

He might be a bit long in the tooth, now, Kanu, but when smokin? hot, like yesterday, he?s capable of setting the entire ground alight with his delightful ball antics. And, with his wonderfully composed taking of both the penalty and the third goal, and in the face of so much baggage resting upon a successful outcome on both occasions - not the easiest of thoughts to have lurking right at the back of your mind when preparing to pull the trigger, is it? - The Duke demonstrated beautifully there was far more to his game than had previously met the eye. We haven?t all that much to lose, really; our current track record versus the Teesside lot at their place is totally abysmal, so even the capture of a single mangy point at their chemically-contaminated expense would represent significant progress, wouldn?t it?

And, talking of the Smog Monsters, there was both good news and bad regarding their win today. The good? That 3-2 of theirs left the London club dangling uncomfortably close to the ?bottom-feeders?; the bad was, of course, that we might end up getting a right old stonking from them next Sunday. Backlash, being on a bit of a roll, and all that. Unlike some, though, I?m not going to read too much into the 6-point gap that?s opened up between Fulham, on 12, and just above our fish-loving neighbours in 14th place, and Newcastle, on 18, and currently residing on the next rung up.

Not our argument ? as long as we can keep out of the bottom three, we?ll live to fight another day, irrespective of whatever happens to those occupying real-estate in close proximity ? and in any case, as we all know, Boro (also on 18, but see the above para for further comment) excepted, Newcastle and Blackburn, the mob above them, aren?t exactly the Premiership?s most consistent outfits, are they? Both can blow either hot or cold on the day, as the mood suits them, and for a variety of reasons, most of them sound, consequently it would only take a couple of morale-sapping defeats to get them both sweating like good ?uns once more.

Next week sees us both quite busy; ?Im Indoors with his book, myself doing research. If you see me in the archives section of Smethwick Library, don?t forget to say ?hello?, y?all hear, now? We?re also attending next Thursday?s Sutton Branch meeting, leaving The Fart to hold the fort at the Main Branch thrash on the same night. On Tuesday, it?s down to Edgar Street to see The Bulls do battle with our former enemy Port Vale, and all in aid of further progress in the Mickey Mouse Cup. Coo, just the very thought of the Potteries? ?other? club doing battle there brings back some vivid memories of those Third Division tussles we had, some 13 and 14 years ago.

The best bit for me, though, was that 1993 Wembley play-off final, the one where the issue remained in doubt until midway through the second half, when the lad Swann somehow contrived to get himself introduced to the Wembley shower facilities well in advance of his team-mates. Big mistake, that, to tangle with SuperBob in the box, and just about to let fly, wasn?t it? After that, of course, the floodgates opened, and while in the process of celebrating our second, we nearly managed to lose The Noise over one of the balconies there.

How come? Well, Confucius he say, Baggie who make Great Leap Forward when carried away celebrating second one, tend to come under the influence of Earth?s somewhat powerful gravitational field very quickly! Well done to his missus, Jane, also the late Chris Hartle, for preventing the lad becoming a nasty mess on the floor immediately below! That was then, but this is now, and despite the passage of the years, and our marked divergence in subsequent fortune, I still hope the Bulls whop ?em completely out of sight next week! Me? Vindictive? Never!

 - Glynis Wright

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