The Diary

27 November 2005: All This, And Boro Angst, Too!

A long row to hoe tonight, owing to my having to do some last-minute re-jigging to the previous one yesterday, so here goes. Although it?s not all that often I have occasion to make mock of my other half?s curious little quirks and foibles, last Monday night certainly gave me food for thought. Well, what would you do if your nearest and dearest came hurtling through the front door like Rambo on crack cocaine, and darkly muttering: ?It?s off!? to anyone who cared to listen? Not that any of our four cats were, mind; all their food comes neatly packaged, unless you count their chicken rations, and the mouse episode I described yesterday?.oh, soddit, I?m getting distracted again. To cut to the chase then, eventually, close questioning revealed that ?Im Indoors wasn?t referring to the deteriorating state of the food lodged in our fridge, or our milk and butter supplies, but the Blues-Bolton game at St. Andrews, billed to kick off in approximately 45 minutes, according to my trusty little watch.

?Er ? OK, it?s off,? I responded, shrugging my shoulders in a manner calculated to give even a bit of limp lettuce a fit of the vapours, ?So how come, then??

Much to my surprise, the culprit transpired to be not a sneak nuclear attack on Small Heath?s various dens of iniquity (Would they have noticed, even? Discuss.), but a mass outbreak of fog, the sort that?s so dense, so impenetrable by conventional modern dispersal agents, it even puts busy airports out of action, like it did our local one that same night. (The Bluenose combo that also frequents Hereford?s place told me the other night, they?d actually reached the ground before finding out there wasn?t a game to go to, all of a sudden!) Not that Bolton would be complaining, I wagered; didn?t they have UEFA Cup commitments abroad on Thursday night, or something? No, within milliseconds of the ref calling it off, I bet Sam Allardyce was on that car-park, jumping in the air like a thing demented, clicking his heels, punching the miasmic air with his massive fist, and all the while shrieking ?YEEEERRRRSS!? at the top of his considerable voice.

Talking of fog, though, that surprising bit of news really got me thinking; the notorious 3 and 4-day smogs of the 1950?s and the truly horrific loss of life it caused among the old and chronically sick. Thanks to much public outrage at the time, there was a subsequent massive crackdown on both industrial pollution, and that caused by the domestic use of non-smokeless fuels. So successful was the legislation, postponements because of such awful weather conditions are an event of almost astronomical rarity these days ? come on, you lot out there, when was the very last time we had to pull the plug on a game for this reason? I can remember an occasion as recent as 1992, when we came damn close; Albion-Chester, which we won 2-0, but as to how those goals were actually scored, buggered if I know, even to this very day. Even the matchday commentary meant for the executive boxes was no help; the poor sod providing it didn?t have a clue either, and was making it up as he went along, more or less. How do I know? Easy: it was The Noise doing the commentary, hence his teensy red-faced ?confession? in the Dickmobile some weeks after the event!

That afternoon, within a matter of minutes of the grey stuff coming down, both Brummie and Smethwick were shrouded in the sort of loathsome grey-black pall that sets Victorian police forces out frantically looking for serial murderers of London prostitutes; the only real clues we had (to the scorers, not the murderers) were a brace of bellows from the Brummie, but slightly muffled by the murk. The players all returned to the middle both times, so someone had clearly netted ? but who? Only one thing for it ? ask the question. Which the entire Halfords Lane Stand did, en-masse; turned out Paul Raven was the perpetrator of the damage, and didn?t he let us know it. Glad the ref could see to award the goals in the first place, really! Or was he making it all up on the hoof as well, I wonder? But other than that close-shave, my mind draws a complete blank. Come on, you Stattos out there, I?ll say it again ? put me out of my misery, then. When was the last time we had to call it off because of a classically-impenetrable pea-souper?

The thought of fog, thick, thin, whatever, that, plus winter in general, also brought to mind the conversation I?d had with my eldest sister the other Friday evening. For some reason that escapes me right now, the subject turned to the merits or otherwise of matchday Bovril. What my sibling really wanted to know was this: whether or not it was still sold at games. ?Er, yes and no,? was my somewhat evasive reply. Then, aping the classic Star Trek phrase, I elaborated further by addiing: ?It?s Bovril, Sis, but not as we know it?.?

And that just about sums it up, really. The stuff Albion flog to supporters these days ? and have been ever since the days when Robbo was a mere stripling, and we, not Bolton, had regular UEFA dates in Europe - bears no resemblance whatsoever to the dark brown savoury stuff I eagerly purchased back in the sixties and early seventies. The thing is, dear reader, a genuine matchday Bovril is something created slowly, and with as much attendant care and love devoted to the making of the finished product as a serving of draught Guinness. Because such civilised niceties don?t mesh all that well with modern concepts like mass-catering and that Stateside abomination ?portion control?, sad to say, the only place you can find the genuine article these days is on non-League grounds. And even there, it?s fast becoming a seriously-endangered species.

So what?s the ideal recipe for the beefy stuff that?s sustained countless frozen and weary British squaddies from Blomfontein to Basra over the last hundred years or so? Not to mention football supporters innumerable. Here?s the secret. What you have to do to create the perfect ?Bov? is dip your teaspoon right into the distinctively-shaped pot, twizzle a goodly quantity of the dark runny stuff around the business end to stop it prematurely abandoning ship and drizzling all over the place ? a bit like Mum with the old cod liver oil and malt you had when small ? then quickly chuck the now-loaded weapon into your chosen receptacle. That?s when you pour the boiling water over, and most certainly NOT the other way round: that?s an offence punishable by death as far as I?m concerned. Oh, and while the boiling water?s going into the cup, agitate rapidly to shift the gloopy brown stuff on the business end of the spoon into the steaming wet stuff that?s just gone in ? that done, taste briefly. If still not happy with the flavour, dip the tip of the spoon only into the pot, grab a little more of the brown nectar, then transfer and stir again. Eventually, you?ll get it just right for you.

The result? Pick up your newly-constructed ?Bov?, warm those frozen little pinkies on the sides of the cup a little, then once a little human kindness has returned to your stubbornly-frostbitten fingers, take that first anticipatory sip; within a matter of seconds, the initial steamy, salty tang on the roof of your mouth will give way to an astonishingly-beefy hit, intense beyond compare, and heading rocket-like towards those frozen lower limbs of yours. Great if you?ve got a snotty cold as well; clears all those mucus-ridden nasal passages out no end. Chicken soup, just like Mum used to make? Bugger that, who needs ?Jewish Penicillin? anyway? As for the modern catering-size stuff, forget that as well. Just granulated pap, stuffed into the cup by the manufacturers beforehand, with lukewarm watery accompaniment only available to enable reconstitution, and once you?ve done that, possessing about as much beefy flavour as that obtained from wringing out my wet dishcloth into a handy mug. Mind you, having said that, the latter doesn?t cost somewhere in the region of ?1.30 for the privilege, either.

And so to more pressing matters. This Sabbath morn, of course, will see the early departure of our away travel contingent to the Land Of Civilianised Chemical Warfare, aka Middlesbrough. If you happen to be an analytical chemist, then the long journey there will be right up your street. Just take a few portable detection instruments with you, and watch those needles really whiz around those dials, that?s what I say. Up there, even the five-year olds have more knowledge of the Periodic Table than the average scientist; it?s a case of having to, really, what with all the stuff with hi-fallutin? long names that gets belched forth from ICI?s chimneys every single day. Ask little Johnny ?What comes after ?B?, and yes, he?ll instantly say ?C?, but with the rider that ?B?, boron, is Element Number 5 in the aforementioned table, while ?C?, carbon, is number 6, and fancy you not knowing something as easy as that, then? Whatever you do, don?t get them drawn on the old ?hydrocarbon chain? stuff; you know it makes sense!

Their peculiarly-polluting industries aside, the other fact that leaps out to grab you when discussing the doings of their local football team is one of much sorrow; the last time we managed a win there. February the 9th 1952, the year of my birth, as it happens, and my mother with about six weeks to go. With that dismal track record preceding us, and them going through a bit of a rocky spell at the time, last season, I?d considered them ripe for the slaughter, but with typical perversity, they went and stuffed us by four clear goals instead. Ironic, that ? we really should have been around two or three up in the first 20 minutes, but as per usual, we spurned our chances horribly, their keeper stopped everything in sight, and we were made to pay the price.

The latest news from the front suggests that long-term injuries apart, Boro might well be without Mark Schwarzer and Gaizka Mendiata for this one. They?ve also just had a European trip to sort out, deep in the wild and woolly parts of Holland, apparently. Careful, chaps, you know how strong those spliffs can be, sometimes! Hopefully, the cares and woes of Continental football will have wreaked some sort of delayed-action horrible havoc on their finest by tomorrow. (Yes, clutching at straws again, that?s me!)

As for ours, at least we?ll have at our disposal the defensive services of Paul Robinson once more. My goodness, have we missed him these last three games; the thing is, though, will our leader risk disrupting what was a winning side last Saturday? A high-scoring one, too, miracle of miracles. My money is on sticking with the strikeforce we had last Saturday, and keeping PR on the bench in case of emergency, just like the little red handle found in most train carriages. No chance of miracle recoveries for both Kirkland and Zoltan, though; both have an awfully long way to go before being considered sound in both wind and limb. Because of the long distances involved, plus a distinct reluctance to let our circulatory systems be sullied by sundry chemicals with long-sounding names, we won?t be travelling to this one ? but The Fart will, bless his little ex-Army greatcoat and prehistoric wireless. No doubt he?ll be bending my lugholes back something rotten come the end of the game. That, or some radio station phone-in or other.

Trolling through all the Boro stuff tonight in preparation for this piece, I also happened to come across a little bit of sundry nastiness called comeonborough.com. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover the magnitude of the ordure that lurks within, but suffice to say, they?re not very complimentary about us. Funny how the person who penned it called him/herself ?The Oort Cloud?, though. An astronomical term for a job-lot of orbiting lumps of rock and ice situated beyond the outermost fringes of the Solar System, that one, which sums up the contributor perfectly. Had it been properly accurate about things Albion, including our former fanzine?s current whereabouts, and that of Brendan Batson, it might even have been funny, but it wasn?t, on both counts. What we?ve ever done to upset that lot in the past, I can?t imagine for one minute. Hell, it would be nice of them to let us win one at The Riverside, just to make things a tad more interesting for once!

Just when you?d thought sniggering at Port Vale was a bit below the belt, a bit like mocking the afflicted ? oh, dear, I?ve just gone and done it again. This time, the cause for mirth was their Mickey Mouse Cup defeat at the hands of Hereford United this Tuesday evening just gone, the dual perpetrators of the damage being none other than former Albion combo Danny Carey-Bertram, and Tam Mkandawire. A shame more weren?t there to witness their feat, really; only less then 1,400 on the night, with around 150 Vale supporters bothering to make the trip from the Potteries. Nice of you to turn up, chaps.

What happened? Well, Vale were completely clueless right from the start, their goal coming under constant siege almost instantaneously. No surprise when Danny C-B drew first blood, very early on in the game, mopping up a rebound from a Hereford free-kick. The strike had been coming, believe you me, but Hereford then sat back and let them come at them, the end result being a Vale equaliser with what turned out to be the last kick of the ball in the first half, almost. Same old story ? one chance, one goal. I wonder why it is I?m getting a terrible feeling of deja-vu, right now?

As these things generally do, the game then settled down into a war of attrition; both sides had their chances, sure, but in the main, they simply ended up nullifying each other. A bit like matter and anti-matter colliding, really. No surprise when it went to extra time, although my perception of events right then was that Vale, growing ever stronger as the half progressed, would see off the Bulls over the long haul. But it never worked out like that; within minutes of the restart, The Bulls went ahead again, thanks to Tam?s header through a ruck of players following another Bulls free-kick. Sure, the visitors did try and pick themselves up again, but by the second period of extra-time, it was abundantly clear that their doom was upon them, and their remaining resistance, feeble even by their own mediocre standards, withered away completely. So into the hat for the next round go The Bulls, then. Amazing, isn?t it? Most sides having a bit of a Cup run manage to see off at least some of their opponents cleanly ? but not Hereford. Just like their similar purple patch last season, when all their Mickey Mouse games went the extra mile, they had to do it the hard way.

After that, I could only hope they didn?t suffer for it this weekend, what with high-flying Exeter being the visitors to Edgar Street, and everything. But they did. They looked a jaded lot this afternoon, but despite all that, they still managed to create some nailed-on scoring chances; had they taken them, as per the script, they would have notched up a notable victory against a very determined adversary, but instead, the spoils went to the Devon side. A goal, very much against the run of play, midway through the second portion, closely followed by yet another, just minutes later, was enough to seal The Bulls? fate. Unfortunate, that; immediately prior to the visitors? strike, I?d been likening this bad-tempered affair to a spat between a couple of pensioners fighting for use of the same Zimmer frame, and forecasting a bloodless (metaphorically speaking, but most certainly not in practice!) draw.

There really is a good deal of bad blood between the two sides, not to mention their supporters, most of it stemming from the fact Exeter took six points from The Bulls last term, and the time before, The Bulls extracting the full half-dozen from them; at one point in the first half, it looked very much as though some of their lot would evade what few stewards there were on duty there, and make for the pitch, or failing that, the home supporters in the pen next door. Sure, everything was brought under control, eventually, but it was significant that come the end of the game, there was now a police presence, dogs included, outside the ground where one was distinctly lacking before.

Quite a busy week, it was for us, really; come Thursday night, we were hightailing it to Sutton Coldfield Branch, where former Albion defender Ray Wilson was the guest of honour. This being the very first time I?d clapped eyes on him in about twenty or thirty years, what really struck me were the massive changes the ravages of Time had wreaked upon his phizzog. Hair, short and grey, rubicund face, portly build. My memories of Ray revolve around a young lad, long dark curly hair, good defender, whose career was to end prematurely through injury. Another educational oddity, just like Ossie, but Ray had gone one better; A-Levels were his bag, and he?d actually spurned a place at teacher-training college to become a Baggie.

Because of the sheer volume of material tonight, brevity will have to be my watchword, but for followers of our favourite football club around the time of Jimmy Hagan, Alan Ashman, Don Howe and Johnny Giles, what a super night it was. I?m sure even the relatively junior ones enjoyed it, too. Oh, and what with George Best coming to the end of his life, final confirmation of something that?s long since passed into urban myth, almost. The time former club captain Graham Williams met George at some football-related ?do? or other; instead of engaging in inconsequential small-talk, as most would, Graham simply asked the Irish lad to turn and face him. Naturally, George wanted to know the reason why. ?Easy,? said our former captain, who?d been given a torrid time by the young maestro the day Best debuted for United, ?it?s just that after spending the whole 90 minutes looking at your backside last time, at least I?ll know what you look like this time round!?

While out on the town the other day, I happened to hear that Lee Hughes had been transferred from HMP Featherstone to Sudbury, to complete ? hopefully ? the final stages of his prison sentence. Officially, Sudbury is described as a ?Category D open male establishment?, but as far as the majority of the media are concerned, it will, no doubt, be labelled a ?holiday camp for criminals?. Nothing like a bit of righteous indignation for selling papers, is there?

So what is the real truth about Hughsie?s new ?home?, then? First off, yep, the place is a ?minimum-security? one, ?open prison? in popular parlance; what it isn?t, though, is an ?easy ride?. Talk to a good many inmates, well-versed in the system, about the possibility of transferring to open conditions, and they immediately turn a funny shade of white. Why? Simple: such establishments may be a good many things, but a ?soft touch?, they most certainly ain?t, especially to the chronically institutionalised. For starters, the routine of a closed prison is one heavily tailored towards being told what to do and when, every single waking minute; that?s why these places employ such a lot of burly uniformed blokes (and lasses!) with great big bunches of keys in their strides. Well, that?s was what I was told about the real reason for the huge bulge around the bifurcation of their trousered apex, so who am I to argue?

No, seriously, the moment someone enters an open nick, that?s the time they have to start thinking for themselves once more ? when to get up, eat, shower, go to work, have a crap, whatever ? and a lot of cons simply can?t hack it. A few days of that, and they?re either absconding ? the perimeter fences of most open establishments couldn?t stop even a troop of Brownies from leaving ? or looking to break the rules in such a way that gets them shipped safely back to the comforting bosom of closed conditions once more, but at the same time, doesn?t adversely affect their release-date.

For those that do stick the transition, however, once they?ve done the initial assessment period, usually of a few weeks duration, the prison then tries to find them a daytime job ?on the out?. I can only assume that by the time Lee gets to that stage, they?ll be looking for something in the ?sport and fitness? line. If successful, what that means, in practice, is the inmate using the prison for sleeping and weekend purposes only. As for the rest of the time, he (or she, if it?s a women?s establishment) goes out to work for five days a week, just like you or I, and earns a ?proper? wage the whole time, some of which goes to the jail in the form of ?board and lodgings?, the rest being put in a savings fund until the time of their eventual release. During that period, the emphasis is very much upon ?trust?, and it?s then up to the individual to make of the chance what they will by demonstrating to the prison authorities their determination not to abuse the privilege

All the while the inmate is working away from the prison, they?re out ?on licence?. In effect, what that means is the licensee having to comply with a whole list of conditions, all of which are read out beforehand, then given in writing, and always handed a copy, plus a piece of paper to sign to show he?s been made fully aware of these conditions ? not to drink alcohol whilst out of the jail is a common one - and fully understands the consequences of non-compliance. That copy is then placed in his record; breach any, even slightly, and that?s it ? back to closed conditions again, and it?s a bloody long while before they?re given another crack at it. Unless your name happens to be Jeffrey Archer, of course. He broke just about every condition imaginable whilst in an open nick, was returned to a closed environment afterwards, as per current Home Office doctrine, but still got sent to another open establishment just a few short weeks later. Nice to have friends in high places, isn?t it?

And Finally??One. Many thanks to Hereford United supporter and tame nutcase Nick Brade for all the sick jokes today, most of which had me roaring horrendously, but dare not relate lest I upset someone?s delicate sensibilities. There is one sufficiently harmless to make it worth repeating, though, and it?s this: Q. Why didn?t Saddam Hussein get married to Little Miss Muffet? A. He didn?t want to let the ?curds? get their ?whey?! (Think about it!)

Two. The mouse saga lingers on; tonight, I was presented with yet another ? where the hell are my moggies finding the blasted things? ? and once more, we?ve been led a merry dance trying to get rid of it. Well, ?Im Indoors has; the moment I saw the thing firmly clenched in Tigger?s jaws, I told my other half that after the fraught events of the other night, there was about as much chance of my attempting to extract the animal as Margaret Thatcher being seen flogging copies of ?Socialist Worker? on the streets!

 - Glynis Wright

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