The Diary

27 December 2005: It's A Knockout For Paul Robinson As We Crash 3-0!

Man United 3, Albion 0. Surprised? I can?t say I was, really, as I?d mentally written off this one before I?d even left the sunny shores of Bearwood. But you always live in hopes there might be a shock or two in store for The Mancs come the actual ninety minutes, as we did, but if you really want to be cynical, the only shock lay in the amount of time it took to get United off the mark in the first place. As soon as we saw that Albion line-up, we knew we?d kissed any chance of reaping any sort of harvest from this one firmly good-bye. Well, honestly; Both Clem and Inamoto out, with Chaplow and Carter deputising, and no Kanu, either, or Kamara, relegated to the bench today. Additionally, in came Gaardsoe after three months absence from the side, with just one (Ellington) up front; this, mind, after a press conference the other day where our gaffer had declared each and every one of our finest perfectly hale and hearty. Strange, then, that the aforementioned two should go down with the footballing equivalent of a galloping dose of lurgi suspiciously close to the day of the game.

You don?t need to possess the brains of Einstein to work out precisely what happened this afternoon; our manager wants to keep his ?powder dry? until we play a side we have a much more reasonable hope of getting something from. You sacrifice one piece of the bigger picture in order to obtain a better chance of gain in a subsequent encounter. Or so the theory goes. The same as we did for Chelsea, in fact. Nice if you can engineer things to work that way, but what happens when your fall-back position also turns pear-shaped on you, as it most certainly did after the Stamford Bridge encounter? Don?t forget, our next opponents are Spurs, who aren?t exactly Premiership slouches themselves, are they?

You can debate today?s goings-on until you?re blue in the face, of course, but the fact is, once more, both The Fart and I have returned empty-handed following yet another dispiriting Albion away performance. A shame really as most of the remainder of the day had gone swimmingly. A considerable divergence of the ways for the Wright household this morning, of course; ?Im Indoors elected to head on down to Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, to see Hereford play Forest Green Rovers, whilst the distaff side of things (me) plumped to head in precisely the opposite direction.

Let?s face it, not only were our geographical locations completely different, the standard of game we were both seeing was also at a complete variance; Manchester United, a world-famous footballing ?brand? (well, you can?t really call it a ?football club? any longer, can you?), and Hereford, currently bobbling around the fringes of the Conference play-off zone like a cork in urgent need of a handy bottle; about the only thing common to both situations was eleven blokes kicking a bag of wind about. And the fact The Mancs had players collectively costing about as much as the national debt of a third-world country, whereas The Bulls?.. Quite.

Mind you, I shouldn?t be so critical of my other half, and his footballing tastes; he did have the good grace to drive both The Fart and myself to the ground and back today; no public transport, see. And, as we drew nearer to The Hawthorns, you couldn?t really help but notice how quiet the area was by comparison to any other time of year. The infrequency of passers-by, the paucity of traffic ? and, above all, the complete and utter lack of noise of any description, quite a contrast to its normal workaday counterpart. After going to more Boxing Day away games than you could shake a stick at over the years, I should have grown used to it by now ? but the thing is, you never do. Unnerves me every time, that universal hush, the one you get when Britain?s industries collectively fall silent, it really does.

In complete contrast, the scene around the ground was one of purposeful occupation. Baggies getting out of cars, heading through the Smethwick End Gates to the coaches parked beyond, some grabbing hot drinks from the police post on the way. Still a good 30 minutes to go to departure, but you wouldn?t have guessed it. Bidding farewell to my other half, The Fart and I headed off along the aforementioned route in search of our own personal ?transport of delight?, coach 2.

Once we?d clapped eyes on it, it was the work of a moment to dump our stuff inside and claim two seats. But El Tel still had another mission to undertake. He was looking out for a young Oz Baggie, who?d come over to Blighty for a short spell. Michael was his name, but unfortunately, I can?t for the life remember the names of both his flaming parents! The Crump family is all I know, and they had a lovely house not far from Surfers? Paradise, Queensland. Even worse, we stayed with them around four years ago! Er ? am I forgiven, blue? Sadly, we didn?t manage to link up with ?yer man? in the end, but what Tel did do was have a good natter with Adrian Chiles instead, also temporarily nomadic courtesy Baggies Travel. All to do with his forthcoming book, I suppose.

Then, at long last, a good 15 minutes late, for some reason not made clear to us ? was it an unexpected shortage of John Homer?s favourite Balti pies, I wonder? - we were off. What did astonish me, once we were on the motorway, was the sheer volume of Boxing Day traffic there ? so that?s where all the missing cars locally had gone, then! Even more astonishing was the fact we ended up in queues not once, but twice. The first around Cannock, and the second quite near to Stoke; quite an annoyance, and something you simply don?t expect to see this time of year. In fact, that?s what woke me up ? the complete absence of traffic noise as we awaited our turn to slowly grind forward.

Not that it hampered our progress unduly, mind: within around 90 minutes, we were entering the Docks area of Manchester, about a mile from the ground itself. One other thought ? it was only comparatively recently I?d found out just how close Old Trafford was to the Ship Canal; no wonder United suffered such extensive bomb damage during World War 2. Der nasty Luftwaffe were aiming for the docks all right; the trouble was, they had the Nazi equivalent of Peter Crouch peering down their bombsights. No loss of life or limb, thank goodness, but I bet their groundsman was hopping mad at all the bomb damage to what little remained of his precious pitch. No wonder Matt Busby?s lot had to ?lodge? with Manchester City for several years on the bounce once hostilities finally ceased.

United being one of those clubs where there?s a coach park just over the road from the away turnstiles means there was little in the way of walking to do from the coach. However, it then chose that precise moment to rain (yes, rain in Manchester; what a complete surprise!), so we both elected to stay on the coach until it stopped, along with five or six other wimps. With around 40 minutes to go, we saw they?d opened the away turnstiles, so off we lolloped, finally. The best bit came from one of United?s own female stewards; innocently enquiring of her what would be deemed ?verboten? our ancient chum got the intriguing reply: ?Spray cans of perfume?! Which makes me really wonder ? is it because of the spray?s potential to blind, either temporarily or otherwise, or is it simply because the offender stands an excellent chance of perpetrating ?Grievous (Ponging) Bodily Underarm? on some unsuspecting young bobby or other? Oh well, at least my proffered explanation did get a semblance of a laugh out of the old bat.

Once inside, though, and seated on our perches ? a much more sensible single flight of stairs to negotiate this time ? The Fart began clucking about Blues, who had shown little inclination to succumb to Spurs, their opponents today. ?Don?t worry,? I said to my veteran chum, ?Spurs?ll sort Blues out in the end, and Chelsea won?t waste time with Fulham, either.? Considering Fulham had wormed their way back from being two down, I think he severely doubted my thoughts on the matter, but I was proven right in the end. OK, Blues did manage to get a point at White Hart Lane, but Chelsea simply turned up the wick a notch, ending up 3-2 winners. O ye of little faith!

As for Old Trafford, not that much had changed in the 10 or so days since we?d last met ? the George Best stuff having long since been removed, of course. And no reverential, almost hysterical, atmosphere there, either, thank goodness. It?s at this point I feel I have to describe what happened following the kick-off in the form of an analogy, so here goes. Hands up all those vintage Baggies who remember a certain ?comedy act? (note the speechmarks) popular in the mid-sixties, whose solitary claim to fame was providing ?sound effects? for some very well-known Western themes, e.g. ?Rawhide? and the late 50?s chart hit ?Ghost Riders In The Sky?? Nothing too unusual about that, you might think ? but stay thy smiting hand a while, my son. Yes, lots of musicians did their own versions of such popular themes at the time, but this bloke was different. He achieved the sounds of whips cracking etc. by simply hitting his own head with a metal tray, and as many times as the song?s length ? or his own poor aching head ? would demand!

And, once the game had kicked off, and we were repelling wave after wave of United attacks, that?s precisely how I felt. Just being there so I could hit my head with a tin tray, over and over again; a nostrum not least recommended because of the danger of concussion, true, but that?s precisely how I felt ere the game had got into its stride. Feeling as though I was constantly bashing myself on the head with what the papers would euphemistically term ?a blunt instrument?. You could see how all this was shaping up on the pitch, of course; what did surprise me was the fact we managed to hold out for as long as we did, and how well we did it.

What really changed things for us all, though, was the injury to defender Paul Robinson. Unfortunately, I was watching play elsewhere when it happened, some 15 minutes from the break; there was I one minute rejoicing in the fact we?d stopped their tap, albeit temporarily, the next there was poor Paul Robinson spark out in their box. Neither of us actually saw what happened, but when I spoke to Fred Carter, sitting behind me, during the break he reckoned Rooney had pushed poor Robbo, and that was the end result. I now understand that the injury was caused by Robbo?s head hitting Gaardsoe?s hip, of all places. Whatever might have been the cause of his unconsciousness in the first place, it sure as hell must have been a terrific blow, because the poor sod simply wasn?t moving. A stretcher was called for, then a spinal board, and it became quickly clear that our defender?s leading role in today?s game had well and truly ended; a crying shame, as he?d been doing such a superb job on Rooney up until that point in time. By way of replacement, Joe Kamara was sent on.

And that was about the time it all started to go really wrong for us; up until then, although United had pressurised us, somehow we?d kept them out, but come the restart, following a six-minute delay, we?d conceded within a minute. Scholes was the perpetrator of the damage, with a bullet shot from a fair distance out, and that was swiftly followed by Ferdinand heading home from a corner, making us two in arrears by the time the whistle finally went for the break.

From the restart, it was simply a case of wondering just how many the hosts could amass come the end of the game. It was certainly an unusual sight to see an Albion pass enter their half of the field, and actual incursions into their box were a rarity indeed, so much so, the fact we gained our first corner was greeted with not a few ironic cheers from the gallery in the away end. For their own part, United had brought on Kieran Richardson, whose own contribution late last season had been so vital in keeping us up. But, with only around three minutes on the clock, an Albion corner, our first in the entire game. A shame we couldn?t cope with it, really.

Suffice to say that by the middle of the second half, and their notching up the third, courtesy of Van Nistelrooy, whose header really was something special, such was the extent of United?s domination of their Black Country opponents, the game began to bear a distinct resemblance to a turgid end-of-season fixture; nothing at stake, chaps, so let?s try and pass it around a bit, see how long we can keep the ball, that sort of thing. Oh dear; something told me the remainder of the second 45 was going to be long and wearisome. Now you?ll understand what I meant when I said watching Albion these days was a bit like watching someone hitting one?s head with a tin tray, or doing the actual bashing on your own pate; an exercise excruciatingly painful for both ?performer? and watcher. The main difference? At least a wayward tin tray never landed you in the wrong end of the table, did it?

I suppose the sole ?positive? we could take from this sad affair was the return of Gera to serious first team action with about 20 minutes to go. What he did, he did well, and might even have got something more to show for his pains towards the end, when he beat a couple of United players on the bounce, took the ball to the bye-line, but couldn?t get away a ?killer pass?, sadly, owing to the crowd of bodies in there at the time. It might not have worked out for him today, but at least he gave it a damn good try, which is all I ask of a player, really.

Home, then, courtesy Baggies travel, and with that, what appeared to be a guided tour of Manchester, courtesy their wunnerful Bobbies, as the Yanks might say. Sure, there had been a police escort, but that seemingly vanished into thin air once we?d gone some 700 yards; from then on in, it was a case of ?sort it out yourselves?, which we mostly did, but with the aid of ?by gosh and by golly? tactics. And never have I been more pleased to see our floodlights heave into sight once more. And trust ?Im Indoors to rub it in a bit; Hereford had drawn their game, which was an absolute cracker, by all accounts. Oh well - back to the drawing-board once more. It?s either that, or grab a tin tray from the pile, and start bashing!

And finally?..One. One chant emanating from our lot that had me chuckling; our supporters? response to their opponents? perceived lack of participation in today?s affair ?No noise from the Cockney boys?.? An allusion to the majority of their support not necessarily being of the Mancunian persuasion, also? Of course ? further explanation totally unnecessary!

Two?? Just where do we find these people? I?m referring to the braindead who actually produced a can of beer right under the noses of our stewarding combo after today?s game. This total plank clearly didn?t know of the swingeing penalties should booze be found aboard a football coach. Heavy fines, and not just for the guilty party, either. Both the person running the show ? in this case Dave Holloway ? and the driver of the coach would have been liable also, with the latter probably ending up losing his job. I really do despair sometimes.

 - Glynis Wright

Contact the Author

Diary Index