The Diary

17 January 2006: The Madkeski Replay Caper - 'Reading' Between The Lines.

It?s certainly a wonderfully refreshing feeling to wake and know you?ve had the privilege of witnessing one of the best Baggies awayaday displays in a very long time indeed. As for The Pole In Goal, shorts worn Wallace and Gromit style and everything, when I think back to all the wonderful custodial performances I?ve seen from various Albion keepers over the years, I really struggle to remember one quite as sparkling as the one I saw yesterday. The nearest I can come to such bravery, such technical perfection, such superb anticipatory skills, not to mention hair-trigger reflexes, is the late, great John Osborne, the England-class keeper Albion almost had. The Fart, I?m sure, can extol the virtues of forties and fifties custodians long since departed to The Great Dressing Room In The Sky until he?s blue in the face (with white stripes, natch); being of such venerable and respected Baggie status, that?s what you get to do very well, but being a mere stripling by comparison, I can only tell it how it is for me.

The other issue that emerges from yesterday?s game is that of supporter dissent. Yes, I too howled something rotten when I heard the team changes read out on the Wigan PA while climbing their rotten stairs (mind you, that might have been the real reason for my indignant protests - it don?t do bad backs much good, honest!), and I couldn?t quite believe what I was hearing. Ditto, when he changed things right after the Big Dave dismissal, but I swear to God I didn?t make my dissent more widely known, and I most certainly didn?t join in with the abusive stuff. Just like giving Jason Roberts the ?treatment? ? and them Nathan Ellington, of course ? I firmly believe that sort of thing to be piling even more trouble onto existing problems.

You do have to ask yourself, though, just how much was three-cornered serendipity on the part of our manager, and how much the end-product of much cold and reasoned calculation. Difficult, isn?t it? Then again, you might want to argue that a good deal of what a successful manager does is primarily down to luck anyway ? and something tells me Robbo is steadily heading that way himself. I do have vague memories of a phase back in the late eighties when Man United?s then-new incumbent, a certain Alex Ferguson (the ?sir? bit had yet to adorn club stationery) being just one game away from the sack. As I?ve been to bed since then, the details are somewhat hazy, now, but if I remember rightly, it was a Cup game and a late goal that helped get him off the hook. I?ve a vague sort of idea the game may have been at Hereford, and United only getting out of jail with a very late strike indeed. After that, things went one way only, and thanks to Fergie?s success on the pitch, United were able to further evolve, not only in the football sense of the word, but also in terms of becoming an internationally well-known brand name off the pitch. Ripe for subsequent purchase by a couple of Yank billionaires, in fact.

Sure, luck played a major part in yesterday?s triumph, and maybe it?s just as well, as Robbo really was strapped for fit playing staff at that time. Down to just16 bodies, good men and true, we were, and that was before the game, not afterwards. That?s why young Rob Davies suddenly found himself included in our managerial team?s plans for Wigan. And why we?ll lose to Reading tomorrow night, in all probability, despite the fact they?ll be fielding a weakened side also. God knows what sort of scratch outfit we?ll end up with for that one. I suspect even the club cat will be keeping a low profile right now, lest his feline presence be required to make up the numbers at The Madjeski tomorrow night.

As things stand, we?re short of Clem and Kanu, both through cheek injury, Tommy ?G? and The Mighty Zoltan (groins), The Hamstrung Horse and last, but not least ?Joe? Kamara, currently swanning around Sunny Africa, lucky sod. Yesterday, I couldn?t help but notice that The Pole In goal had an almighty bruise on his face, so I can only assume it?ll be Kirkland emerging from the shadows tomorrow night, and not our wrongly-shorted custodial hero. In any case, after yesterday?s heroics, he truly deserves the night off. Mind you, it might well turn out that the real victor tomorrow night will be the weather. According to one Reading-based Baggie?s email tonight, the rain has absolutely chucked down in the Thames Valley area over the course of the last couple of days or so, a state of affairs that suggests to me Reading?s pitch will closely resemble a 1916 ?no man?s land? within just minutes of the kick-off.

It doesn?t help either that Big Dave will be absent through suspension. Being so far away from the bench myself, I didn?t witness what went on when our dismissed defender passed him by, but I?m given to understand that when the sending-off happened, Robbo?s facial features were absolutely thunderous ? and I?m not surprised. To blatantly body-check an opposing player in true Rugby style when you?re already on a booking is the height of terminal stupidity personified. I genuinely thought our enormous defender had far more about him than that. Or was my original surmise ? frustration brought on because of ageing legs increasingly unable to keep pace with younger opponents ? the correct one? Whichever way you look at it, what a plank.

It?s a real shame what happened, as he?s been such a good and loyal servant to us in the past. What he did to poor Shaun Newton the last time we played The Dingles at their place (Newton got lippy with our man during a period in the game when feelings spilled over into threats, thrown punches and the like, tried to rush him the moment the red mist descended, but much to my amusement, simply bounced straight off again!) will stay in my memory forever. Sad, but by placing our potential away points haul in such needless jeopardy yesterday, when Ugo finally signs on the dotted line, that will be the last we?ll ever see of Big Dave in an Albion shirt, I reckon. Expect him to resurface at Forest?s City Ground ere too many moons have waxed and waned over the Midlands. Division One won?t know what?s hit them, will they?

Back tomorrow night, but not hotfoot from the Reading trip, sad to say. The pair of us elected not to travel to this one. Sure, I could have shown my face down there ? in fact, it?s fair to say that having attended numerous court sessions in the area over the past few years, there?s some parts of the town I know better than a good many Reading-based Albion supporters, The prime reason I?m not going is the sheer length of the distances involved, and the probable late arrival time back home. Sure, ?Im Indoors did offer to pick me up from The Hawthorns afterwards, but as he?s at work all day, it wouldn?t have been at all fair of me to take him up on the offer. Whenever my beloved gets tired, he gets very niggly indeed, believe you me. The last thing I want to start is him walking around like a bear with a sore head for the next two or three days.

And finally?..One. Like many others yesterday, and after witnessing that brilliant performance from The Pole In Goal ? sorry, but I still can?t quite get my head around the proper spelling of his name ? on the homeward leg from the JJB, I was left puzzling over one small thing; if HE couldn?t get an automatic place in the Polish national first-string, then precisely how good was the bloke keeping him out?

Trust Chris Lepkowski, of the Evening Mail, to enlighten me further tonight. Being of Polish extraction himself, he ought to know more than most about the current whereabouts of their finest. The Spartak Moscow keeper-import, Kowalewski, was recently awarded third place in the Russian League's player of the year award (their equivalent of PFA awards). Dudek is still there or thereabouts, as is Dskobolia's Przyrowski. Poland played Scotland in a B international before Christmas, and Kuszczak was overlooked for that too.

Apparently, Dudek was their first-choice stopper ever, but is now very much out of favour, and internet polls (Poles?) now suggest Celtic?s Artur Boroc to be The Anointed One. Not having watched all that much Scottish football, ever (Sudden Thought! Did I imagine it, or did Derek McInnes score for Dundee last Saturday?) I couldn?t venture an objective opinion either way, really, but Chris also reckons that thanks to some highly-impressive displays for us of late, culminating in yesterday?s custodial masterclass at Wigan, Kuszczak is catching him up at a rate of knots, therefore his elevated status might not last for very much longer.

Two. Reading Dave Watkins?s account of yesterday?s trip on the mailing-list tonight, I was intrigued to see he, too, sampled Wigan hospitality courtesy the Marquee Club. His comments about the place ran along very similar lines to ours, so great minds do think alike, it would seem. What did catch my attention, though, was Dave?s reference to hot food being available there. Blimey, had I known that, I?d have indulged also, but I didn?t. Still, their efforts to make thing a tad more civilised for away supporters really went down well with me, and judging from the sheer number of positive comments I heard in there, lots of other Baggies greatly appreciated the facility also. Writing this, I?m also mindful of the fact that in Halfords Lane, the former Throstle Club premises still stand lonely and unloved. Sure, we?ve got the Hawthorns Hotel facility instead, but there?s nothing quite like a place of your very own to go to on matchdays, is there?

Additionally ? and quite rightly ? there was fulsome praise from Dave for Albion?s free coach travel initiative yesterday. With only one exception, Middlesbrough, whenever we?ve descended mob-handed upon a place buckshee, our finest have come up trumps, changed club history completely a couple of times, even. Today, I was trying to work out when in the fixture calendar might be a good opportunity for repeating the whole exercise. Obvious one is Everton, come the end of the season; by then, there may still be something riding on the outcome, or, conversely, there may not. People might just hanker towards doing the ?fancy dress? thing again, also. There?s certainly the capacity at Goodison to accommodate lots of Baggie bodies, and end-of-season away trips being the fun occasions they generally are, and the locals possessing something vaguely suggestive of a sense of humour, irrespective of future Premiership status, the springtime Merseyside caper might well be the ideal moment for Jeremy et. al to turn all philanthropic on us once more.

 - Glynis Wright

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