The Diary

02 February 2006: Both Premiership Strugglers Make Their Point Tonight

Back in the ?office? from keeping tabs on Liverpool-Blues, and Pompey-Bolton ? and talk about great dollops of Hartley?s most famous product crashing down upon both our relegation rivals from a great height. One each the final score in both instances, and both strugglers? goals coming in the last five minutes or so. Particularly galling in the case of the Anfield caper, as the visitors had gone down to ten for quite a significant portion of the game.

From what Ian Rush, the Sky guy on the spot, was saying, those closing minutes must have borne more than a slight similarity to the hysteric-ridden scenes on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange circa 1929. Liverpool (plus spanking-new added ingredient, Robbie Fowler) were all over the down-to-ten Small Heath mob, and a second, the ?killer?, looked merely a matter of minutes away.

So what happened next? An own-goal born of terminal stupidity, complete and utter, that?s what, from one of Anfield?s (now not-so) favourite sons, closely followed by a hitting of the Blues bar (normal post-match practice for some of their players, not to mention supporters, no doubt, but not in front of a packed house, and certainly not when you?re trying to snatch those elusive three points from out of the immolating flames). And then, the brief resurgence of Baggie hope as Rush announced the potting of Liverpool?s late, late winner ? only to hear just seconds later that referee Uriah Rennie had ruled it out for bloody offside. How I hate that bloke. These things are sent to try us, I agree, but judging from tonight?s largesse at the hands of Lady Luck for our immediate relegation rivals, somewhere along the line, we must have been found guilty, and incontrovertibly so, too!

I also noticed that in the midst of all the Anfield and Ewood Park hoo-ha ? in which the latter club walked away with all three points in their pockets as a result of their unexpected 4-3 triumph (it was 4-1 at one stage, until United woke up and smelt the coffee, finally) over the toffee-nosed lot next door ? Man City had put Newcastle well and truly to the sword, the final score there reading three-nil to the home side. It was after that I happened to notice a couple of keen-looking young chaps wielding a banner that bore the simple legend: ?Souness Out? Despite what Freddie Shepherd and the rest of the board say, I strongly suspect the writing?s well and truly on the wall for Old Misery Features after tonight?s trouncing. A new St. James Park incumbent could well be in-situ before very long, methinks.

D.J. Campbell, and all who sail in him ? an update. I was interested to see that after my comments yesterday regarding this guy?s ability (or otherwise) to survive at the higher level hit the airwaves, I had correspondence saying Campbell was a bit of an unknown quantity, even for Brentford, and not really someone we should be pursuing. I?m inclined to disagree; he was at Griffin Park for just a short space of time, sure, but even over that brief period, had kept on scoring goals like a good ?un. The leap from Yeading, currently in the Isthmian League, to The Bees, fourth from top in League One, is one of monumental proportions, true, but from what I?ve seen of the lad on the box, he?s weathered the storm, ascended with all due aplomb an almost-precipitous learning-curve, and will now, in all likelihood, go on to give Blues the boost they need to get out of the mire. Which is why I?m firmly of the opinion we should have been chasing the lad also.

Sure, players from non-league and lower down are ?unknown quantities?, both by definition and relatively speaking, but didn?t an unknown quantity called Cyrille Regis make the upwards move from non-league Hayes to The Hawthorns, almost thirty years ago, then proceed to make that striker?s slot his very own with a scintillating but explosive burst of classy, quality goals? Sometimes, science and statistics, supplied as it now is in bells and whistles galore (as per the ?Prozone? computerised player-stats system favoured by most Premiership managers these days) isn?t enough. Every now and again, when making decisions of this nature, managers and scouts ? not to mention successful businessmen who also just happen to be chairmen of struggling Premiership sides! - just have to allow their gut instincts to trip in occasionally. I suspect that?s what?s happened with Steve Bruce and the former Brentford lad; shame we couldn?t as well.

There might also be another reason as to why we couldn?t manage to come up with a half-decent striker at the conclusion of all yesterday?s other deeds, and it goes like this. Suppose all yesterday?s wheedling and dealing was being conducted with a view towards not only getting an extra striker in, but also finding such a move highly dependent upon the vagaries of other clubs? By that, I mean at what stage their buying-power when suddenly finding itself dependent upon a buying/selling chain several clubs long. Just like when buying a house, and only exchanging contracts once you know all the attendant messy bits have been formalised and sorted, in fact, but ending up well and truly caught short when one or other of the deals in the ?chain? fails to come off. If that be the case, then that would go an awful long way towards explaining our seeming inactivity on this very same score.

Earnie? The real deal with Norwich is for a cool ?2.75 million, with the rest payable by the Carrow Road club, should the lad do the biz for them. Oh, brother, what have we done? With only a young kid on the bench for us last night, Kanu in Africa, still, Campbell past it, The Horse seemingly off to Sheffield, how the hell are we supposed to get goals over the next few games? Teleport the ball into the back of the net? Have a witch-doctor chuck a nasty little spell in the direction of the entire Blackburn defence for the whole 90 minutes?

Yeah, right, and it?s not as if we can grab a striker from somewhere else then chuck him in to sink or swim as appropriate; our only hope, it would seem, is that Saturday?s visitors are so gripped by the symptoms of chronic After The Lord Mayor?s Show Syndrome, they fail utterly in reproducing the scintillating form that left them 4-3 winners over Man United tonight ? and that after being an incredible 4-1 up at one point. The more I think about the issue, the more my mind boggles regarding what would appear on the surface to be an ill-thought out and reckless act in letting the ex-Cardiff lad go in the first place. I just hope you?ve got your explanations prepared and primed should this all go pear-shaped, Robbo.

Bearing the above in mind, it must be the same sort of destructive instinct that sometimes gives people the urge to chuck themselves out of twenty-somethingth-floor windows, or makes that person gaily weave their way in and out of the summer motorway traffic in order to have a nice little game among all the shiny cars out there, but whatever its root cause, you can now officially list this little Baggie as among the throng going to sunny Fulham a week on Saturday. And so is The Fart; so keen to do so, in fact, he?s going up to fetch our tickets tomorrow!

Yes, I know, it?s a barmy thing to do, and will like as not end in tears when we play the West London side a week on Saturday, but what the hell ? it?s all about cheering the lads on in their hour of need (and mine!). As I?ve explained before, this away travel lark is a habit difficult to give up, which makes me a bigger mug than most, because I do so knowing full well what a complete and utter bag of spanners our first team is right now. Oh, well ? just have a good snigger afterwards, either collectively or alone.

And Finally?? One. Don?t call me ?Im Indoors, just call me The Bearwood Stalker, eh? A poor lad is my other half, right now. He?s just taken delivery of a spanking-new mobile, and is still busting a gut trying to get to grips with all those fancy features on the blasted thing ? including how to lock the keyboard when said gadget is safely nestled within the warm fug of his trouser pocket! Which is the main reason why tonight, my other half got a phone call from a very puzzled Carly (The Noise?s 15 year-old daughter) telling of strange and unusual things happening on her mobile.

It all started when she was coming out of school at the end of the day, recently; turning on her mobile once off the premises, she was absolutely delighted to discover there were no less than 19 text messages awaiting her attention. Her teenage ?radar? being almost constantly pointed in the direction of her squillion acne-ridden and constantly-horny male acquaintances these days, no doubt thinking she?d finally cracked it with someone, many juvenile cries of ?wow! quickly rent the almost-eerie suburban silence. Flattered to the nines, but still somewhat wary, she then carefully opened one of them - only to discover the sender to be none other than my other half! And the next. And the one after that. Even as she busily engaged herself in the tedious process of opening them all up, then deleting, yet another six entered her in-box! At the time of writing, the grand total was forty, but as ?Im Indoors hasn?t quite got his head in gear as to how to lock the thing, as yet, this particular communication problem could run and run. As a well-bemused Carly commented tonight: ?It?s really nice of you to send me all those texts, Simon, but don?t you think you ought to be doing something about that phone instead??

Two? A ?little bird? tells me that a certain Albion ?alternative? coach travel organiser left his chums in Shoreditch the afternoon before the Charlton game, and was later seen sporting a T-shirt proclaiming that he'd been on some sort of Yuppie Pub Crawl round Canary Wharf! Times change, sure, and once a football club gets locked into the Premiership hype, it does tend to gentrify what grass-roots support remains, but as my little bird commented earlier today, ?**** (name hidden to protect the innocent!) The Red Braced Yuppie? is going just a tad too far!

 - Glynis Wright

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