The Diary

24 February 2006: It's Good News Week? Er, No - Not Really!

When you come to consider the true import of the proverb: ?even in the midst of life, there is death?, all around us, events seem to greatly contradict that well-known saying. Signs of impending spring, in the form of crocuses gingerly putting up tender shoots, and the first tightly-closed, hesitant buds appearing on the trees around Rolfe Street Station ? how can this be such a sad start to the week for both of us? News from my sister, on Monday evening, that a mutual chum of ours, Pat, had lost her fight against ovarian cancer, at the age of 65. No age, really, at a time when average life expectancies for women are getting near the eighty mark, and in her case most certainly a case of ?the good dying young?, as she was the lady who did such a professional job on our wedding-cake some fifteen years ago. Navy blue and white icing, Albion badge on top, very carefully and most intricately detailed, too ? not the sort of thing you get straight off the counter at Firkins?s, believe you me.

Not a professional cake-maker by any means ? she was on income support, and DWP personal allowances for singletons being as stingy as they are (assuming even Tony Blair?s ?enforcers? can?t blag their way past the Pearly Gates to prosecute, I?m now quite willing to let that particular cat out of the bag!) I was very happy indeed to let Pat loose on our wedding cake, as she was such a super baker, icer, and decorator of such things. And, later still, she ?adopted? one of the litter of five kittens my adult black cat, Laurie, produced. A couple of years further down the line, and Pat entered my life again for yet another reason, this time after her small dog allegedly bit an 8 year-old waiting for a bus outside her house. The problem wasn?t so much the complaint as the arrogant attitude taken by the young plod sent to investigate the matter; when I spoke to Pat about it, she was in floods of tears, the reason being this fine upholder of the law had told her she had no option but to have the dog destroyed, and the sooner the better.

I?m most certainly not legally qualified ? I don?t have even a GCSE in the subject to my name, and never will, in all probability ? but even I knew you couldn?t order an animal?s destruction without a pukka order from the magistrates court. And I don?t like bullies, either, especially uniformed ones ? not to mention cowardly, with it. I?m willing to bet anything you care to name the little sod wouldn?t have dared speak to an 18-stone lager lout with both a Rottweiller and an attitude problem in the same manner, and he wasn?t going to start with Pat, either. One quick dig in the files later ? I was working for the CAB at the time ? and the lady was quickly sorted with the name of a solicitor willing to look at the case under the provisions of the Legal Aid scheme.

Amazing what such an intervention will do, isn?t it? Not even seven days had gone by when I heard via my sis that after a 30-minute interview, her solicitor had drafted a short sharp letter to the force, giving them an extremely large flea in their ear along the way ? and suddenly, the whole thing died a mysterious death. I wonder why? Forgive me this slight indulgence ? yes, I know it?s nothing to do with football - but Pat really was such a nice lady, outgoing, generous, with it, and so talented; had they known of her skills, I?m sure any top-class celebration cake-maker would have slavered at the leash to take her on. As she had very few living relatives anyway, I?d like to think that via the medium of this column, her premature passing won?t go completely unmourned.

?Lightning never strikes twice in the same place?.? A familiar enough homily, sure, but one not necessarily true: in the US, there are several living (if somewhat singed around the extremities!) examples providing irrefutable proof that the above statement just ain?t so. Similarly, during World War One, squaddies stuck in No Man?s Land and relying upon the same principle to keep them alive after they?d ducked into newly-created shell-holes to avoid, say, withering machine-gun fire, quickly discovered the error of their ways ? or rather their mates did, the original occupants being reduced to naught but a few pathetic scraps of flesh and bones in but a fraction of the time it takes to sing: ?Slap a Dingle?..?. So there you go ? the next time you get caught up in a vicious battle for a few precious feet of muddy real-estate, think very carefully about precisely where you?re going to stick your body in the event of the sharp end becoming somewhat inhospitable!

And so it was with our local rivals last Sunday: mugging poor Man City for a second half goal after the visitors had spent almost the entirety of the game camped in the home side?s half. Verily I say unto you, he who liveth by the lucky goal, dieth by the last-minute equaliser ? and I really do mean ?last-minute?. How does almost the very last kick of injury-time grab you, just like we did unto them late last season? Talk about d?j? vu: even the home side?s reaction was much the same after City had scored - stunned silence. They really don?t like it up ?em, do they? Especially so close to the whistle. What a pity, said she, laughing like a bloody drain all the while - how dashed unfortunate can you get? Now please excuse me while I put on a clean, dry pair of knickers.

A crying shame, though, that rejoicing at Man City?s late, late deliverance was tempered somewhat by watching Man United?s Alan Smith sustain that awful leg injury some two minutes before the final whistle of their lively FA Cup Round Five tie versus Liverpool. And, even worse, learning of alleged attempts to turn over and vandalise the ambulance taking him to hospital afterwards. Who - or, more pertinently, ?what? ? spawned these awful creatures must remain one of the great mysteries of the modern age. I just wish they?d find the hole in the ground from which they?d crawled in the first place, then disappear back down it at a rate of knots.

No sooner had I caught but a brief glimpse of the lad?s rapidly-ballooning lower limb and ankle on the box, I realised this one was going to require considerably more than a visit to some X-Ray department or other, a well-plastered leg, then a couple of months at most spent getting over it. To be quite honest with you lot out there, over the years, I?ve seen more than my fair share of footballers end up with broken limbs on the field of play ? Ally Robertson, Alex Cropley of Villa, plus our very own gaffer, twice in but a very short space of time, that one; all are examples that spring readily to mind - but never before have I ever seen so grotesquely-misshapen a limb directly after the event that caused the break in the first place.

Also odd was the fact that unlike all the other injuries previously mentioned, there was not even the slightest hint of an opposing player being anywhere near at the time; all the poor sod was doing was trying to block a shot from Liverpool?s Riise with his right leg, only to feel its left-sided counterpart buckle from under him as he did so. Freakish? I should say so; it?s not every day a player gets to suffer a fractured fibula ? in case you weren?t sure, that?s the thinnish bone nestling right behind the tibia (shinbone) - and a dislocated ankle, all at the same time, is it?

Trust the Guardian to get a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to explain everything in their sports supplement the following day; as the guy quite rightly pointed out, the one factor that might well rescue Smith?s long-term career prospects is the lack of an open wound caused by the errant shard of bone penetrating from within becoming exposed to the air. Had that been the case ? as per the horrible leg injury sustained by Coventry?s David Buust several seasons ago ? there could well have been a much more pessimistic prognosis attached. Once a bone infection gets well and truly established, it really is a sod to treat, even in these marvellous days of super-strong antibiotics and hi-tech surgical procedures. They can possess sufficient strength to kill enough germs to lay waste an entire Dingles home-end if they really want, these ?sons of Penicillin?, but as the dosage is delivered via the bloodstream, and as even normal bone tissue lacks a decent blood supply, then recovery from such an event is always going to be problematic.

I have heard of people losing limbs as a direct result of complications caused by such ?open? fractures. People of The Fart?s vintage will no doubt remember Derek Dooley, the 1950?s Sheffield Wednesday player, who ended up having his leg amputated through injury sustained in similar fashion, poor sod. Or, drawing on personal experience, I happen to know of a bloke who also sustained a horrible leg fracture at work, this time caused by steel weighing several tons dropping onto his lower limb then crushing it. Some two years after the event, the poor sod is still getting low-grade infections there, not to mention chronic pain and loss of function, all of which has prevented a return to work, and there?s now a distinct possibility he?ll end up having the blasted thing amputated anyway. Although he may not see things in such a favourable light at present, perhaps Smith should consider himself a very fortunate footballer right now.

Oh, dear. If it isn?t one thing, it?s another. I don?t know what it is about me right now, but just lately, everything I touch, domestically speaking, seems to turn to complete and utter poo within seconds of my having done so. Last time, it was the disaster to our curtain-rail, a nice little prelude to our six-goal stonking at Fulham; this time, it?s the ?orrible lingering pong in our house. The one that smells a bit like the swing-shift at a camel crematorium, that is.

Nothing whatsoever to do with our favourite football club, I have to say ? although we had planned to go to a Supporters Club function involving Cyrille Regis later that evening ? more to do with the nasty turn ?Im Indoors had around teatime that Thursday. The thing was, when my other half began developing alarming symptoms, while trying to sort him out, I happened to chuck his meal in the microwave to keep it hot; trouble was, in my anxiety to tend to hubbie, who really was feeling quite poorly by then, I put it on the wrong setting. Result? A massive pall of smoke, more acrid fumes than I care to remember, and both kitchen and living-room ending up smelling something awful. Even as I write, some seven days or so after the event, the ?fragrance? still lingers on, and in both downstairs rooms, too, despite my bulk-purchase of enough commercially-available room fragrances to keep even legendary Baggies rotten pong-merchant Steve Brookes all sweet-smelling and wholesome the whole day through.

Mind you, what happened quickly put me in mind of a certain lady a few years back, who?d ended up in the nick where I worked charged with the murder of her husband. It was the gradually-increasing intensity of some all-too malodorous evidence he?d been secreted away under the floorboards post-mortem that finally led to the Old Bill fingering her, but that wasn?t the real reason why I ended up leaving her cell trying like hell not to laugh ? it was what she said when I casually asked her about the crime. ?I?ll tell you what, though, Miss. I wasn?t half glad when the police arrested me?.? Puzzled, knowing she was facing a mandatory life sentence if found guilty, I asked her the reason why. ?Easy ? he was costing me a bloody fortune in air-fresheners by then, that?s why!?

Talking of naughty deeds, I see our football team recently managed to get themselves into the national newspapers for all the wrong reasons, and all because they went off on that ?bonding? jolly to Dubai just a few days ago. Result? Some undoubtedly alcohol-assisted hi-jinks very late at night/very early that morning, a fire-extinguisher let off when and where it shouldn?t have been, some damage to paintwork, and some very contrite players having to apologise to the hotel management, pay for the mess/damage ? and, what was worse, having the whole incident end up in the hands of The Sun, that wonderful arbiter and proponent of decent, dignified journalistic standards, anyway. ?Never let the truth get in the way of a good story? seemed to be their motto, more like, and by indulging in puerile allegedly-drunken pranks that would get even a first-year university student a-curling their toes with complete embarrassment, our finest played right into their mother-lovin? hands. I really do despair, sometimes.

As for what actually happened in Dubai, I still stand by my original assertion that there are much more serious (and, quite frankly, just plain awful) things happening in the world around us right now - and I don't need to look all that far to prove it. What I describe below will do quite nicely for me; after something as mind-numbingly awful as that, anything our little darlings happen to do while on foreign soil ranks about Vauxhall Conference standard by comparison. Just in case you haven?t got a good idea of what I?m on about by now, I refer to the sadistic (and quite possibly psychotic) scumbag who the other day tied a Staffordshire bull terrier to a tree, doused it in flammable liquid, then set it alight, leaving it to burn alive ? in the absence of something even more horrific to go by, that will do quite nicely for now, in my book. We live in a horribly-warped and cruel world, and when placed in that sort of ghastly context, sundry player peccadilloes perpetrated in Dubai hotels become very small beer indeed as far as I'm concerned.

And all that courtesy the so-called ?civilised society? we constantly kid ourselves we belong to. Even genuine ?animals? ? that?s the usual yardstick by which we tend to judge these matters ? wouldn?t stoop so low. Those who would still wish to chuck cart-loads of moral indignation in my direction ? and I?ve certainly had some these last few days, believe you me - I suggest you get a life instead, and start shoving the entire lot back in the faces of those who currently preside over the badly-sick society that makes it all-too easy for such morons to proliferate and prosper. You might think it?s a pretty long way from either Abu Ghirab prison, or Guantanamo Bay, to the Black Country and one incinerated Staffordshire bull terrier, but the same moral principles sill hold good.

It being last Tuesday, and Hereford hosting Aldershot Town at Edgar Street that night, my other half decided it was his bounden duty to take me to said game ? something about ?helping my back pain ease off?, or words to that effect. ?Tis true my lumbar vertebrae were giving me gyp something rotten that night, but I?d not ever considered a 50-mile car journey particularly therapeutic in that respect. ?Oh well, what the hell?.? thought I at first ? but I have to say, I did eventually find the whole shebang quite fascinating in its own way.

How come? Well, it?s not every day you see an entire Meadow End ? Edgar Street?s answer to The Brummie ? making out like a Mexican mariachi band with the safety valve well and truly left off, is it? As much as a freezing-cold February evening would allow them, that was. Not a bad difference from the sun-drenched main squares of Tijuana and Acapulco either, and not a single genuine trumpet to be seen or heard, human vocal chords and lung-power, plus a smidgen of pretty good imagination, making the final difference, but the end result sounded pretty good, I have to say.

But that wasn?t all; in the away section were, I?d say, around a hundred or so Shots followers, and their motivational technique of choice completely different. Flags in quantity ? huge streamers spelling out the club?s name by individual letters all hung over the edge of the Len Weston Stand above was a particularly unforgettable sight - red and blue banners everywhere, and just to put the cherry on top of the icing, so to speak, the drums! Especially the drums! Eek! Two ?artistes? that night, both at it like things high on crack cocaine; what with that and the colourful background, the entire scene vaguely reminiscent of some pre-war SS Stormtrooper rally getting completely out of hand. The overall effect of both persuasions giving it big licks? Er ? lively for a Conference game, shall we say? Judging by the animated way Aldershot?s ?percussion section? were going at it, I could only assume that at some point or other on the long homeward journey, a sympathetic coach steward would be doling out headache pills like candy to fellow-suffers, of whom there must have been plenty by then.

The game? Well, ?Im Indoors was mightily pleased by the night?s work: The Bulls? 2-1 win that evening plonked them nicely into joint second place. The Conference leaders having well and truly romped over the hills and far away ages ago, not much good for automatic promotion purposes, was Hereford?s win, sadly ? only one goes up as of right, the next four down having to thrash it out between themselves via the play-offs ? but much better than a poke in the eye, I suppose.

Actually, it all started quite brightly for The Bulls, when Andy Williams ? no, before you ask, he wasn?t crooning ?You?re Just too Good To Be True? as he let fly from about six yards out ? putting them ahead around five or so minutes into the game, the second in that brace coming on the half-hour mark, a new chap called Fleetwood doing the damage this time. Well, he certainly did what it said on the tin ? nominative determinism rules at Edgar Street, OK?

It would have been nice reporting everything was hunky-dory for Hereford after that, but it wasn?t. Their strikers had come up with the goods, but after going two up, their entire midfield then decided to go AWOL en-masse, an act of extreme folly that left their rump somewhat exposed. Talk about midfielders giving ?swimming through a vat of black treacle? impersonations, and defenders becoming suddenly ?deaf-mute? when finding themselves entangled in sticky situations in and around the box, which was somewhat too frequently for comfort. No surprise, then, when the visitors managed to get one back midway through the second half: from then on in, things started to get a bit sweaty for ?Im Indoors?s zoider zlurpin? cobbers, but they did emerge triumphant in the end, I?m glad to report. Oh ? and talking of things all sweaty and ?orrible, a certain prominent Supporters Club chappie by the name of Nick Brade was particularly conspicuous by his absence from the ground that night. Quelle horreur, and all that jazz!

So, where was he, then? Exhaustive enquiries ? well, I did ask his mum shortly before kick-off, does that count? ? rapidly revealed him to be suffering from some sort of horrible shivery sweaty-awfuls, and not a fit sight for neither man nor beast to contemplate at length, apparently, a distinctly-lamentable state of affairs that quickly led me to speculate out loud as to whether or not the lad had contracted bird flu, and if that was indeed the case, when could I conveniently call round to his place to do a spot of ?culling?? Mind you, illness seemed to be particularly in vogue that evening; also missing from roll-call was The Noise?s Herefordian alter ego, ?Talking Bill?. He?s also a bit under the weather, so I?m told. What the hell do they do for recreation down there, I wonder ? culture viruses purely for fun?

Back tomorrow, with some sundry pre-Boro thoughts; at least my back pain should have diminished considerably by then (yes, yet another problem for the Wright household ? what?s next, I ask myself, an outbreak of nuclear war?), so see you then.

And Finally?. Quite an unusual plea from me, this one, but perfectly serious, all the same. It concerns Derek Kevan, otherwise known to old fogeys like myself and The Fart as ?The Tank?. Those few words might not mean too much to the current Baggie generation, I daresay, but back in the late 1950?s/early 1960?s, Derek?s predatory prowess in front of goal ? hence the nickname! ? was truly legendary, as numerous opposing keepers and full-backs would have willingly admitted at the time. In fact, I?m perfectly willing to bet that on those many occasions veteran Baggies supporters gather together to discuss the relative merits of past performers, Derek?s name will always be among those placed right at the very top of the list.

As Derek left the club the very first season I started watching ? blimey, was it really the sight of little me on the Woodman Corner that prompted the lad to sling his hook? ? I can?t come up with any personal anecdotes myself, but as far as people like The Fart (and my own brother-in-law) are concerned, he could rob half the banks on West Bromwich High Street tomorrow, and not one would deliberately grass him up to the law: thanks to those magic memories prompted by innumerable classy strikes for The Baggies over the years, he really does mean that much to them. But that?s not the main reason for my closing words tonight ? so listen up.

The problem is quite simple: when The Fart went to his house to interview him for Simon?s book a few weeks ago, Tel found that Derek wasn?t all that well, a little ?down in the dumps?, you might call it. After a few discreet words with his wife, Connie, afterwards, The Fart came up with a pretty spiffing idea, so here goes. As he?s getting on a bit, now, and his birthday falls on March the 6th it wouldn?t half be a splendid wheeze for lots of Albion supporters ? past, present, whatever, it doesn?t matter ? anyone who could bang in the goals with that sort of success rate deserves to be remembered by those who derived so much pleasure from what he did so well, in this case by sending him birthday greetings of one sort or another. Connie reckons he?d be tickled pink to know he isn?t forgotten, and as she said, just putting cards etc. in his hands would do him a power of good, I?m sure.

As I said, anyone can come in on this, irrespective of age: kids, just have a word with your granddads about Mister Kevan ? they?ll be only too glad to put you right. Very pleasant, and always willing to chat to supporters, was The Tank. He invariably gave 100% every game, says Tel, and for the 'average' supporter, that's all you can ask of a player, isn?t it? It?s The Fart?s wish that these few words will 'inspire' a few 'not-so-young fans' to think back, and recall with great pleasure some goals that still live long in the memory ? and, maybe some of the current crop might care to pitch in, also? Obviously, just in case some Dingle reading this thinks it big or clever to send the bloke something abusive or downright obscene, The Fart?s going to act as a ?go-between?. Anyone who cares to send a card/s should therefore address it to:

Derek Kevan C/o 60 Ribblesdale Road Stirchley Birmingham B30 2YP.

Naturally they won't be opened, but instead passed over to him, and wife Connie, on the day itself. The Fart reckons the look on his face when he hands over (hopefully!) oodles of cards and ?best wishes?, should be quite interesting. Oh ? Mister Fart also wishes to stress it doesn't necessarily have to be a birthday card, a 'simple email to his 'address' will do just as well, and THAT won't even cost the price of a postage stamp! How does tw012c6976@blueyonder.co.uk grab you?

 - Glynis Wright

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