The Diary

05 March 2006: Chelsea - A Side For Our Cynical Times.

Now all the various alarums and excursions have subsided, and Mourhino?s immaculately-coiffured - not to mention exquisitely-manicured ? circus has long since left town, just one question still rests heavily on my mind tonight. Who, oh why, do they have to do it? I?m referring, of course, to their (mostly, but even our own lot can consider themselves guilty to a somewhat lesser degree) attempted intimidation of the referee by crowding the poor sod, something that?s not supposed to happen any more, those nasty little mind-games at half-time, the almost-rabid reaction of their coaching staff whenever anything they considered remotely contentious happened ? at one point, I honestly thought a spectator had somehow managed to run right onto the playing area - necessitating the use of police to restore order in the dug-out area on a couple of memorable occasions.

Then there was the moment Mourhino either sarcastically applauded the ref directly after the sending-off, or simply wanted the guilty party to note he didn?t regard the dismissal in any way fair. Not quite sure what the real intention was there, but whichever way you want to look at it, both were bang out of order, and leave a real nasty taste in my mouth. Not to mention the distinctly-thespian second-half antics of a certain Mister Drogba this lunchtime, launching himself backwards as Greening drew near ? the contact was minimal, at best: the incident took place about ten or so yards away from where I was sitting - then spinning around in mid-air the dramatic way he did: put a bit of extra passion into his ?audition? today, and he might well have made the final cut for the Oscars ceremonies, never mind the casting-couch.

No sour grapes on my part, this: Chelski, I daresay, could have beaten us any time, any place, anywhere, of that I?m sure. You don?t get to occupy the lofty perch they currently hold by employing a half-baked collection of jobbing pros fresh from other European clubs? collective clear-outs: no, to get that far needs skill, passion, commitment, flair, all of which Chelski have in abundance. Sometimes, they are a delight to watch, the very epitome of that wonderfully-evocative phrase ?the beautiful game?, leaving me gasping in sheer delight at their wonderfully-balletic ball skills, more often that not ? but on other occasions, as per today, some of their finest would have even a side consisting entirely of half-plastered Sunday League pub players looking askance with disgust, and it does them no favours, wins neither friends nor influence, either within the British game or elsewhere, a particularly unsavoury aspect of Chelsea?s game I really do find incredibly sad. They?re good, they know they?re good, we know they?re good, the whole country knows they?re good ? so why do it?

And then there?s that sending-off incident, of course. How horribly unnecessary was that tackle from Arjen Robbens on Jonathan Greening? The ball, stuck in the left hand corner of the ground adjacent to the Brummie, in the direction of their goal, was going absolutely nowhere, so why go through Greening two-footed, as near as makes no difference, anyway? Not to mention in horribly-late fashion. OK, my seat is situated about ten yards over the halfway line, on the Halfords Lane side of the pitch, but even from my slightly restricted vantage point, I could see there was no need at all for Robbens to do what he did. Some kinds of craziness you simply can?t explain.

But, as per usual, I get ahead of myself. Just a few hours previously, we?d woken from our slumbers, looked out of our bedroom window ? then looked again, this time in complete disbelief. White stuff, just about everywhere you cared to look, and not just a light icing-sugar-on-a-sticky-bun sort of dusting, the whole works ? God?s dandruff, line of Charlie, call it what you will. And even more descending from the lowering clouds even as we gawped disbelievingly in the direction of our street. Ooer. And at the same time? Cue for panic-stricken call from The Noise: ?Is the game still on?? was the nervously-phrased question. Poor lamb ? he had to travel all of fifty miles downstream, and with a couple of nippers in tow as well. No wonder he was panicking.

Mind you, we needn?t have worried our pretty little heads; the flaky stuff dried up within about 30 minutes, and we could see that although bloody cold outside, the stuff wasn?t freezing again, so as far as we were concerned, the show would undoubtedly go on. An early start this time, of course: half-ten in the morning, to take into account the early kick-off. And, once we?d got there, a quick tootle into the ticket office to sort out my errant stile-card ? more revelations, embarrassingly so for me, later ? and to check out the sale stuff in the shop. It was while I was ambling round the latter I happened to notice, on the wall, three Albion clocks, all purporting to show the time in London, The Big Apple, and Sydney ? but something wasn?t right, and at first, I couldn?t put my finger on it. Then the penny dropped: all three were showing times with the minute hand pointing to completely different numbers. Now even the most obtuse of Dingles knows that?s downright impossible, so further investigation was called for ? aha! No batteries! Groundhog Day at The Hawthorns ? even time stands still?.Whoops!

But now to the embarrassing bit ? and never let it be said I dish it out in heaps, but can?t take it back. As the ticket office was empty, I decided now was as good a time as any to get to the bottom of the card-refusal mystery, so explaining the problem carefully, I handed over my card to the nice lady behind the counter ? and the answer I got in a matter of seconds. I?d been using a stilecard to get in, all right ? but last year?s, sadly! Yes, I do have a current one, but for some reason, I hadn?t destroyed the old one, and what made it worse, was erroneously placing it right at the very front of my bum-bag?s ?essential cards? compartment. At that moment, I truly wanted the Earth to swallow me up, and it was all I could do to make suitably-apologetic noises to the lady that dealt with me and my problem, then quit the scene of the ?crime? as quick as humanly possible! Again, many humble apologies, Albion-peeps ? and I promise not to say another nasty word about your stilecards ever again, honest!

Over to the pub, then, where The Noise, plus brood, awaited our arrival. A very croaky Bethany today, though ? she?d been off school these last couple of days, apparently. How come? Lost her voice, I?m told! Why was I not surprised? It was while I was in the process of grabbing seats I happened to bump into one of the ?Drinking Family?, matriarch Angela. It so happened that she?d been having problems with her back also, and versus Boro last week, this had caused her to miss her first home game for about six or seven years. Well, putting it another way, the last time she didn?t go to a game was an early-season televised encounter with our old chums Grimsby Town, back in the days when Buckley was our leader. Typical Albion, though ? as I recall, we finished that one with about five Grimsby goals banged into our own net! Oh happy days.

The drinks having been fetched by our charming ?waitress? Carly, it was time for The Noise to philosophise long and loud about the purchase of scarves: ?Back home, they buy a tartan scarf, and because it?s a Burberry, a ?cool? brand-name, they?ll happily stump up the cash. You go to Scotland, and you can pick up any tartan you want..? ? Carly had gone for the ?Campbell? variety, apparently: ?nuff said ? ??and end up paying less than half the price you do down here!? (Oh ? and talking about Kev Campbell, The Noise tells me he?s on ?A Question Of Sport? next Friday night, so if you want to witness this astronomical event ? come on, when was the last time you saw an Albion player on that show? ? make sure you stay in that night. Blimey, the last one I ever saw ? although there surely most have been some since ? was The King, not long before the 1970 Mexico World Cup!

By then, The Fart had joined our merry band, and all full of tales of lots of people sending him cards and emails to forward onto Derek Kevan, too. (And it?s still not too late, all you foreign Baggie?people out there!) Two things the Old Fart had to relate: firstly, the team news, or what he knew of it. Campbell up front on his jacksi, with Kanu and Ellington very much bench-bound. Ooer. Exclaimed an apprehensive Noise, on hearing what The Fart had to say about who was playing and who wasn?t: ?Are we doing it for charity? Am I missing something?? The other matter? Tomorrow, should your Sunday rag of choice be The Observer, go to their sports section; provided nothing?s gone wrong, you should be able to see a complete distillation of The Fart?s innermost thoughts on today?s game.

The best bit, though, was reserved for just before the time we all made to go our separate matchday ways. It so happened that in the pub that day was none other than youthful Albion fringe-player Stuart Nicholson, and Carly being just fifteen years of age, and being stuffed about as full of teenage hormones as it?s possible to get by now, wasted no time at all in getting the lad?s autograph. The thing was, though, as he dutifully signed for the lass, he struck up a bit of a conversation with her ? and the effect was instantaneous. From then on in, she had eyes only for her new-found swain! Poor Rob Hulse ? now discarded after so many years of faithful service! Naturally, everyone else gently teased her about it afterwards, and this made her blush even more than she had while talking to the lad!

Jokes immediately abounded, more or less along the lines of: ?Ooh, it isn?t half cold ? let?s get a bit of a warm from Carly?s cheeks, eh?? Then: ?Why are you blushing, Carly?? ?Because it?s WARM!? was her indignant but heartfelt reply! All that teasing made the poor girl?s cheeks redden even more, of course, but as she did so, and as I watched, the years suddenly slid away, time rapidly went backwards, and there was I, at precisely the same age, getting the same sort of ?hots? for The King, Chippy Clark and Bomber Brown as they played snooker in that most salubrious of players? off-duty haunts, West Bromwich Labour Club! Been there, done that. Some things never change, though, do they? Tell you what though, Carly, at one stage, the colour of your face didn?t half match our living-room wall!

A few minutes later, we were all out in the streets; time to await The Noise going through the Brummie turnstiles so that we could grab his card via the barred bit at the end so we can purchase a Villa ticket for him when they go on sale, in but a few weeks time. We didn?t have to wait long: first Bethany, then Carly emerged from the gaping maw of the turnstiles, closely followed by the garrulous bulk of the man himself. Grabbing the ticket, we then left him ? or I did, rather ? with my parting shot: ?Don?t tell your Carly, but she?s going to get absolute hell from me tonight?.!? Well, I mean ? getting the ?hots? over one of our players, then doing a wonderful cherry the very first moment he speaks to her? Consider yourself well and truly ?outed?, my girl!

In very sharp contrast to the weather prevailing at the time of our arrival, cloudy and cold, with the slight threat of even more snow vaguely in the offing, once out of the pub, we discovered the clime to be a most congenially sunny one indeed. There was even the faint promise of spring warmth in the yellow orb hanging just above our heads, which was a great improvement on the near-freezing conditions we?d encountered earlier that day. A bit more sunshine, and there?d be no need whatsoever for heavy outer-garments, of whatever description. Bring it on, I say.

Once inside, as we?d been told earlier, our side was very heavy on Campbell, but not so heavy on the likes of Kanu and The Duke. ?Im Indoors reckoned Robbo was trying what Boro did the other week: having one up front, then getting other players to man-mark the guys on the flanks, hoping all the while they?d get lucky, which Boro most certainly did, of course. Having said that, I couldn?t really visualise Chelski making the same mistake several times on the bounce, so blind hope wasn?t exactly foremost in my mind this afternoon, either.

Before the commencement of normal activities, though, a tribute ? well, two, actually. One for the late Peter Osgood, as expected, the other for the lad that got killed outside that Charlemont pub the other day, young Scott Poll. And, as the referee?s whistle drew everyone closer to the centre-circle, an amazing sight in the away end. Just about every Chelsea supporter present holding up a card that bore the legend: ?Peter Osgood RIP?. The tribute then commenced, their away followers at first preferring to do things in their own inimitable style, by clapping the guy a la Man United with George Best, then as things got underway, holding those cards aloft and perfectly-still in such a manner that immediately reminded me of images caught courtesy high-speed flash photography. Arms, hands, bodies, even, all frozen in precisely the way they were when the referee first blew for the start of the tribute, such an incongruous-looking tableau lending something of a surrealist air to the occasion.

The game? Of the incidents that proved really contentious, those I?ve already discussed. Other team news was that of loanee Kozac being given a first full game for the stripes, and as for the visitors ? well, they may have been without the services of Lampard today, but even so, they were still oozing classy players from just about every pore you can think of.

So, what did for us, then? Easy, that one ? human error at the back, plain and simple. We really were badly at fault for both goals, the second of which more or less put the entire issue beyond doubt. Even so, after a couple of attempts on the part of Chelsea ? and I will concede they might have been a tad unlucky not to break the deadlock really early on that occasion ? thanks to the sterling efforts of Kev Campbell elsewhere, we might well have notched the opener up on our belts as well. The header, seemingly grabbed with the West Londoners all at sea, flew mean and nasty towards its eventual target, and, although eventually caught by their keeper, certainly had a bit of pace about it. First real Baggie blood to Campbell, then.

Not all that long afterwards, Kozac was most unlucky not to carve himself a small niche of his very own in Albion history by almost managing to lob the Chelsea keeper- and its relative accuracy, landing as it did in the foremost part of the roof netting certainly had some Chelsea folks going up close and personal with palpitations, their keeper included. And, to be scrupulously fair to our lot, despite some fears we?d get swamped in those opening exchanges, they were coming up with some pretty good passing and movement all of their very own.

And, as we continued to hold our own out there, the more frustrated they became on the visitors? side of the dug-out. Clearly, we?d never bothered to read the script, which was why they were getting so narked out there. Frustrations were gradually coming to boiling point in the Chelsea camp, and the net result we saw when an absolute phalanx of Chelsea players mobbed the ref when an Albion tackle, more stupid than downright malicious, earned a yellow card for the tackler. Shapes of things to come? Too bloody right, blue.

Just a few minutes before the break, that man Kozac nearly did it again, this time with a truly wonderful run on the left then, cutting inside a tad, he finally let fly. Only the side netting, but the West London mob were clearly vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes. Only time would tell whether we could capitalise in it, but in the meantime, the whistle went for the interval.

The little bit of nastiness that occurred when Albion took to the pitch for the second helping I?ve already spoken of. Partly brought about by the sheer length of time Mourhinho?s side took to get from dressing-room to pitch ? Robbo clearly considered them guilty of underhand practices, and wasted no time making his feeling on the subject well and truly known ? and it was in this ill-tempered sort of spirit the whole caboodle kicked off for the second dose. Up until then, try as they might, the visitors hadn?t really managed to ruffle the feathers of our finest, but as we all know, our defending isn?t exactly the best in the world, and so it was to prove after five minutes. Inamoto inadvertently gave the ball away, and suddenly, Drogba was on the thing like a dive-bomber, and steaming into our box at a rate of knots. ?Don?t back off ? DON?T BACK OFF!?..? screamed my other half, but in vain. That was all they needed; within seconds, the ball was in the back of the net, and Chelsea had got themselves the lead they hadn?t really deserved on the run of play.

We really should have defended better, though; had we done so, perhaps the outcome would have been somewhat different? Now we were in the business of chasing the game, as per usual, but having to be wary of Chelsea attacking on the break. A few minutes later, Drogba nearly did it again; luckily the Pole In Goal was astute enough to snuff out the danger that time. Not so long after that, Albion nearly bagged the equaliser, when a Kamara effort took an almighty deflection for a corner.

Fifteen minutes into the half came the sending-off incident I mentioned at the start. I have to say it again, mind ? what on earth possessed Robben when he decided to do that, I?ll never know in a million years. Suffice to say it introduced an enormous amount of bad blood into the proceedings, and why their manager also appeared to be tacitly condoning what his player had done to Greening, I?ll never understand either. And Robbo?s comments afterwards surprised me; according to him, he thought the red card had been a harshly-imposed one. I?ve since seen the tackle that caused all the trouble: two footed, hard, and late ? very, very late. Not ?harsh? by any stretch of the imagination. Not long after that, just to make relations between match official and spectators even more cordial, the ref then turned down what appeared to be a pretty-valid penalty shout on the part of Campbell.

With about twenty to go, our leader then tried bringing on both Kanu and The Duke, Inamoto and Campbell being the sacrificial pawns this time round. Lots in our part of the Halfords were glad to see the back of Campbell, certainly, but perhaps they hadn?t taken notice of all those lovely headed flicks, all done with the intention of bringing others into the game as and when necessary? The Bloke In Front Of Me certainly hadn?t: his constant litany every time Campbell even went within a couple of yards of the ball was something on the lines of: ? ?Opeless, cowin? ?opeless ? GERRIMOFF!? Had my critical little chum been a central heating boiler, I reckon he would have exploded right on the spot! John Homer? A strangely-subdued lad this tine round; nary a bellow of: ?Referee, goo ?an bile yer yed!?? did I hear the entire game. Sickening for something, mate?

In the meantime, Chelsea had brought on Joe Cole, and with about 15 to go, and just a few minutes after we?d rung the changes, he banged in their second. Again, we had nothing and no-one to blame but ourselves for what happened, rank bad defending, every time. Wallwork, who up until then had enjoyed an almost blameless existence, seemed to be the person responsible, the stray pass finding that man Drogba again, then during the course of the goalmouth melee that ensued ? I reckon Chelsea must have had around four or five decent shots on goal, all well and truly frustrated, of course, before Cole finally managed to put the ball away, making us two goals in arrears ? and, for us ?game over?.

Watson came on for Albrechtsen with around ten to the end, but we seemed dead as a doornail ? then Kanu, in a flash, gave us a quick demonstration of his scintillating goalscoring talents. In his mid-thirties he may well be right now, and not quite the player he was when at his peak with Arsenal, but he sure as hell can poach a goal when he puts his mind to it. One lovely cross from Paul Robinson, a quiet bit of lurking on the near post, and suddenly, we?d got one back, albeit with only about three minutes to the end. Not nearly enough to rescue the situation, of course, but at least we had a go. As I?ve said many times before, it?s far better to have a go and fail than to not even attempt to try in the first place.

As for Mourhino and his expensively-dressed minions, such was the measure of their appalling behaviour today, to be quite honest, I wouldn?t weep salt tears at all if, at some yet-to-be determined venue, they got back in heaps precisely what it is they currently seem to enjoy dishing out to other people. There?s a Biblical saying to the effect that: ?Your sins will find you out?.? I wonder how soon it will be before The Golden One will realise he?s finally bitten off far more than he can chew? Watch this space!

And Finally?.. Now here?s a marvellous thing for you. Friday evening, shortly before setting out to see my folks, I was standing outside and waiting for ?Im Indoors to open up the car, when I suddenly decided to take a butchers at the night sky, which, it being frosty, was as clear as a bell, oodles of stars twinkling away furiously up there. And then ? something caught the corner of my eye. Coming roughly from the west, it looked very much like a star, but since when have stars moved with such lightning speed across the night sky? And it wasn?t a plane, either: they have flashing lights on their wingtips and don?t make like astronomical bodies ? well, not the last time I looked, at any rate.

So ? it wasn?t a star, and most certainly not an aircraft ? just what was it, then? Finally, as I watched, the penny dropped. The thing I?d seen was the International Space Station which, being the dimensions of a good-sized house by now ? those Russkies don?t half make a good imitation of Wimpeys? finest when they put their minds to it ? and free of the Earth?s shadow as well, was more than capable of reflecting the Sun?s rays right back down to earth, which is precisely why I spotted the wretched thing in the first place..

Oh, well ? at least I found it interesting! Not only that, having checked various astronomical websites afterwards for confirmation of what I?d just seen, it?ll still be visible from these latitudes for a few more evenings yet, although you?ll probably have to wait about 20 minutes longer than I did for a sighting. Check with Google yourself for precise timings for your particular geographical location. And yes, you can see it very easily indeed, despite the considerable amount of light pollution knocking around these days. Could it be the advent of this particular piece of ironmongery will serve as the basis for updated modern sayings for kids to chant, as per: Satellite at night/Albion are shite?.. OK ? I?ll go and get me coat!

 - Glynis Wright

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