The Diary

27 March 2006: White Hart Lane - A 'Spur' To Our Relegation Fight?

It?s been a bit like the legendary ?curate?s egg? this weekend, Albion-wise, I suppose. ?Good in parts?, that is. At least we can now face our chums at White Hart Lane tomorrow night knowing precisely what we have to do to stay ahead of the game. On Saturday, much to everyone?s amazement, Pompey?s Fratton Park early evening encounter with The Arse fell by the wayside due to the weather ? and given that Arsenal were likely to play with a weakened side that day, I?m still trying to make my mind up whether that postponement was a help or a hindrance to our cause.

As for the Bluenose side of the city ? oh, whoops. They ended up on the wrong end of a three-goal tanking at the hands of Man United, which can?t have done their morale much good, can it? It?s now entirely in our own hands: win or draw at White Hart Lane tomorrow, and that?s another valuable stretch of clear blue water put between them and us. There?s also that three-goal addition to their ?goals against? tally, of course, something which might prove extremely useful should things get too close to call come the end of hostilities.

Over the years, there?s been some pretty famous faces played for both clubs. In recent years, Garth Crooks, Ruel Fox and Graham Roberts have also espoused the Baggie cause, while their present-day gaffer, Martin Jol, was an early eighties first team Hawthorns regular, of course. Some things don?t change, mind ? even now, Jol is still the proud owner of facial features perfectly capable of souring cream over a distance of several hundreds of yards. Both Ossie Ardiles and Keith Burkinshaw were also managerial incumbents for a short period of time, of course. The first still rankles with Baggies, of course: the moment we ensured promotion from the then-Division Two by whopping poor Port Vale in the 1992-93 Wembley play-offs, down swooped the north London club to take the guy back to his old haunts, but as manager this time.

Can our strike-force come up with the goods tomorrow night, I wonder? One thing though, chaps ? please, pretty please, just for a change, can we start with two up front tomorrow night, instead of just one solitary Baggie bod looking for all the world as though he has a serious personal freshness problem? Nathan Ellington is busting a gut for a start, it would seem, and given he managed to score against Blues for the first time in yonks the other week, it might well pay us to bring him in from the cold tomorrow night ? but utilised in tandem with someone else. Kanu, perhaps? The time for elegant defensive tactics is past. With just eight remaining, we?re rapidly running out of road, so the merits of employing risky but bold strategies have to be given equally serious consideration, surely? Of one thing I?m sure ? carry on in the same negative sort of vein, and it won?t be a case of ?if? any more ? just ?when?.

Joe Kamara, one of our more effective performers ten days ago, will very likely be out of action with hamstring trouble, apparently. Additionally, our intemperately-tempered chum Quashie will be on the fourth of a five-match ban, so an understudy will be needed once more. That will mean either Carter, Kozak or Inamoto taking centre stage, of course. And while our few remaining ?walking wounded? try to get themselves sorted out, there?s bad news for Liverpool loanee Chris Kirkland, the only Premiership footballer currently being sponsored by both the BMA and the Royal College Of Nursing. And with a standing invite to his local hospital?s staff Christmas function. So rumour has it.

It would appear that those horrible little injury gremlins have struck again, this time, well and truly in the old metacarpals. That?s ?finger bones? to you, squire ? or, to be strictly accurate, one such digit only. Made a funny sort of ?crunching? noise when struck in training, it did, and dead painful it was, too, by all accounts. The upshot of all this is that now Chris is about as much use between the sticks as someone super-glued to the floor, he?s now been returned to the club that once embraced him so tenderly. Whether or not we later renew our former interest in the lad I couldn?t rightly say, but when you consider his injury record, both with his former club and ours, if I were a bookie taking odds on prospects of a recurrence, I?d simply laugh the enquiring punter right out of court. Being a cat-lover myself, I?d also want to ask searching questions regarding any recent ill-treatment of any black moggies he may have perpetrated along the way!

The opposition? They could well have the lad Mido back and raring to go. If that?s the case, then he could well be keeping company with Rob Keane, and Jermain Defoe kicking his heels on the subs? bench. Apart from that, they seem to be firing on all cylinders, which is more than can be said about us, so it would seem. The ref? Chris Foy, who officiated in our Cup games last season, both there and at The Hawthorns. I do remember him giving the bulk of the contentious stuff to Spurs on both occasions, so don?t expect any help whatsoever from that quarter. We will be keeping a weather-eye on our performance, of course, but via the medium of satellite TV this time. Perhaps we?re both getting a bit long in the tooth, or something, but the overall appeal of midweek trips to The Smoke and the virtual certainty of a small-hours return have tended to recede greatly of late.

Owing to our game being scheduled for tomorrow, very little of an Albion nature going on back in God?s own Black Country yesterday, but that small detail didn?t stop us pair making our own merriment. It all started because those nice folkies behind the Hereford fanzine ?Talking Bull? asked us to assist them in flogging their latest number, the first to hit the streets since the early part of the current season, apparently.

As it was our considerable expertise in that area they prized, how could we possibly refuse? Given also that the weather forecast had promised genuine spring-like temperatures, accompanied by distinctly-sunnier climes than we?d enjoyed of late, Saturday promised to be pretty good fun. Sadly, though, the promised vernal idyll just didn?t materialise. How come? Not being a meteorologist by trade, I really don?t know ? does Hereford enjoy a microclimate radically different to the rest of the British Isles, I wonder? Whatever the reason, the upshot of it all was that by the time we arrived at the ground, slate-grey skies were once more the norm, the mercury had plunged somewhat precipitously, and just to put the metaphorical decorations on top of the iced cake, it began to rain. Not a downpour, just a slight drizzle at worst, but enough to make flogging a distinctly-damp proposition for those about to embark upon such eccentric pre-match activities.

What did amaze me, though, was the rapidity with which ?Im Indoors managed to shift his stock: I?d heard beforehand that the Bulls? persuasion were extremely fanzine-literate, but this enthusiasm for what our own board might term ?The Product? was truly astonishing. Setting up adjacent to some public toilets in close proximity to the ground ? some would very unkindly say our location was highly appropriate, I suppose! - we?d originally started with around 200 of the blasted things, but within, literally, minutes of commencing flogging operations, we?d managed to shift no less than fifty copies, and that without really trying! The best bit I managed to miss, though. While hubby was busy doing his thing, I took the opportunity of ?powdering my nose? in the aforementioned ablutions, and it was while I was attending to this basic biological function I missed the arrival of some Baggies supporters badly in need of their customary Saturday afternoon ?fix? ? and yes, they did recognise ?Im Indoors, and yes, they did regale him with sundry Baggies ?war cries?!

At least it made a distinct change from the ?cabaret? that greeted us the last time we flogged at that very same spot. Nothing to do with the cider-slurpers, more the sheer amount of cider slurped by the main character in this tale. If you will, cast your minds back to season 1994-95, and our League Cup fate taking us to sunny Edgar Street very early on in that campaign. A first leg at their place, and some serious GD-shifting outside beforehand, of course. Our ?audience?? A tramp, quietly sleeping off his previous alcoholic excesses on a handy bench close by. What he hadn?t bargained for, though, was getting a rude awakening of the decibel-laden kind ? when he?s in full fig, my other half is quite capable of drowning out even the eardrum-rupturing roars of a Brigade of Guards RSM on ceremonial parade. Oh, my dears ? the language, the language! Quite a knowledge of anatomy, both male and female, did that old dosser have, and very voluble he was with it, too. Coo, the things they teach ?em in those night shelters these days!

Returning rapidly to the year 2006, within the space of just 45 minutes, my beloved had flogged around 50% of his entire stock. All that, and just one solitary ?Is that the programme?? to contend with as well. Oh ? and just one solitary shed-load of abuse from someone who thought it both big and clever to go in for that sort of thing. Strange lot, these country types ? it really must be all that scrumpy, dead rats, iron bars, and all, I suppose. Or something. Well, if it can dissolve any or all of the aforementioned foreign bodies within a matter of hours, just what is it capable of doing to the human digestive tract, I wonder? Not to mention brain cells. Talking of ?going in?, that was precisely what I?d done by that time, so I?d ended up missing the fun completely.

The game? Kiddy Harriers were the opposition, the latest incarnation of an ongoing local rivalry that has provided more angst for Bulls followers over the years than even the elegant, lovely, but obnoxious Neil Warnock would know what to do with. As their own Conference position wasn?t much to write home about, what Kiddy tried to do was stop the home side playing ? and boy, was it effective. All helped by the dismissal of a Hereford player for alleged retaliation ? the guy had only struck out in complete frustration after being seriously impeded on the blind side of both ref and lino ? and from then on in, the dismissal served to totally change the course of the entire game.

Hereford weren?t helped at all by the fact that try as they might, they couldn?t even hit a barn door at six paces, never mind find the back of the net. Three really juicy chances went begging ? then, in the 73rd minute, disaster struck. It all started when Kiddy embarked upon a totally speculative punt from the edge of the box. Nine times out of ten the ball would have simply run for a bog-standard goal kick and be done with it, but not this time, sadly. On its way in, the ball took an almighty deflection off someone ? Conference clubs not being in the habit of providing instant TV replays for their punters, I really haven?t got a clue as to the identity of the culprit, should you wish to call him that - so one moment there was the sight of a Bulls keeper, in complete control of the situation, diving to his right, the next, the distinctly-depressing one of the ball going over the line in a completely opposite direction to the one originally anticipated! Not in the script, that ? oh, whoops!

The reaction of the Kiddy support to that unlikely breakthrough was quite astonishing. Prior to their flukey strike, we hadn?t heard a solitary peep from them, not a squeak, even. Were all their followers secret members of a Trappist Order? That was what we?d idly speculated, much earlier in the game. Come the goal, and they suddenly rediscovered their latent lungpower ? and, unsurprisingly, didn?t shut up for the remainder of the game after that.

There was also an Albion interest on the Kiddy side ? Daryl Burgess, would you believe? Now 35, and retaining much the same angular facial features he had when with us, but looking far more chunky these days, it has to be said. And doing a wonderful leadership job out there, constantly directing, marshalling and prompting his younger charges the whole of the 90 minutes. I remember Daryl primarily because of what happened the day we journeyed to Pompey for our last game of the 1993-94 season. To avoid relegation, we simply had to register a Fratton Park win; with Blues also frantically scrabbling for a place in the lifeboat, a draw wasn?t likely to be good enough. As you can imagine, by the time we got to their place, the atmosphere among the thousands of Baggies who travelled for that one was so electrically charged, the National Grid could quite easily have sent us a bill courtesy The Hawthorns.

And that?s where Daryl came in, peeps. Arriving pretty early on a fine, sunny, and beautifully warm day ? remember what those were like, anyone? ? having parked up The Dickmobile, we decided to spend a little bit of time before the ground opened flogging fanzines (and assisting our Pompey counterparts in their valiant efforts to do same!) and generally taking the emotional temperature of our genuinely angst-ridden away support. It was while we were strolling along one of the many side-streets that embrace Fratton Park we first spotted Daryl, unable to play that day because of injury, if my memory serves me correctly. Not just striding purposefully in the direction of the players? entrance or posh bits, as you might well expect, given his status, but stopping and talking at length to just about every Baggie who recognised him.

No mere ego-trip, this, despite my initial misgivings about his true purpose. No, it very quickly became apparent to all of us standing there that local lad Daryl was just as nervous about the likely outcome of that game as we were. His actions and words that day put me very much in mind of an enlightened senior Army officer in World War 2 - Montgomery, or General Slim, say - engaging in a series of morale-boosting walkabouts among his troops immediately prior to letting loose The Big Offensive. Body-language told its own tale: one minute joshing with his audience, the next cajoling, imploring, urging, even, his side?s followers to give it everything in the vocal department that fraught afternoon.

It spoke volumes for Daryl?s general leadership qualities that within literally minutes of embarking upon lengthy conversations with the guy, most previously-anxious Baggies were seen to come away with huge grins wrapped around their faces once more. Given the present-day existence of the massive gulf that now serves to divide supporters from those they admire, could any of our current performers do such an incredible (and totally-impromptu) hearts-and-minds job on our faithful, I wonder? Try as I might, I can?t readily think of anyone in our first-string even remotely likely to be willing to press the flesh in the aid of the cause, never mind condescend to engage in lengthy discourse with The Great Unwashed on the streets before the game. Big Dave, certainly, but as he?s now very much a Derby County bod, and nothing whatsoever to do with our club any more, I can?t really include him in this, can I?

Mind you, despite the depressing nature of the final score on Bulls followers, the game did have its amusing moments. As you probably know, we generally tend to sit with a group of Herefordians we?ve known for an awfully-long time, one of these matchday chums being known to all and sundry as ?Talking Bill?. Why? For much the same reason we dubbed Martin Lewis with the sobriquet ?The Noise?, really. He is to Hereford United what The Noise is to our lot ? both nicknames say it all, really. For various reasons, we haven?t seen all that much of Bill this season, but yesterday, he did turn up for the ball, and plonking himself into his usual socket just before the kick-off.

Now Bill, being the vociferous and totally-loyal creature he is, won?t let what he perceives to be a bad case of ?football injustice? lie with but a murmured ?Dearie, dearie me, referee?.? by way of comment. No, with Bill, you always get the full works, and, what?s more, it invariably comes stoked up with enough genuine fire and passion to see the average household?s heating bills OK for months. So it was that within moments of the start, some perceived act of foul play on the part of the visitors got it with both barrels ? I can?t rightly remember the precise circumstances - but it certainly had Bill going big-time. Most of our immediate neighbours being Hereford regulars also, they?re well used to Bill?s eccentricities by now - but not so the male and female combo seated to his immediate right, it would seem. No sooner had those paint-stripping roars left his lips, both of them looked at each other like members of the current Royal Family suddenly finding themselves with a broken-down vehicle in the middle of some run-down council estate or other, and bodyguard-less, to boot ? then, with all the facially-screwed up dignity they could muster, ostentatiously swapped places!

Isn?t it truly amazing what one can find lurking in the dusty lower reaches of one?s own house when one least expects it? In this case, I?m referring to a GD publication called ?With Hope, Kaye And Clark?, penned by Baggies away game ?regular? Ian Thomson, the subject-matter being Albion?s 1993-94 season, Keith Burkinshaw and all. Our miserly former treasurer recently had a bit of a clear-out in his cellar ? and what you see above is what emerged from all the moth corpses, not to mention his entire dust-encrusted stash of moolah-containing biscuit-tins. These are the very last ones printed, ever ? the books, I mean, not the crisp fivers, although it wouldn?t surprise me in the slightest to find Steve?s now diversified into this highly lucrative way of saving the pennies! - so if you missed out last time, and still want this wonderful literary tome, act now!

Not exactly a season to get one stirred into feelings of great passion, admittedly, but the book?s well-written all the same, and a neat piece of genuine Albion history to boot. It runs to some 276 pages, so Steve The Miser reminds me ? as for price, I do believe the miserly old sod?s gone soft on us while we weren?t paying attention. Three squid?s worth of coinage, me old beauty ? which does include postage and packing, I do believe (Is Steve sickening for something right now, I wonder?) - and the thing?s yours. Just send a ?3 cheque, payable to ?Grorty Dick? to 32, Coles Lane, Hill Top, West Bromwich, Staffs, B71 2QJ. Now I also know why it was so aching urgent he needed to grab a digital camera! The crafty sod had considered flogging ?em on Ebay as well!

There you go, I just knew movie-buff Mister Fart would know the precise who, where and when of that Hammer Horror film I mentioned just the other day. The film in question was ' HOUSE OF WAX', filmed in 3-D' format, no less. Back in those more-innocent times, this was quite a novelty among film-lovers. On entry, each punter was given a pair of green and red' cardboard glasses enabling them to see the desired effect, and much consternation was caused with the cinema?s pre-screening demonstration, consisting of someone apparently chucking a ball right at the audience ? the result being the whole lot instinctively ducking to avoid the blasted thing. Vincent Price, definitely the King of Horror at that time - played the demented sculptor, while female lead Phyllis Kirk was to be his prized exhibit in the notorious 'dead/wax exhibition before being rescued.

The first time The Fart saw it was when doing National Service in English owned Hong Kong back in 1953. Being only a microscopic bit of humanity myself at that time, I reckon my sole interests centred around crying a lot, ingesting enormous quantities of 'Welfare' milk - augmented, sometimes, by a drop or three of falling-down water to ensure the subsequent onset of rapid sleep ? a tried and tested old wives? Black Country standby for harassed nerve-frazzled mums, that one, but for obvious medical reasons these days, totally-illegal, so don't try it! - closely followed by the mother of all pongy nappy-dumping episodes. I wouldn't know about the 3D spectacles bit, though - my sole exposure to that sort of film has been via the main TV networks' so-called 'graveyard slot'. Very appropriate for a horror film, n'est ce pas? Mind you, if someone could only come up with a pair of spectacles that would instantaneously render current Albion-watching far more palatable and rewarding, I think just about everyone in the ground, not to mention this column, would forever be in their debt!

Incidentally, talking about our venerable Baggies-supporting colleague, the reason we couldn?t get hold of him yesterday was because both he and his missus Dot ? ?Just call me ?Scouse?, or I?ll nick yer hubcaps ? right, wack?? ? were taking part in an animal rights demo in Brum. All to do with the resumption of seal-culling in Canada, apparently. Thanks to the power of both press and public opinion at the time, their government banned the practice a few decades ago, but thanks to no end of lobbying on the part of vested interests of late, the furriers have now been given the green light to carry on again.

Sure, there have been recent protests innumerable, from various parts of the media, not to mention on the streets, but perhaps it?s an indicator of our current inability to be shocked by anything any more ? those recent pictures from Iraq of both bombings and ill-treatment of detainees pretty much bear out what I mean ? we?re not responding in the way we would have done, say, back in the sixties or seventies. It?s at times like these I thank the world for people like The Fart, totally unafraid to put their money where their mouth is, and doing something practical to raise public awareness of the issue while they?re at it. Mind you, I am assuming that the phrase ?stop seal culls? doesn?t embrace our phocine Aston neighbours as well. Sorry, Tel, being an animal lover myself, I do appreciate your viewpoint, but the more those fish-lovers get to ?join the club? the better, as far as I?m concerned!

And finally? One. As some may have seen via Saturday?s press, during the course of an ongoing Old Bailey terrorist trial, the prosecution alleged, amongst other things, that the defendants had plotted to poison loads of people by introducing various ?horribles? to burgers and drinks purchased by hungry and thirsty football supporters. A dastardly and diabolical notion, to be sure, but not an entirely new one, it must be said. Forget Al Qaeda, that sort of dastardly thing has been going on quite openly for years. Under the guise of ?matchday catering?!

Two. Yes, before you all write to tell me en bloc, I do know what follows isn?t exactly original, and is most certainly not Albion ? I found it lurking at the front of The Guardian?s G2 section last Friday, actually ? but that doesn?t stop it from being bloody funny, so soddit, I?m including it in tonight?s piece anyway. It?s my ball, and I?m playing with it ? so there. Just one thing, though. Those of you who haven?t seen it already, don?t go making too much of a mess on your best living-room carpet when you end up busting a gut laughing, just like I did when I first encountered it, albeit in a slightly less bowdlerised form!

Three totally-different species of animal, all bragging as to how terrifying they must seem to the rest of the animal kingdom:

?When I roar,? said the lion, ?the whole of the jungle trembles!? ?When I growl,? said the bear, ?the whole floor of the forest quakes!? ?So what!? said the chicken, ?When I cough, the whole bloody world craps itself!?.?

Three. So the elegant, lovely and talented Mister Drogba has been up to his tricks again, has he? How many time is that, now? Three on the bounce, first at our place, with that disgraceful attempt to get Jonathan Greening sent off, then versus Fulham in the week (goal disallowed that time, though), then yesterday, the last one of these involving a hand-ball episode so blatant, just about everyone in the ground saw it ? bar the bloke in black, apparently! And just to add insult to injury, because his excesses weren?t spotted at the time, the goal he scored in such an unorthodox fashion still stood. No wonder Man City were ready to commit murder afterwards.

What astonished me even more, though, was his post-match interview on BBC?s Radio Five yesterday, in which he more or less openly admitted what he?d done. And, what?s more, gave the overall impression of not caring two hoots either way about having done so, as well. So unnerved were we both by the candour of his confession, ?Im Indoors nearly ran our car into a ditch! Time for the game?s rulers to do something positive, incisive and immediate about this blatant bending of football?s basic laws, I wonder? A charge of bringing the game into disrepute is the very least they should be doing right now, in my opinion. If not, don?t be surprised when other sides subsequently elect to fracture the game?s ordnances in similar unsportsmanlike fashion. Should what was once genuinely a ?beautiful game? go down that pernicious route, we might just as well forget The Hawthorns, and all take up ten-pin bowling instead.

 - Glynis Wright

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