The Diary

09 May 2003: The Joys Of Country Life - and not the dairy product, either!

Salutations from this column to all those who now sail in me, with added felicitations should you require them also, although I do charge extra for that service, along with whipping and what's commonly described as 'strict discipline', but perhaps we'd better not go too far down that particular road; I'm sure that the act of following our favourite football team on a regular basis is an activity masochistic enough for most people, never mind extracurricular activities some might euphemistically describe as 'added extras'?

As I said in my last piece, both 'Im Indoors and myself have been wallowing in the wilds of Deepest Herefordshire these last six days or so, and what a relaxing time it's been, too. There's a wood and a large lake not far from our holiday home, and right now, it being late spring, both are an absolute delight to wander in and around. The wood is currently thickly carpeted with bluebells, more than I've ever seen in one location in a long, long time, and my camera shutter has been in overdrive, as you would expect. As for the lake, numerous ducks and geese are busily nesting, as are the swans; it won't be too long now before we see the small downy fruits of their labours following mum and dad in line astern along the shore. Elsewhere in the area, there are pheasant and grouse in profusion, also rabbits and hares aplenty; there's even a resident owl who performs nightly for our benefit, plus a full backing chorus of bats. Lovely to behold, all of it, and only an hour or so away from the polluted madness of the West Midlands conurbation. As Pop Larkin might have said in The Darling Buds Of May, 'Perfick'..

Don't think that all this communing with nature malarkey has made us less mindful of what's been going on in the wacky world of the beautiful game; far from it, in fact. The other night, we even found a local fixture - Express And Star West Midlands League, I'll have you know - to attend, the respective combatants being Kington, a small town about eight miles from our base, and Westfields. As it happened, we couldn't have dropped on a better encounter; this was a first-versus-second in the table clash, and unbeknown to us, both teams had played one another just three weeks previously, which certainly explained why both sets of players got stuck in with terrifying zeal within milliseconds of the ref's whistle announcing the commencement of proceedings.

As for the question of forming a temporary allegiance with one side or another, that problem was sorted out for us in pretty short order as Westfield's kit was not dissimilar to that of a certain claret-and-blue-clad outfit situated not a million miles away from The Shrine. Having seen very little football as played at that level before, what struck me most of all was the sheer passion and commitment displayed by all the players; none of this 'I've been clobbered on the edge of the box therefore I'll roll around as if pole-axed and hope I get something' malarkey, just honest graft from blokes who'd done a hard day's job of work before taking to the field, and clearly enjoyed what they were doing. What a game it was as well; only three quid to get in, and viewed from the vantage point of their bijou stand - the only such structure in the ground, actually - but what I witnessed easily surpassed some of those less-than-scintillating Premiership performances served up by our finest this term. Westfield took the lead at first, but by dint of some hard graft and even harder tackling, the home side equalised, then plonked themselves firmly in the driving-seat with a cracking goal not long after that. Oh, and there were also two dismissals for the visitors; the first came following an on-pitch mass brawl (I reckon the Kington bloke should have walked also, but he only got yellow), and the second came as the result of an overenthusiastic bit of bodily contact.

Sadly, the dismissals took quite a lot of the competitive edge from the game; prior to those two incidents, the whole encounter had been a finely-poised, fascinating affair. Even so, despite being down to nine good men and true, Westfield always looked capable of at least restoring parity, and towards the end, underlined the point by managing to hit the post. All in all, bloody good stuff, and I'm sure we'll be visiting Kington's gaff again before too many moons have waxed and waned. Oh - one other thing, before the game, we were recognised as being Baggies by one of the Kington players! Not difficult, really, as 'Im Indoors was wearing an Albion sweatshirt, but it certainly served to break the ice. It turned out that our new-found friend (a closet Scouse-lover) travelled to The Shrine to watch the Liverpool game (ouch!) and was particularly struck by the fervour and volume of our support, even when we were six down.

Getting firmly back into the swing of things once more, it came as no surprise to me whatsoever to pick up the E and S on our return this afternoon to discover that Our Jase is allegedly more than receptive to offers to jump our somewhat leaky ship in search of a more seaworthy vessel safely anchored in the lee of the Prem. Mind you, what's being said isn't fundamentally new, as it's always been a given that with the right sort of offer - and this, of course, applies to any player, never mind our Jase - the lad would be scorching up the highway faster than a Harrier jet with all its afterburners going full-blast. Of course, those previously-documented differences of opinion between the player and our Dear Leader way well have given the utterances of Jase's agent an added boost, but, as I see it, one fundamental problem still remains, and it's this: given that Jase's Premiership goal tally currently stands at - erm - three, I can't see other top-flight outfits beating a path to the East Stand doors for the lad's signature on the dotted, right now. I suppose one could argue that the reason for Jase's barren spell centres around the continued inability of our midfield to come up with suitable calibre ammunition for the main armament to fire; if that's the case, so the argument goes, then a move to a club more able to come up with the goalmouth goods might be just what the (spin?) doctor ordered. Then again, this may be a secondary consideration as far as the lad's concerned: judging from what I've heard about the state of the Meggo-Roberts relationship thus far this term, simply being able to indulge in a rational discussion about tactics with a gaffer without the constant fear of him blowing his stack quicker than Vesuvius on Viagra might well prove to be an attractive proposition for the lad?

Tomorrow, 'Im Indoors and myself are off up the M6, courtesy of our brand-new Dickmobile, in search of a play-off game, but still your beating hearts, all you Dingle-haters out there; that's not the game we had in mind. No, we're bound for the Land Of The Chattering Stokie, and the Conference showdown between Dagenham and Redbridge and Doncaster Rovers, which take place at The Britannia Stadium that afternoon. Donny Rovers, of course, are Football League old boys and looking to regain former glories; Daggers are the 'new kids on the block', so to speak, and are to non-League what The Borg are to Star Trek (like it or not, your club will be 'assimilated!') so the encounter between the two should be a lively affair. Obviously, I'll have more to say about it tomorrow night, but should the game degenerate into stalemate - unlikely, I know, but it's wise to be prepared for eventualities - I suppose I can always occupy myself by indulging in that ancient pastime of sticking pins into a wax effigy of Dave Jones instead?

And finally? I'd suspected it for a long time, but thanks to the good offices of the E and S, I've now had final confirmation: while Wolverhampton's night-life has suffered greatly due to a proliferation of the 'yob' culture in that city, that of West Bromwich is predicted to get better and better. It's all down to the c/PLEX arts and media centre, apparently; work is shortly to commence on the place - where the old bus station used to be, just in case you wondered - and once it's a going concern, so the argument goes, visitors and staff alike will need facilities to take in a beer or two with their meals, also a vibrant Continental-style ambience to match; suffice to say, our near-neighbours would be hard put to even spell 'ambience', let alone have a decent one in their part of the world?

 - Glynis Wright

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