The Diary

26 August 2003: Daylight Robbery At The Shrine

After watching both holiday period games, and wearing my knuckles down to the bone in the process, I have to say that if there?s a guardian angel with a special brief for watching over football teams, then ours must be due double time for working his knackers off both Saturday and today. Make no mistake; we well and truly rode our luck again, and sooner or later, that tremendous good fortune of ours is going to well and truly crash and burn. Looking on the ?credit? side of the ledger, at least we?re second in the table tonight, nine points on the board, and our next opponents are poor Derby, at Pride Park. Having hot-footed upstairs to pen this after watching their 4-1 defeat at Cardiff, if we were the receivers of great dollops of Hartley?s strawberry conserve, then The Rams must have wondered as to whether we?d craftily nicked their share before their game. Four conceded, ?tis true, but as far as I could see, at least a couple of them were, shall we say, ?iffy?. It?s a bit like us last season; when Lady luck spurns your advances, she well and truly drops you in the smelly stuff. The proof of the pudding, were any needed, is Derby are now second from bottom, with one lousy point to show for their efforts thus far.

Back to midday today, though, and a pre-match rendezvous with The Noise, plus daughter Carly, in the Throstle Club awaited. This was the first occasion thus far this term I?d actually stood next to our resident bag-carrier, and my God, isn?t she growing? Twelve years of age, and already slightly taller then me at around five-four. Those oatcakes they shovel down childrens? necks up there have an awful lot to answer for. As the Reading game on the big screen wended its weary way towards the end of the first half, I also learned more about younger sister Bethany ? she?ll be coming to the Ipswich game, and she?s never seen us lose, so look out, world! - and her imaginary friends. Hibben?s broke her leg and is in the hospital, but has just given birth to her 26th child, so I?m told, but Bethany has split the blanket with her cousin ? they don?t get on, apparently. How you can fall out with an imaginary friend is completely beyond, my ken, but that?s kids for you. While Carly was getting me up to speed on these matters, The Noise was simultaneously trying to bring to my attention a job vacancy advertised in the programme. Having two loads of info going into separate ears at the same time wasn?t easy to contend with, but apparently, Albion are currently advertising in the programme for a Youth Development Officer. ?Just think,? said The Noise, to me, ?You could do that; nurture kids for several years, then, when they get to 16, sod ?em off to a new club! Easy!?

Such is the pressure on spaces in the club bar these days, almost as soon as we?d plonked ourselves down with the Lewis family, The Satanic Nurses were asking for first dibs on our perches when we left, which was why our departure bore more resemblance to an alcohol-fuelled game of musical chairs than a dignified exit from the premises. Just one thing, Hugh and Co; I hope you jump in our graves as quick ? trouble is, we?re going to be buried at sea, so I hope you lot can swim! Over to our selling-pitch, then, and more nonsense in the shape of enough plods to guard a medium-sized Royal dwelling, police vans, dogs, the works. Why? Preston?s lot couldn?t punch their way out of a paper bag, and the same applied to the miserly 400 Burnley brought with them last week. As far as I?m aware, now we?re back in the Nationwide, we no longer have to pay for rozzers both in and outside the ground, just the ?in? bit, but a little bird told me not so long ago that the constabulary now have a naughty habit of charging full-price for Specials, when all they get by way of remuneration is expenses only. If that?s the case ? and I?m only taking someone?s word it?s true - they?ve got us well and truly over a barrel, and there?s sod all we can do about it. In short, someone?s making a killing out there, and it certainly ain?t our club. I just hope my info was duff gen, because, if true, it certainly leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

In stark contrast to the relative ease with which we got into the ground versus Burnley, this time round, a queue started to form at the Halfords Lane turnstiles around 2.15; by 2.35, it stretched a considerable way down the street, and was growing bigger by the second. I can only assume that quite a few season ticket holders had returned from their summer break ? a lot of families have no option but to take their hols in August ? and that accounted for the stampede in the last 45. Oh well, back to the old routine of packing up early, so doing precisely that, it was into the queue ourselves. As we waited to go in, Steve The Miser accosted us in the line wanting to know if we needed more Dicks; obviously, we didn?t, but we did make enquiries of our treasurer as to whether the queues elsewhere were as bad, and it transpired our entrance was the only one experiencing problems! Fortunately, everybody (us included!) finally seem to be getting their heads around the stile-cards, and ingress was relatively painless this time round.

Inside, then, to the dulcet tones of ?The Liquidator? (or, as one Baggie once termed it, during a severe bout of malapropism, ?The Liquidiser?!). As far as I can see, The Brummie seem to have heeded the warning about the naughty words, but The Smethwick still insist on loudly telling our local rivals to ?go forth and multiply? in no uncertain terms. I don?t want to be a spoilsport, but it seems to me we?ll end up losing the song from our pre-match ?repertoire? before long, which would be a shame, as it?s been part and parcel of Baggie-dom since the days of Jeff Astle And Co. Besides, taking the Michael out of our local rivals is, at the present time, a bit like turning a machine-gun on a field full of Bambis. Have you no feelings? Er ? I thought not!

Back to the business in hand, then, and, as we?d suspected, both midfielders left on the bench on Saturday figured in the starting line-up. One other change, though, which frankly puzzled me; Hulse was out, and Danny Dichio most certainly in. Strange, because the game plan seemed to rely solely on endless ?hoofs? upfield to our lamp-post impersonator up front, which was fine for DD, but completely cut out the aforementioned middle men and their many talents. Trouble was, for some reason we also kept giving the ball away cheaply, and Preston were giving us hell down the flanks; we certainly led a charmed life that first half, as the whole thing degenerated into a scrappy sort of affair. Quite a few ?war-wounds? as well; one almighty clash of heads at the Smethwick led to Mr. Volmer needing treatment for a nasty cut to his head, and a change of shirt, the other one having acquired considerably more red bits than the manufacturers had originally intended.

By my reckoning, we were lucky not to be at least two down come the end of the period, because the visitors had most of the play, but just to show how cruel football can be, just before the interval, Preston gave away a penalty. A strange incident, that; from my Halfords Lane perch, just on the Smethwick End side of the halfway line, it seemed to me as though Jonathan Gould had won the ball fairly and squarely, and the felling of Hughsie had been a total accident. Agreed, I didn?t have the best of views, and I haven?t, as yet, had any input from those in The Brummie, but honestly, that?s the way I saw it. I really felt sorry for The Lunatic?s son and heir as he left the field of play, and so were quite a few in our stand, because he got quite a round of sympathetic applause as he went down the tunnel. And, before you ask, I was one of the sympathisers.

As for what happened next, I?m afraid Preston completely exhausted what stock of my goodwill they?d grabbed just seconds earlier. Never before in my life have I ever seen such a protracted taking of a spot-kick. First of all, Preston prevaricated over their choice of sacrificial lamb so their reserve keeper could take up his post between the sticks. After what seemed to be an age, they finally plumped for David Lucas, in place of Graham Alexander, who didn?t half take his time walking off the pitch. Meanwhile, the arguments in the box continued, which I understood completely; had I been out there, I would have felt absolutely gutted at the injustice of it all as well, but, having said that, I didn?t half get the feeling the visitors were also using gamesmanship to put Hughsie off, which might have succeeded; Igor Balis he is not. Then once the substitution had been sorted out, more delay as the man in black spoke to the new ?keeper about moving on the line, closely followed by yet more as he warned the two lots of protagonists about encroaching from the ?D?. Finally, Lee was free to do his thing, which he did with aplomb, the keeper diving the wrong way. 1-0 it was, and poor Preston had been well and truly mugged. Was it me, or were the subsequent goal celebrations somewhat muted? So long had this nonsense taken, an amazing six minutes was added to the normal ration, but when half-time finally did come, I think I can safely say everyone in that ground knew we?d pulled off a smash and grab caper on a par with the one being shown tonight on TV, ?The Italian Job?.

Enter the gladiators for the second forty-five, then, and if the first period had belonged to the Lancashire club, then this one most certainly featured far more participation from our crew. Trouble was, we simply couldn?t find the killer goal to see them off ? er, - legitimately. It was pretty clear the tactic of humping the ball upfield for Deech wasn?t working, and Sakiri wasn?t having the best of games either, so our leader then decided to change things. Off went Artim, to be replaced by AJ, then, not long afterwards, DD, in a swop for Rob Hulse These two substitutions, the latter especially, seemed to make some difference; suddenly, our finest were actually trying to pass and move the thing goalwards, for once, and Preston didn?t seem to like this development at all. Add to that the no-nonsense tackling and midfield effort of James O?Connor, who had one hell of a game, and we were looking much more dangerous. By rights, Hughsie should have added to his total; after a Hulse effort was blocked, he latched on the rebound and with their keeper beaten belted it goalwards ? only to see it unceremoniously kicked off the line. Later on still, we gambled further by taking off Volmer, and sticking Scott Dobie up front as well. Trouble was, Preston quickly sussed we?d turned up the wick, and certainly looked capable of sneaking an equaliser; the issue was still in doubt until just before the final whistle, when one of their nastier incursions thankfully ended up in the side-netting.

Happy? Yes and no. Sure, we?re second, and we?ve won three League games on the bounce, but the shortcomings really showed. Had Preston been more astute, and had they not conceded that penalty ? I understand from the BBC report that our gaffer subsequently apologised to theirs for what happened - then I suspect we would have had more of a battle on our hands come the second half. Our one-dimensional tactic of booting the ball up to Deech and hoping for the best will work on occasions ? but today, the visitors countered the menace easily. Their defenders seemed to win the ball with ease more times than not, and coupled with some pretty lax passing from us in the middle of the park, and a failure, sometimes, to commit to the tackle, and constantly back off near the danger area, meant my nerves were worn to a frazzle by the time the game ended. Let?s hope the performance at Pride Park is a little more convincing than the one we saw today.

And finally?.. Thanks to The Fart for this one, and yes ? earlier on, I intimated The Dingles were sitting ducks as far as mockery was concerned, but it?s hard to discard the habits of a lifetime! Not long after we?d returned home, been to the Chinese takeaway over the road, and stuffed ourselves, there came a phone call from El Tel. He wanted to know whether I?d seen today?s Times. Not normally being a reader of that newspaper, I had to concede I hadn?t, so our co-editor then read out a piece concerning our local rivals he?d seen in today?s edition, which I gladly reproduce below. Further comment is superfluous.

?Nine goals conceded in their first 120 minutes in the Premiership suggests they are a poor man?s West Bromwich Albion?..?

 - Glynis Wright

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