The Diary

30 October 2006: That Blues Sending-Off - Some Pertinent Thoughts On The Subject.

Tonight, I?ve been playing an intriguing game, one of pure chance, and with a fair potential to make even the creators of the National Lottery worriedly look over their shoulders. But you won?t find any odds advertised in local betting shops, or dates and times of race meetings, either, come to think about it. But the random element involved does lend some scope towards introducing it to a wider audience, methinks. It?s called ?Which Sodding Keyboard Am I Supposed To Be Using Tonight, Then??, the rules having been recently devised by my very own ?other half?, of course!

Yet another spin-off from the almighty kerfuffle we?re currently having with all our PC?s, I?m afraid. Because we?re still experiencing IT outages, despite our ?resident computer nerd? visiting to sort the whole shebang out for us recently, we?re still having to operate using more than one hard disk and keyboard in tandem, either (or, even more infuriating, both!) of which might capriciously decide to give up the ghost at any one time, so that means terminal confusion can arise quite easily. Not surprising, really, when you consider that as far as computer-literacy goes, I?m still at the ?Janet And John? stage, and not very likely to make much further progress in the short-to-middle-term future, either!

And that?s what happened tonight. Off I toddled, at my usual time, to start construction work on my nightly epic, but when it came to actually putting words on screen ? sod all appeared. Tried again, cursing richly all the while ? no go, ditto my third attempt. Time to revert to standard operating procedure when confronted with such difficulties ? bawl ?SIMON!?, and very loudly indeed, too!

And that, folkies, is when I first discovered that the keyboard I had sitting so smugly in front of me might not necessarily be the one I had to use! There was another, placed to one side, and with lights aplenty all aglow, but you don?t expect to have to play musical chairs with an inanimate bit of electronic gubbins even before you start, normally, do you? A few pointed snarls in the general direction of my erstwhile saviour, along the general lines of ?This is a whole new ball-game for me, this one, having to play ?Guess The Right Bit Of Kit In Use Tonight?, isn?t it??, and I was then ready to go, at long last.

It goes without saying that the sooner we have our tame IT wizard in to iron out this latest batch of glitches to hit us, the better. Or alternatively, perhaps, we could tackle this ?Jackanory? style? Aw, you know, Floella Benjamin, say, asking of her youthful audience which ?magic window? they thought she?d be using that day, then exclaiming: ?Yes, children, we?re going through the ROUND one!....? Or whatever. Whoop-de-bleeding-doop. Whatever the case, I do know one thing: should any of the three PC?s we?ve currently got in action develop any more infuriating operating difficulties, and with very little indication of which alternative is OK to use, I strongly suspect that my other half?s going to be looking very carefully indeed before he decides to proceed down any blind alleys!

After yesterday?s St. Andrews doings, not exactly our finest hour, it must be said, I was pretty intrigued to read Steve Bruce?s comments in today?s media about the late-show dismissal of Paul Robinson, following his challenge on Blues Damien Johnson, in which it?s alleged Robinson used an illegal elbow.

Said Bruce: ?When you see the incident, you will be as appalled as I am because my captain is on his way to hospital with a suspected broken jaw?? He knew what he was doing, the full-back. I?ve big admiration for him as a player, but that was intentional. It was absolutely disgraceful.? For his part, Robinson defended what he?d done by saying: ?It was a 50-50 ball, and I actually pulled out of the tackle because I actually saw Damien Johnson coming in with his foot up. I jumped out of the way to protect myself. That?s the only reason my feet left the ground.?

OK, then ? we?ve now heard the prosecution case, as we have the defence version, so while everything?s still fresh in the mind, there?s a couple of additional observations I?d like to make about the entire incident. Please note also that I?m not seeking to condone what Robinson did, if genuinely guilty: it?s just that certain things don?t exactly ring true about that Steve Bruce outburst of righteous indignation shortly after the final whistle.

So what?s the problem, then? Well, for one thing, there?s the question of just how bad those injuries actually were. Despite having allegedly sustained a jaw problem that would have had most people writhing on the floor in agony, the ?injured party? was never subbed. The lad Muamba was, though, and with a minute to go of normal time remaining, but not their little wounded soldier, it would seem.

With a fractured jaw, suspected or not, there?s also a big safety issue involved: had he sustained another bang in or around the same place, and his airway badly compromised as a result, would that decision not to replace him have placed his life in unnecessary danger? Surely their physio would have had something to say about it at the time?

After all, we?re very much advanced, medically, from those awful days, back in the sixties and before, when ?trainers? (forerunners of the present-day givers of aid and succour on the field of play, of course) invariably came drawn from the ranks of battered old former pros needing a bit of ?pin money? to eke out any pension they might have accrued from their own short time in the game. Knowing little or nothing of medical matters, and relying very much upon ?gut instincts?, the treatment they gave could quite easily make matters much worse.

Although not witnessing many such cases myself over the course of my supporting lifetime ? well, not knowingly, although there were fraught times with both Bomber Brown and Ossie when I genuinely wondered whether Albion were doing the right thing by not replacing them, or, in the days before subbings, going down to ten men ? I have heard (and read) numerous other horror stories of players being told to ?run off? what later turned out to be a fractured limb, or goalkeepers allowed to carry on regardless, despite being visibly concussed at the time. In this day and age, physiotherapy is very much a degree-level subject, the basic anatomy involved being every bit as onerous as that studied by aspiring medics. That?s why it absolutely beggars belief that Nick Worth?s Blues counterpart never seemed to make any residual doubts known at the time their lad got clobbered.

OK, I?ll concede that when someone gets pumped full of adrenaline by virtue of what they were doing the moment the problem first occurred, their pain threshold rises to stratospheric heights, sometimes ? you have only to read accounts of the circumstances leading to people getting wartime gallantry awards to fully appreciate that particular quirk of human physiology ? but to be writhing in agony one minute, then not even get subbed the next, does seem to be gilding the lily a bit.

The other problem I currently have with the circumstances leading up to the incident concerns what actually happened, and some disparity between both versions of events. Robinson claimed the injury was a complete accident, and he was only trying to get out of the way of his opponent?s raised leg. Interesting, that, as when it actually happened, I heard one of the chaps sitting next to me say: ?He (Robinson) bottled out of that?..? The question now, of course, is: ?Did he?? Being a bit of a shortarse myself, I didn?t see that bit too clearly, but when it?s shown on the box, as it undoubtedly will, a more-than-lingering look will help settle the matter one way or another, as far as I?m concerned.

And another thing. If the crime really was as heinous as the Blues boss now claims, why on earth didn?t the lino, positioned quite closely at the time, not flag for an infringement, at the very least? I would have thought that any challenge as illegal and bloodthirsty as Bruce claimed would have immediately led to a flurry of flagging activity that wouldn?t have disgraced the signal deck of HMS Victory.

Will Albion be appealing, I wonder? According to their official site, Mowbray has yet to see TV images of the incident: presumably, once he?s done that, there?ll be further comment accordingly. I have to say I?m in pretty much the same boat, so I?ll be watching replays with more than my usual amount of interest tomorrow. And that?s not the only thing that didn?t go our way, either. Just before the end of the first half, Joe Kamara was denied a pretty decent penalty shout: not only that, but to further add insult to injury, he was booked for ?diving? as well! Needless to say, he?s not a very happy bunny about it.

Again, it?s something I?ll have to study more closely, I reckon, as the incident in question took place at the other end of the pitch: the bottom line is that I genuinely wouldn?t like to testify in a court of law as to whether Martin Taylor did clobber Our Joe or not. On the other hand, as our new gaffer said at yesterday?s press conference, it?s something we now have to put firmly behind us, and just get on with preparations for beating QPR this Tuesday night, as per normal. Get all three points from that one, and there?s little damage done to our League position.

Mind you, while we?re banging on about our league and those in it, today illustrated perfectly just what an unpredictable business the Championship can be at times. Just over 14 days ago, The Fart and I travelled to Portman Road to witness what had to be one of the most convincing Albion performances both of us have seen in a long time, by beating Ipswich Town 5-1, and convincingly so, too. Today, that same Ipswich side entertained ? if that?s the right word to use ? Luton Town, no mean slouches themselves, until the final whistle, and the home side too managed to put five in the back of the net, but going one better than us, mainly because their opponents couldn?t muster up sufficient firepower to reply.

Look at the top six or so in the table, and you?ll see Cardiff emerging as front-runners on 30 points, four in front of Preston, on 26, and with the same number of games played. Then there?s us and Burnley, just one behind, with two more on 24, Blues included, thanks to their win over us. With that top six or so, there appears to be little guarantee that opponents will stick to the script, curl up and die, as ordered. It?s that uncertainty making me wonder as to whether others at our end of the table might suffer a setback or three very shortly. (To be scrupulously fair, that might well include us: we?ve got a certain past history of not quite living up to our billing when it?s mattered, haven?t we?)

Come Tuesday evening, there?s yet another full-on Championship programme ? all bar a couple of games scheduled to take place the following evening - which will see table-toppers Cardiff travel to Sunderland, now as high as halfway up after a pretty poor start. Not an easy one, I suspect. Preston? They play host to Leeds, possibly resurgent now they?ve taken Denis Wise on board as their new gaffer. (Mind you, having shown superb maturity and leadership skills, not to mention the exercise of wonderful self-control, by putting a fellow-professional in hospital over something that had very little to do with football ? that infamous Leicester City pre-season get-together, remember? ? I reckon that both he and Ken Bates truly deserve each other, I really do!) Whatever your views on Wise, you can be sure Leeds will be very much ?up for it?. Will Preston, though? That?s what I?m wondering, right now.

As for the rest, Burnley, Plymouth and Blues, the first one on that list travels to Luton, no doubt steaming mad still over the stonking they had today, and not looking to do anyone any favours: Plymouth host Ipswich, whose win today may or may not be an asset: as for Blues, they have yet another local derby, this time versus Coventry City, currently just bubbling under those coveted play-off places and thirsting for much better, quite possibly. No ?foregone conclusions? to be had there, I?ll wager. The same applies to our game, despite the opposition being on slightly rocky ground at the moment, just two miserable points currently separating them from the bottom three. As anyone that?s been at close quarters with a cornered rat will tell you, sheer desperation will make you fight like crazy, sometimes.

And Finally?? One. I?ll say one thing about Blues: they might have money, lots of it, in fact, but as far as class goes, they just ain?t got any. With them, it?s just one moneymaking scheme after another. This was illustrated beautifully yesterday by a banner headline written on an advertising hoarding facing the crowd in the away end. On it was a cunningly-worded invitation for punters to text a certain ?hot-line?, giving their row and seat number, and they were in with a shout of winning 500 quid. Sound tempting? Well, yes ? but there was a catch. Right at the bottom, in lettering I could barely discern, mind, was another line informing participants that each text message sent would cost them a stinging one pound fifty on their next phone bill ? and Blues laughing all the way to the bank, no doubt!

Two?.. In one of today?s scandal sheets, on the TV page, I read of a forthcoming ITV programme, a documentary, that takes a dozen or so people with Tourette?s Syndrome (the problem made famous by Big Brother?s Pete, sometimes leaving sufferers with an embarrassing, not to mention completely unintentional, tendency to drop awful swearwords into normal conversations) to France for a week or so?s worth of meaningful interaction with the locals there.

Sounded quite interesting, provided they didn?t do a sensationalised, or trivialised approach to the theme, I thought ? and then the germ of a wicked idea suddenly popped into my head. Suppose, just suppose, that you had an Albion supporter with a similar affliction ? but instead of swearing at inappropriate moments, like the Tourette?s people mentioned above do, what would happen if conversations with other Baggies went something like this?

??..So there I was, in the pub, trying to explain to this bloke that the cost of global warming would be ARGH! DEREK DOUGAN! ? er, sorry mate, can?t help it! But he didn?t believe me so then I told YUK! STEVE BULL! ? I?ve really got it bad today, oh dear - that the overall cost of his holiday would have to go up because EEK! BILLY WRIGHT! ? bugger, it?s happened again - would probably slap a stinging tax on air travel to GLOP! I LOVE WOLVES!- shit, where?s me little pills, then?......? Well, you get my drift by now. Oh, dear ? that?s yet another pressure group taken me off their Christmas card list, then!

 - Glynis Wright

Contact the Author

Diary Index