The Diary

05 November 2006: Rampant Rams Come From Behind To Throttle Throstles!

Now here?s one to make you think. The vexing question below was neatly posed, not by me, but by longstanding Baggies supporter Ian Thomson, en-route from ground into town after today?s game, viz: ?How do you define ?entertainment???

How indeed. This is supposed to be the ?New, Improved, All-Singing, All-Dancing Albion?, remember? One that professes to wholeheartedly embrace at all times the holy doctrine of ?entertaining football?, and the Devil take the ?pump it and lump it? persuasion, and stick ?em in a Very Hot Place Situated Beneath Our Feet? Perhaps we should throw in our lot with David Cameron?s Conservative Party: they, too, say they have changed beyond recognition, and they, too, badly creak at the doctrinal seams the very instant someone starts to ask serious questions of them.

To say I?m chuffing furious tonight isn?t the half of it. Just what the bloody hell was going on out there, during today?s second half? I?d not realised just how prophetic my words of Friday night would be: remember what I said? About Derby playing Barnsley earlier in the week, going behind by the odd goal, then scoring two in just five minutes, then collect all three points as their due reward for all their hard work to remedy the damage?

And who was there to witness this unexpected feat, then? Stand up Tony Mowbray, former Hibs manager, now trying like stink to extricate a certain Black Country outfit from the Championship mire it?s currently floundering in ? and, if we?re not careful, getting well and truly (and inextricably) bogged down long before all those delicately-constructed buds have once more made their springtime reappearance around the Black Country.

Yep ? done over like a wet kipper by the rampant Rams, and in precisely the same manner, too. Killed stone dead by two abysmal sucker-punches that yielded two goals within a very short space of time, bang, bang, you?re dead ? quite an impressive kill-ratio when compared to our own largely ineffectual and downright clumsy first-half huffing and humping when in close proximity to the target area. And another thing: by the time he finally left the field of play, our away following had their mind well and truly made up: to a man (and woman!) they plonked the blame squarely upon the ample shoulders of poor Nathan Ellington, who, it has to be admitted, did miss more than his fair share of chances today. But before you all join in with enthusiastic preparations for any proposed public lynching, just think on a little.

Sure, he wasn?t exactly brilliant, but he wasn?t the only one by any means. Maybe Jason Koumas should also be examining his own conscience very carefully tonight: two excellent chances to go further ahead completely fluffed and stuffed by him, one after he?d done all the hard work, and had only their keeper to beat, the other blazed over from point-blank range, more or less.

Oh ? and another thing. You certainly can?t blame either Ellington, Koumas, Kamara, or Tony Blair, come to think about it, for the almighty gaping hole in our middle and right flank that County rapidly found, then exploited to such deadly effect in the opening and middle portions of the second sitting. So blatantly obvious was the problem, both The Fart and myself were cringing pitifully just about every time County sent forth a raiding-party in that direction.

The match officials? Well, they certainly didn?t cover themselves in glory today, all three of ?em ? if pushed to testify in a court of law, I would said, on the balance of things, the man with the whistle had far more of the ?homer? about him than any referee should rightly have, to the point where he was letting some pretty vicious stuff from County go, but penalising our people straight away for even minor transgressions. But, then again, it all boils down to the one inescapable fact: yet again, we neglected to take our numerous first-half chances, they, with their meagre two, struck oil, and in deadly fashion. And that is the fundamental difference: fail to address the problem, and it could cost us promotion quite easily, the way we?re going.

About the only Albion player that emerges from today?s sorry mess with any form of credit has to be young Richard Chaplow, who not only scored, but worked his backside off for most of the game. Like a little bald terrier, he was, putting himself about in no uncertain terms, and winning hearts and minds innumerable while he was doing it. For most of the game, whenever they had possession, he gave Derby very little time to think: blink for just a second, and there he was, like some sort of stripey wraith. I just wish some of the others could have put as much into their game as he did. Had that been the case, we would have been sitting pretty at or near the division?s pinnacle tonight. Cardiff, the early leaders lost to Colchester today. Yet another golden opportunity spurned, and far too cheaply by half. Of today?s game, more anon.

So what else were the three of us up to today, then? Well, at least the outward journey was rather pleasant. One of those bracing, right-side-of-cold November days where the sky is baby-blue, save for the odd aircraft contrail here and there, the sun shining fit to bust, and the trees somewhat belatedly, it must be said, finally doing what they?re supposed to at this time of year, i.e. turn just about every variation of the colours yellow, orange and red in existence, and very photogenic it all was, too. What more could the average Baggies fan ask for?

Er ? El Tel?s trusty ?Football Anthems? CD, would you believe? Er ? right, Tel! Frank Skinner et.al; in ?Football?s Coming Home? I could stomach, ditto Freddie Mercury and chums in ?We Are The Champions?, but as for ?Fat Les? in ?Vindaloo? ? AAARGH! If music be the food of love, prepare for indigestion. Flog your CD to the Yanks, Tel, and they?ll use it as a new torture in Guantanamo Bay ? or would even they balk at introducing that particular horror to the human body, Al Qaeda or otherwise? Doesn?t need much in the way of intellect to work out the answer to that one: I sure as hell know ?cruel and unusual punishment? when I hear it. Even Adolf Hitler himself would have had second thoughts.

And this, folks, is the point at which the whole shebang started to become more damn trouble than it was worth. It all started when we passed the city boundaries, and headed, so we?d thought, for a car-park situated in the grounds of a Further Education College. Big snag, though. The damn place had disappeared completely. Even the directions given by the council were worse than useless. Solution? Er ? ?Plan B?, improvise!

First of all we headed for an housing estate charmingly called ?Euphoria?, which it most certainly wasn?t. The trouble was, the nearer we got to the ground, the more parking restrictions we found hampering our progress in that direction. Thanks to yet more misread directions, and downright obfuscation from the council, we even found ourselves on a building site, a handy security guard trying (and failing) to put us right again. Of our rightful berths, we could not find hide nor hair, so eventually, we said ?Sod it?, then headed for the town centre and the fair chance of finding a decent parking spot by the station.

What an almighty cock-up. Not only had the council erected signs that were miles out of date, their much-advertised ?Park And Ride Scheme? wasn?t operational. On a matchday? Were they kidding? No help for it, then ? we had to walk the whole miserable way, an ordeal (for me!) worsened significantly by the fact we?d previously agreed to rendezvous with an old mucker of The Fart?s, John Motson?s son, in a Brewer?s Fayre pub around a mile further on from the ground itself. By the time we got there, I was putting on a pretty convincing imitation of ?the last survivor of the massacre?, and bloody glad of my handy stick.

As for the whereabouts of Motty?s lad once we?d got there ? er, ask me one on sport? Not a hide nor hair did we see of the bloke: mind you, the pub was awfully busy by then, and locating people?s precise whereabouts an occupation fraught with great difficulty, to say the least. Oh, well ? we did try, honest!

Out once more, into the fresh air, and the walk back to the ground proper, white top-girders contrasting strongly with the slowly-fading sunset. Through the turnstile, and we were quickly reunited with the main body of our support, now warbling their bloody heads off. Our seats? Right at the sodding back of the stand, which boasted a pretty hellish rake on the gangways and seats. Great for people not having to succumb to the urge to stand every five flaming minutes, of course, but for people with mobility problems, like me, very hard work indeed. What a contrast: one week, in the front row at Blues, and in constant danger of being brained by my own side?s poor shooting skills, the next, sitting right at the rear of the stand, and practically needing a bloody good blast of oxygen to get there, too!

One small consolation, though; the place may have been the pits for people needing a walking stick to proceed about their lawful business, but their PA bloke didn?t half have an excellent taste in music. First of all there was The Undertones, with Fergal Sharkey giving ?Teenage Kicks? all he?d got in the vocal department, then on to Madness, and ?Night Boat To Cairo?. Decent stuff, for once, and making a welcome change from the usual ?rap c**p? peddled around grounds these days.

The team news, then ? and one almighty cheer as the troops let the news gradually percolate through their brains and nervous systems that our custodial Swiss Avalanche had finally made way for Houlty! About bloody time, too ? and one up to me, I think! In fact, he didn?t even make the squad, young Steele taking on the ?wallflower? dugout role instead. You heard it first, right here! No Kev Phillips to start, sadly, but Chaplow in: no Carter either, as predicted also.

The Rams? They had two of theirs back from injury today, but the biggest cheer of the day, by a country mile, was for Big Dave, sitting this one out on the subs? bench, and getting a shed-load of applause from the away end whenever he and his body ventured close to the goal area while warming up along the touchline there. Poor bloke, he was torn between two ways of responding. Be seen favouring supporters of his former club, and their followers would have got somewhat annoyed about it ? and to be fair, I wouldn?t have blamed them for one minute.

Be seen ignoring the supporters that stuck by him so loyally when at the Hawthorns, mind, and it would have been repaid with compound interest come the corresponding home fixture! Poor sod ? he just couldn?t win, whatever he did to try and keep the peace! It reflects rather well on both clubs, not to mention Big Dave himself, that he?s so popular with both sets of supporters.

So, off we went ? and almost immediately, Albrechtsen got upended, somewhat unceremoniously, one might say. Oh, dear ? was it going to be ?one of those games?? Yep, it was ? but not quite in the same sense. It wasn?t all that long after the kick-off that Kamara had a go, then it was The Rams? turn with their first effort, that also drawing a blank. Get this ? and this is no word of a lie - I have also got a note in my little book from that opening flurry to the effect that the fact that Derby got behind us for that one far too easily was a trifle unnerving, and likely to give us grief. How right can you be, sometimes? But that particular ?delayed-action fuse? was to detonate much later in the game, of course.

The current ?here and now? of the situation was Houlty, of all people ? and the almighty cheer he got the very first time he was in any way tested, the ball cleanly grabbed by him, and firmly clung on to afterwards, of course! Irony in big heaps, of course ? a shame, then, that the local tat was all ?coppery?! Ahem. Sorry.

Enter into the equation the lad Chaplow, who was giving the Rams no end of bother, even at this early stage in the proceedings. They sure didn?t like his terrier-like antics, so he then did it all the more. Another effort from |Koumas, then, shortly to be followed by similar from Watson. And, come the 9th minute, one of the most audacious bits of trickery I?ve seen in a football ground in recent times ? an amazing Zoltan Gera overhead kick in front of goal that really deserved far better than it got; how the hell their keeper hung onto it ? or saw it in the nick of time, even ? I really don?t know. Verily I say unto you, some Rams lead a charmed life!

With about 13 minutes gone, time for one of Ellington?s more spectacular mullocks in front of goal that afternoon: once more, their keeper had to look lively to shift the ball away, although you might want to argue that The Duke could have done far better than he actually did with it. Two or so minutes later, it was Derby found wanting up front when they also stuffed up.

Then, a very Fart-like whisper into my shell-like?.. ?Wolves are two up!?

Me: ?Who are they playing, the blind school?? ?Im Indoors: ?Southend?..?

Me: ?Yeah, like I said, the blind school?.?

Then, some geographically-challenged chanting from the home crowd: ?Stand up if you hate Brummies?..? Said me: ?Blimey, I don?t think much of the standard of geography teaching around these parts: how many of the sods actually get their GCSE?s, I wonder??

Another corner to The Rams dutifully repulsed ? and suddenly, I found myself watching a certain Mister Ellington, and coming to the rapid conclusion that he just didn?t look the part. Whenever he got the ball, he seemed to lose the damn thing very cheaply indeed, and seemed to have great difficulty mustering up the necessary speed to properly chase balls straying into his path, along the touchline. It may also have been a ?confidence? issue at play there: the more our people groaned whenever he stuffed up, the worse he seemed to become. But he?s certainly no novice when it comes to football at this level: not so long ago, he was skinning ?em alive for Premiership-bound Wigan, so what the hell?s gone wrong in the meantime?

By now, Albion were building up one almighty head of steam, and at Derby?s expense, too. Bywater, their keeper, first demonstrated amply that whatever it was that Zoobie had, it was quite contagious. Over came the cross, and one easily cut-out, too ? but he flapped at it horrendously. Down it came, into the path of Ellington, but instead of making a name for himself, he only succeeded in dislodging flakes of paint from the bar. It only seemed a matter of time before the walls came tumbling down ? which they duly did, and in the 25th minute, too. A ball meant for Kamara bounced off a defender instead, Chaplow then pouncing like a predatory vulture to put it safely out of their keeper?s reach and in the back of the old onion-bag. Wow, what a goal, and the lad?s first ever for the club. Time for a stiffish ?boing?, then, chaps? Not ?arf!

So there you have it. One to the good, and lots more looking likely, too. So when did it all start to unravel? Well they first looked really dangerous just before the break: in an unpleasant foretaste of what was to come, they rounded our defence with alarming ease, and really should have netted, but their final ball was abysmal, luckily for us. Certainly a wake-up call, and in the light of subsequent events, one we really should have heeded.

It was about that time that Duke Ellington contrived to do himself no favours whatsoever. There it was, a teasing, tantalising sort of ball, meandering parallel with the near touchline, and eminently easy to catch up with, too. The trouble was, though, that for reasons known best to him, he didn?t even attempt to chase the thing: let?s face it, an Albion player can do innumerable things whilst out there, foul the opposition keeper, shoot the ref, even ? but not to try, or not make even a superficial semblance of trying, well, that was a cardinal sin for any player wearing the shirt ? and didn?t our followers make their displeasure felt. Not a wise thing to do at all.

Before that, though yet more light relief, courtesy Big Dave, still patrolling his touchline. Firstly, it was a chorus of ?There?s only one Big Dave? then, to the bog-standard ?Go West? ditty, it was: ?Big Dave is an Albion fan!?.? And, courtesy The Fart yet again, more fun, this time when Houlty went to take a free-kick outside his box: still stuck in ?Zoobie? mode, our hero expressed some misgivings about Russell?s ability to kick it where it was supposed to go, and not straight back into their hands.

?What if he was to miskick?? the old codger wailed.

?Now hang on a minute,? said I, in the most soothing tones I could muster at the time, ?We are talking about Houlty here, not the idiot we had there before?..? Then, with 37 gone, it was ?Golden Oldie Time?! Old enough to remember the old ?Smethwick-Brummie? chants? Revived today, and in all their glory, too!

Time for the break, then ? and thus far, everything, or most of it, was going quite well. One particular concern, vocalised by The Fart in particular, was our inability to get more scores on the doors. Already we?d spurned chances that shouldn?t have required even a millisecond of thinking time to put ?em away. As the old codger constantly lamented, it was to be hoped we wouldn?t end up bitterly regretting our first-half wastefulness.

The plus-side, though, was our defence?s much-improved rapport with Houlty: it must have been quite a relief to have someone there, finally, who actually knew what he was doing, for once. And, as I said earlier, young Chaplow was having the game of his life out there. On the whole, we were the better side: could we translate that superiority into three points, though? More golden oldies from the Derby turntable. First off, ?Money, Money, Money? by Abba, then Dire Straits in ?Money For Nothing?. Sheer coincidence, or someone trying to have a pop at their board, I wonder?

And so, onto the second half. Away-end curses innumerable, no sooner the game had kicked off, when Ellington somehow contrived to miss a complete sitter. The chance, nicely worked towards the box by Messrs. Gera and Koumas reached Kamara, whose pass took a deflection ? right into the path of the unmarked ex-Wigan lad, who then blasted wide from point-blank range. It really did look far easier to score from where I was sitting: cue, then, for a timely bout of hair-tearing, and all that topped by a blood-curdling ?AARGH!? The Fart looked at me, and I looked at The Fart: collectively, we just couldn?t believe what we?d just seen with our own eyes!

And now, a quick word about the referee. He?d hardly been generous the whole first half, but he seemed to be excelling himself this time round. Thus far, he seemed to adopt a somewhat ?Laissez faire? attitude to Derby?s various indiscretions, some of which really stung our finest, and were of exceedingly-dubious legality anyway, but now it started to get a little out of hand. Heaven knows how many The Rams conceded ? and yet he seemed most reluctant to wave a yellow card at them. Not the way to win away supporters and influence them, that?s for sure.

Within the next ten minutes, we were to see Houlty pull off a pretty good save when one-on-one with one of their forwards, Kamara miss an absolute sitter also, then Gera mysteriously tried to lob the keeper, instead of taking the more obvious option, slipping the thing to the handily-placed (and unmarked) Kamara, screaming for it in the middle. Needless to say, instead of going over his head, the keeper caught it. With two thirds of the game gone, our first change. Off went poor Ellington, who will no doubt want to forget today ever existed, and on came Kev Phillips instead. The trouble was, however, he was to prove in need of further match practice, and was not the ?finished article? by any means.

One thing noticeable about Derby ? they were running at us far more than they had in the first half, and looking a damn sight more dangerous, with it. Plus, as I touched on much earlier, a pretty nasty gap had somehow developed in the middle, and on the right. On 63 minutes, we had yet another ?wake-up call?, Derby?s attack getting behind our defence with consummate ease, then their effort hitting the right-hand post.

Appropriately enough, we actually conceded on 69 minutes, and only seconds after we should have had a foul at the other end ? but the ref waved ?play on?, as per usual. From that, they broke out of defence, caught us completely flat-footed, their lad Oakley banging in the thing, and from extremely long-range, too. One goal apiece, then.

From the restart, yet another Baggies venture into their territory, but that broke down as well when their keeper dealt well with a Koumas long-range free-kick. Then, three or so minutes later, we fell behind. Once again, Derby launched yet another defence-splitting pass right across the park and to our weak right hand flank. Totally against all accepted concept of football tactics, really, not to cover that eventuality properly, so no surprises when they did it again, this time courtesy a header! Oh, brother, what an almighty stuff-up. Angry? You bet ? and there?s a whole lot more still waiting to come out!

Those two killer blows, inflicted in the space of just five minutes ? just like they hit poor Barnsley, remember? ? knocked the stuffing completely out of our lot, as it did we, except to let our feelings be known to management, of course! As The Fart said: ?Two attempts on goal, and two conceded??

And there was worse to come. In the 84th minute, Gera got injured and had to come off, Hartson then taking his place. From the way the little lad was limping, it looked pretty bad to me. As the old saying goes, if it isn?t one thing, it?s another?.. Once more, we tried to get our much-altered strikeforce going, but the cohesion simply wasn?t there any more. Come the end of normal time, and the start of that added on, the extra four minutes granted seemed to galvanise our lot for the first time in ages. The trouble was, though, it was very much a case of ?too little, too late?: sure, during those last few extra minutes, we chucked the kitchen sink at them, but there was no real likelihood of us winning the jackpot. And this it ended, in recriminations, and not a little displeasure expressed by some Baggies in the only way they knew. A chance well and truly spurned, as news came in that Cardiff had lost. Angry? I was bloody furious. So unnecessary, and so wasteful, too. Just what do we have to do to give these guys some additional hunger, some additional desire, a proper killer instinct, even?

For me, though, the worst bit was getting back to our car, parked close to the railway station. An easy walk for someone with full mobility, of course, but I didn?t. Half an hour or so later, we reached our destination, by which time I?d practically given up the will to live! Cue for my other half to announce that his new-found enthusiasm for away games was well and truly over. Just as well, really: it?s only since he started going, we started to go backwards!

Already I?m up to my painkillers limit; as for what I?m going to be like in a few hours, I dread to bloody think! It?s not only players that come away from a game feeling as though they?ve been well and truly put through the mill! Any chance of Nick Worth giving me a massage, then? Naw, didn?t think not?.

And Finally?.. Talk about ?still waters running deep?! Ooh, the shame of it, the scandal! Before we set sail for Derby, The Fart didn?t half have a startling admission to make, concerning a certain Mandy Rice-Davies, of whom I made mention yesterday, would you believe?

It appears that back in the early 1980?s, and later still, 1985, her path and The Fart?s well and truly crossed ? erm ? ?professionally?! Ooer. But Dot shouldn?t get too worried about her other half?s extracurricular activities, mind. According to our well-matured travelling companion, she was appearing at the Alex at the time, in an intellectually and artistically stimulating stage production (yeah, I know, that?s what they all say!) called ?A Bedful Of Foreigners?, and The Fart just happened to be backstage when he somehow made violent contact with her more-than-ample cleavage!

It?s The Fart?s photographic evidence that makes me really giggle, though. Mandy Rice-Davies looking slightly shifty in the pic The Fart took as a souvenir of the occasion, and The Fart himself looking very much as though he?d just scooped the jackpot on the Lottery, which, I suppose, on looking yet again at Mother Nature?s bounteous mammary gift to that notorious bringer-down of government ministers, he had, in his own little way!

 - Glynis Wright

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