The Diary

21 November 2006: Cat Repairs, Boiler Repairs - With Players Chucked In For Good Measure!

Remember when Tom Hanks, playing the Forrest Gump role for the big screen, uttered these immortal words: ?Life?s just like a box of chocolates, you never know what you?re gonna get!?? Well, that?s certainly been the case for me these last 48 hours or so. Our win on Saturday very much proved to be the ?ecstasy? bit of a sandwich I recently found nestling nicely between a couple of ?agony? doorstep-sized bread slices in the back of our fridge.

The uppermost ?slab of bread? consisted of my reasons for not ?producing? on the evening of the Burnley game ? a hastily-bolted Chinese meal causing a bit of a blockage in what my late mother would have termed ?me clack?(translation: ?Upper digestive tract?!), and because of that, nothing whatsoever moving either up or down, even the first couple of hours after it starting to bother me. It only shifted once I?d dry-heaved my guts out a couple of times - but it was the second ?slice?, condemning yet another mammoth-sized wedge of Firkins?s main product to a gastronomic fate far worse than death, that ended up the more worrisome of the two by a country mile.

What happened? Well, it was like this, really. Yesterday evening, at long last, I finally managed to consign what should have been my normal post-match offering to the tender mercies of cyberspace, but just as I hit the ?send? button, shouting ?Hooray!? as I did it, in came His Nibs, looking distinctly worried. The cause of his anxiety? Cyrille, our black cat, the one on thyroid tablets: apparently, when my other half had gone into our bedroom to pick up some necessary pocket item or other, he?d noticed our elderly feline lying on the floor. But that wasn?t the main reason he then yelled for my prompt attendance. It was the sight of our puss trying to stand up, but being unable to because he?d completely lost the use of his hind legs: that, plus the fact he was now wailing as if the cat world had suddenly come to an end, which it had done in a manner of speaking, I suppose.

Puzzled? I certainly was, because after gently checking him over, I couldn?t see or feel any obvious cause, such as a bad fracture(s). Time to call the vet?s emergency number, then. A few pertinent words, and we were belting over to Halesowen at a rate of knots, cat safely confined to basket in the rear of the vehicle. Once we were there, the nice man in the white coat ? he didn?t half look like Bernt Hass, by the way! - took over, and after lots more neurologically-oriented prodding and poking, he finally came up with a provisional diagnosis: a complication seen fairly frequently in cats with thyroid trouble, it would seem, a blood clot (thrombus) blocking corpuscular flow through the aorta, the huge artery that comes from out of your heart, loops over, then plunges abruptly downwards behind your digestive innards ? or, to be more accurate, in puss?s case, a clot forming where the artery splits into two femoral arteries in order to provide both legs with an adequate blood supply.

To say I was completely gobsmacked would be a mastery of understatement. The prognosis? They could admit him to their ?hospital?, pump him full of clot-busting drugs, the same sort as those used to treat humans, plus a painkiller, and he?d have a 60% chance of pulling through. They also told me he would get the use of his legs back within around 7 days or so. Assuming he survives the damage the embolism has wreaked already, the condition will prove ultimately fatal, but palliative treatment should give him another 12 months, for the duration of which his quality of life should be pretty good. My decision? All based upon that important ?quality of life? consideration: yes, I knew that it would cost me, and I?d lose him fairly soon anyway, but if his final months were to be happy ones, then ?go for it?, I said. So that?s what I?ve done.

Today hasn?t exactly been a barrel of laughs, either, but for a totally different reason. It?s all to do with our knackered central heating-boiler, or, more to the point, the replacement job Norm tried to perform on it today. I should have guessed, really: nothing, and I repeat NOTHING! - ever goes to plan whenever we try to sort a major heating or lighting problem, and it?s largely down to the bloke that owned the property before us, back in the late eighties. A bigger cowboy than John Wayne, he was: no sooner had we been given the keys to the (empty) property, we quickly discovered just how much of a flaming menace he could be: not properly capping off the gas cooker pipes once he?d removed his own made for an interesting first visit. Er, sort of. Result? One helluva smell of gas permeating the whole of the house; one quick call to British Gas later, we were being told just how lucky we were not to have been blown up! Had either of us been smokers?.. Quite.

As the years went by, and more repairs/replacements became necessary, yet more problems started to manifest themselves as either we, or completely bemused decorators, plumbers etc. attempted to put right various things wrongly installed etc., some downright dangerous, the rest of small nuisance value only. Things like electric sockets that became ?live? when in the ?off? position, bathroom fittings that weren?t put in place dead straight and level, and, more seriously still, a ?proper? plug socket, ?live?, in the bathroom itself. But it?s now that we?ve been told he?s really hit the jackpot. A toilet cistern with a pipe plumbed in with the hot water supply, would you believe?

And a species of hot-water tank our tame plumber had never before encountered, sans any apparent means of drainage, too, so what he had to do then was take our airing cupboard apart to get it out? That?s what rendered poor Norm speechless, almost, this afternoon, as he tried his hardest to unravel the almighty mess. It?s not just that, there?s other problems of varying magnitude with the plumbing, too, and it?s all down to this complete and utter eejit. Result? A job that would normally have taken Norm just a day, now needs to run into a second one. Bet he?ll really be in need of all the gash whisky etc. we?re giving him, once he?s through.

But enough of our various tales of domestic woe. Back to the Baggies, then, where the pallid, clammy hand of disaster struck His Nibs tonight. As agreed, we should have been doing another signing session in the East Stand tonight, prior to a Supporters Club meeting, but our publisher couldn?t lay it on. How come? He?d flogged his batch of copies over the past few days, and didn?t have any more to hand, sadly. So we couldn?t do too much in the way of ?brand promotion? even if we?d wanted to.

But all was not lost. Instead, we sat and listened to the thoughts of three of Albion?s youthful players, Michael Nardiello (whose father also played for the Baggies, back in the early eighties), Nigel Quashie, and Paul McShane. Listening to each player do his ?introductory thing? was instructive. Michael, still only a young lad, and fresh out of Anfield, where he received his formative football education, came across as a highly articulate young man, but with the sort of bubbly personality, carefully suppressed for the occasion, that showed signs, from time to time, of tearing right through that (almost) deadly-serious fa?ade, and into the full light of - erm ? evening?

As for Nigel, his background was somewhat revelatory. His last club being QPR, it then emerged that the lad had had more clubs than the Metro had tram stops between Birmingham and Dingle Town. And managers, too. Quite a chequered career, that. Yet another very quiet performer, but with a wicked sense of humour just dying to get out, and a strange predilection for vivid-coloured soft drink: the last time I?d seen a shade of purple that violent was in a test-tube. Paul McShane? Interesting, to say the least. It?s not every day you come across a bloke who can strongly resemble the young Len Cantello one minute, and John Leyton the next. John Leyton? He?s the chappie who, in the very early sixties, recorded ?Johnny Remember Me?, which immediately charted at Number One, then stayed there for more weeks than I care to remember. He did have another one, ?Wild Wind?, but it didn?t do quite so well, and in any case, the lad had moved into the film industry by then.

The very next time you watch ?The Great Escape? (the one depicted on the silver screen, starring Steve McQueen?s motorbike, I mean, not the one we pulled off a couple of seasons ago!), see if you can spot him. He?s the blonde-headed POW who looks as though he should be taking exams at some school or other, and not incarcerated behind miles and miles of barbed wire. Oh, and a quick word about Paul?s accent: Oirish, to be sure, sor, very much so. And with more than slight overtones of his almost-sainted fellow countryman, Bob Geldof, a la Live Aid (?Give us the fockin? ball NOW!?) discernible in every single syllable that passed his lips, but without all the naughty bits, of course.

?It?s when they become well known for what they do off the pitch as much as on it that players become cult heroes?? That?s what young Master Nardiello had to say apropos people like Bryan Robson, and the massive influence they had over young players in terms of encouraging them to sign for the club. In fact all three were at pains to stress the wonderful family atmosphere that existed at the club, with youngsters mixing with their older peers during training sessions, something our manager is pretty keen to foster, apparently. He?s also quite contented to see his charges carry on in much the same way they did when Nigel Pearson and Shakey were temporarily holding the fort. An Albion side that actually attacks! Mother, I?ve died and gone to heaven!

I was saddened, though, to hear that Our Nige was given a bit of a torrid time towards the end of his stay at Pompey. All to do with the rumour he was moving to Southampton, apparently. Doesn?t stop him expressing sentiments of regard for Harry Redknapp, though. To fully appreciate the precise implications of such matters, what you have to realise is that down in Darkest Hampshire, they do tend to take passion to previously undreamed-of heights, at which point it then crosses an invisible boundary-line, the one that separates misplaced loyalty from pure malice.

It?s at that point that things can get rather nasty; with Our Nige, death threats, ranging from the just plain daft to the horribly-believable, started to emerge from right under the stone to which they?d been consigned a long, long time before. As he remarked, their followers could be as nice as pie to you one minute, the next, they?d change like the wind. Not an ideal medium in which to forge an amicable relationship, of course, which is the main reason why players like Our Nige genuinely seem to appreciate the sheer volume of support they get from our followers, week in, week out. And they just love the ?Boinging? thing. We may moan a bit ourselves, of course, but of actual death threats aimed at players, not a dicky-bird anywhere, thank goodness.

There was much more, of course, but space (and tiredness) now dictates I do otherwise. A shame that the turnout was so poor, really, but that was a minor gripe. We?ve now got to move on out to Stoke City this weekend, the sweaty armpit of the known Universe as far as fanzine flogging was concerned, but before that, ?Im Indoors has yet another signing session to do, this time at Kiddy Branch. Writer?s cramp, anyone?

Back on Friday night, and with all the gossip from the Kiddy Branch meeting I mentioned above ? Big Dave?s the star attraction, and us pair the aspirant book-floggers! - with, hopefully, much better news about Cyrille in the offing.

And Finally?.. Yet another massive chunk of my missive dedicated to another Baggie, this time, a chap called Greg Stokes. Why? Because he was my mate?s brother, plus the fact he inadvertently provided me with a tale I still tell to this day. I think I?ve mentioned it before via this column, but for the benefit of those relative newbies who haven?t heard it before, here it is again. It?s all about Lenny Henry, the famous comedian, with whom John Homer watched the game last Saturday, and it goes back to January 1974, when we played an FA Cup Third Round tie versus Everton at Goodison, the game being played on a Sunday, on what had to be the first occasion in the entire history of the club.

To get around the archaic Sunday trading laws that existed back then ? paying to watch a game of footie was a definite no-no, as far as the trainee-Ayatollahs who first drafted the legislation were concerned - you paid for a programme at the turnstile, and most certainly not a match ticket! At three or four quid a throw, must have been one of the dearest publications of its kind ever seen. The Sunday switch was something to do with the serious energy crisis that first gripped the nation in the wake of the recent Six Day War, if I remember correctly.

Because the trains were all on strike that day, I couldn?t make use of my student railcard to get to Goodison, sadly, so what I did instead was grab a lift from Greg?s dad, bringing the total number of travellers in that car to four ? me, Greg, his dad, plus a very large but very shy coloured lad, aged about 16, sitting in the back of the vehicle as well. A lot more ?string bean? than even Arsene Wenger, I suppose! In fact, he didn?t say very much the whole day, but just a few weeks later, and idly watching ?New Faces? one night, much to my amazement, who should turn up on our Hall Of Residence TV screen, but the very same lad I?d shared a lift with just weeks previously. But by that time, the description ?shy and retiring? had well and truly ceased to apply! The rest you?re all familiar with, of course. Bringing things right up to date, Greg was at the ground with Lenny last Saturday, asked John Homer about me, and wanted to pass on his regards, too ? so now you know!

 - Glynis Wright

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