The Diary

30 January 2007: After That Dingles Drubbing: How Was It For You, Then?

Much fevered anticipation, earlier this afternoon, on pushing the BBC2 button on our TV remote in plenty of time to ascertain precisely what our next FA Cup destination would be, after yesterday?s superb Molineux trouncing of our local rivals. That was the situation at our place this lunchtime, and, I?ll bet, yours. What we?d hoped for was a home game, preferably involving either another Championship side, or a badly-performing Premiership one. Come the appointed time, out came the balls, into that awful looking giant glass bowl they went, so the only thing left was to hang on tenterhooks until our name finally emerged from the 5th Round hat, which it did on the last-but-one pairing. Result? Bristol City or Middlesbrough, away, the nitty-gritty depending upon whom emerges the survivor of their forthcoming replay, of course.

Well, it could have been a lot worse ? but victory is a realistic prospect, even if we have to go to the length of a replay to achieve it. Depends upon how desperately we want to get sucked into football?s equivalent of the ?war of attrition? that prevailed for most of the 1914-18 conflict, Cup replays causing significant League fixture pile-ups. Which do we desire more badly, traditional Cup glory (and the increased revenue that automatically comes with such a big deal), or a return to the Prem for the third time of asking?

Having seen us triumph at Wembley in 1968, and remembering the emotional sort of occasion it was back then, I certainly know what my heart would say to the proposition, but one has to mix also a modicum of pragmatism into the bubbling pot, methinks. Over the last ten years or so, only one club outside the top four in the Prem has gone on to lift the trophy, never mind anyone outside the top flight daring to fart in church. Do we honestly think we could go all the way, and still go up? Remember, should we not achieve escape velocity, we?re more than likely to lose our more talented performers to the very same select company we aspire to join, come the end of the current term. A pretty tough one to call, then? Not half.

Poor Dingles. You couldn?t make it up, could you? Reading through the various newspaper accounts of our game, yesterday, it appears that we did an even better psychological demolition job on them than appeared at first sight. Forget our numerous choral messages on Sunday ? well, it is a day of worship! - apropos the assertion Jez Moxey had sold their normal Molineux habitat, not so much for a mess of pottage, as a mess of year-old meat pie, with an equally dubious pint chucked in for good measure. That wonderful Tesco bag stunt I referred to in yesterday?s piece was to prove even more effective than I?d first thought.

On leaving our bit of the South Bank, I could only see fairly small, isolated pockets of carrier bags shoved over backs of seats, but looking at pictures in tonight?s E and S, taken when the place was relatively empty, their shots showed loads and loads of the things left by way of variation on the old ?calling card? theme. Whoever devised that one was a person after my own heart: that simple act must have twanged so many Dingle raw nerves, they?ll still be needing strong painkillers six months hence. So who was it dreamed up the idea in the first place? I think we should be told.

Hands up how many of you also saw that after the final whistle, our local rivals reacted to defeat in time-honoured fashion, for them: i.e. by making their way into the city centre proper, and failing to find sufficient numbers of Albionites willing to trade heavy-duty fisticuffs with the buggers, taking it out on the local plods instead. Oh dear, temper, temper.

One somewhat unsavoury note, though, and nothing whatsoever to do with our aggrieved-but-extremely-dense chums, for once. Apparently, while engaged in normal photographic duties covering the trouble in the town centre, an E and S lensman was not only warned off by one plod, not long after that, a senior police officer first demanded details of his employers, then wanted to know his name and home address also.

Considering most press photographers carry an National Union of Journalists ID card at all times, each bearing a picture of the genuine holder, and stating very clearly that they are present purely in the interests of photojournalism, and for no other purpose ? I?m assuming this photographer would have produced his the moment he was first challenged by the law ? there should have been no reason whatsoever for the senior officer concerned to have acted in that heavy-handed way. And in any case, even the most obtuse of Dingles (and a fair number of coppers!) would know that anyone toting camera equipment worth tens of thousands of pounds in the middle of a street disturbance isn?t likely to be in the employ of a cowboy outfit.

When you consider the guy (I assume it was a bloke, as nothing else was said about gender) was in a public street, and perfectly entitled to be there, irrespective of what acts of lawlessness were being perpetrated around him, I find such an overbearing attitude on the part of the police quite disturbing. And that demand for personal details downright intimidating, my snap-interpretation of the situation being based upon that age-old frightener: ?We know who you are, and we know where you live?.

I would hope the E and S?s editor has already taken the opportunity of delivering a suitably-sized flea into the ear of those in charge of policing in the city. And if they haven?t already, then why not? Police or otherwise, even when based in the Dodge City-lookalike they call Wolverhampton, they are supposed to be public servants, not bully-boy masters.

Returning to the real meat and drink of this piece once more, yesterday?s game, there was much about the way we conducted ourselves during the course of those 90 minutes, to commend it. Relatively speaking, not one player had a bad game, everyone pulled together, and overall, acquitted themselves very well indeed. All my doubts of Saturday night proved groundless, thankfully. Yes, even Zoobie, whom I?d assumed, even before a single ball was kicked in anger, would prove to be the real weak link in the side. One small lapse in the second half apart, when he somewhat mysteriously decided to go Waltzing Matilda with Dingles player Olafinjana for possession of the ball in uncomfortably close proximity to the edge of the box, and getting a yellow card for his pains, he went and proved me totally wrong.

And I?m genuinely delighted on his behalf, considering what happened to former Albion keeper Paul Crichton in a similar Molineux League fixture around ten or so seasons ago, back in the days of Denis Smith. Those of you who were present at that time, remember the background? Crichton had one main weakness, fatal in any keeper at that level: he was extremely sensitive to crowd abuse of any sort, be it from his own side, or elsewhere. In this particular instance, he got it in the neck from our own supporters, on the back of some really poor displays over the course of the ten or so games immediately preceding our local derby.

Our lot tormented him something awful at Molineux that day: ironic, that, considering he actually turned in a performance much improved upon those that went before him. The real liabilities were our own defenders, who, through the constant perpetration of daft stunts such as delivering back-passes well short of their proper destination, kept putting him into horribly difficult goalmouth situations time and time again. Sure, we lost the game to a Dingles brace that day, but as I recall it, Crichton wasn?t the worst offender by any means.

But back to Zoobie. The aforementioned incident apart, he put in a pretty decent performance between the sticks. OK, sometimes we did see brief glimpses of the indecisive soul he used to be, but hell, Houlty wasn?t perfect ? sometimes his kicking could be very suspect indeed. No, much to my amazement, Zoobie was pretty proactive from the word ?go?: seemed to command his box decisively and effectively, engaged in constant rapport with his defenders at crucial times, came out quickly for set-pieces like corners, with both anticipation and positioning pretty good. And, just as importantly, whenever he did it right, we cheered him to the rafters ? and before you ask, not a hint of sarcasm to it at all.

Was this the very same player I?d seen during our previous Dingles encounter this season, just a few short months ago? Certainly not: my abiding memory of that game, the 3-0 victory apart, is that of nearly succumbing to frazzled nerves every single time he touched ? or dropped, more to the point ? the flaming match ball in anger. And I?m now left wondering whether our very own answer to the Swiss cuckoo clock has been given some highly-intensive specialist goalkeeping coaching over the course of the intervening period. The vast improvement he showed yesterday would certainly suggest that was the case.

And recent events have also revealed yet another angle to Zoobie, as I see it. His superb attitude, I mean: let?s face it, after Mogga became manager, and he?d seen a few of our games for himself, he was clearly less-than-enthralled with the prospect of Zoobie between the sticks on a regular basis. Before you could say ?John Osborne?, the signs were there for all to read that his days at the club were very much numbered, especially after Houlty was given back the Number One jersey on a regular basis.

Faced with that, a good many players would have immediately said ?oh, soddit?, and simply gone through the motions until the expiry of their time in ?durance vile?. As far as Albion were concerned, he was only fit for the dust-cart. And the largely unforgiving attitude of our supporters to his many errors (yes, I?ve been guilty as well!) couldn?t have helped morale one tiny bit, either. Thanks to Houlty?s recent terminal stupidity over dipping his wick into strange candles, he?s been given an unexpected second chance to redeem himself: on the basis of what I saw yesterday, by stepping into that Houlty-shaped hole on our goal-line, in no less than a totally-professional manner, he fully deserves it.

The other thing that surprised most Baggies during the course of yesterday?s game was the Dingles themselves ? or should I say the astonishingly-easy manner in which they were turned over by us? I?d certainly made the journey to Wolverhampton expecting to see all manner of blood and snot flying around the place, no quarter asked for, or given ? but it just didn?t work out that way on the day. Instead of scrapping fiercely for every single ball, every set-piece, any number of goalmouth incidents, even, come the halfway stage of the first half, gradual realisation began to dawn upon our followers that the Dingles weren?t all that good, actually. Our players, having come to that very same conclusion several minutes beforehand, then decided to make hay, turning what was blatantly obvious technical superiority into actual goals scored.

Once we?d decided to cross that particular Rubicon, there was no stopping us. Bar the odd two or three goalmouth incidents, which our defence mopped up perfectly competently indeed. ?On top? was where we were going to stay, and for the remainder of the entire game, too. The ease with which Joe Kamara dissected their defence for our first was absolutely astonishing to watch at first hand, but the real killer blow was administered just a matter of a few minutes into the second half, and very much via their own hands, too. I was quite surprised to see that Phillips is actually going to claim the strike for his own, considering that the very last person to touch the thing was a Dingle, and not a Baggie.

And, by the time Zoltan Gera managed to put away our third, any residual Dingle claims as to the Black Country bragging rights were about as dead as the dodo, and, as far as a subsequent meaningful attempt to win the Championship was concerned, endangered beyond belief.

That?s the main star of the afternoon?s fun and games, then: so what about the rest? As you?ll already be aware, I?m very much a Paul McShane fan. One of his best ever displays at the back: more power to his elbow, say I. Curtis Davies? A few wobbles apart, he also delivered in terms of quality. As for Clem, yesterday?s performance saw him at his very best, decisive, strong, when and where it mattered. Robbo seemed to flourish greatly in the heat of an important local derby. Jason Koumas? Those Dingles must hate the very sight of him: tore them to pieces, he did. Chappy did really well out there, while Greening rode the tackles, took all the abuse, then went on to turn in a masterful performance in the middle.

After a pretty indifferent start, new boy Robert Koren seemed to finally get to grips with the game, looking very comfortable on the ball by the time he?d finished. Joe Kamara? After that defence-splitting pass from Phillip gave him full licence to run with the ball right from the halfway line, then pot the black as calmly and as arrogantly as you like, what more can I say? Should and could have got at least two more, the more glaring miss being the one he stuffed up from just six yards out, towards the end. Kev Phillips certainly made the first for Joe, no dispute there, but I would contend that Albion?s second was more an ?oggie? than directly down to him. Not that anyone?s arguing ? except the Dingles and manager Mick McCarthy, in the dressing-room after the final whistle, of course!

Of the two Albion subbings, only that of Gera was to prove instrumental in changing the relative fortunes of the game, finally extracting the poison from a Wolves side that seemed to be rather more with it than previously during the most part of the second half. After that headed rocket of his, the Dingles finally ceased to espouse notions well above their appointed station in life.

In two days time, it?s back to the League once more, and the visit to our place of Plymouth Argyle, known to all and sundry as ?The Gargoyles?, of course. Will our performance be one very much in the shadow of what transpired at Molineux, or will we approach this one with similar levels of professionalism as shown to the remainder of this league?s inhabitants? I?d like to think each one of us ? players, directors, coaching staff, managers - can now cast all thoughts of the Cup out of our minds for the moment, and concentrate instead upon the bread-and-butter side of our very existence, plotting the correct course to take us right out of this division. One way or another, the end of term should prove eventful.

And Finally?. After several alarums and excursions following yesterday?s game, where we had to walk around a mile more back to our vehicle than we should have, owing to the plods having blocked off the very bit of road leading to where our car was parked, it was great to return to familiar surroundings, once more. And making familiar phone calls: one such, to the Noise, just back in from work, as we headed on out to drop The Fart off at his ancestral pile ? or whatever passes for similar in sunny Stirchley! ?Having stuffed Dingle with roast parsnips, then?? was The Noise?s chuckled query, as I was about to sign off, preparatory to entering our local bistro for a late lunch. Errr - not quite, Mart. But close. Very, VERY close!

 - Glynis Wright

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