The Diary

12 February 2007: Albion V Saints - Accentuating The Positives!

Hindsight?s a wonderful commodity to have on sale at your local market, isn?t it? Just one visit, a single lousy purchase, and you, too, can be a ?back seat driver? to rival even the most critical of horror-show mothers-in-law. And I?m just as guilty of it as anyone else: in truth, it?s a common human failing, and one that comes right to the fore whenever the errant behaviour of humanity proves to be a contributory factor in events leading to some awful disaster or other. Anyone and everyone can be wise after the event: thanks to today?s saturation media coverage of such things, they all-too frequently get more than enough airtime to prove it.

Bearing that in mind, you don?t exactly need the intellect of an Einstein to make the obvious connection, do you? That the football media positively thrives on the musings of armchair critics, second-guessers, and, of course, the sort that habitually ring up presenters of phone-in programmes, then lament loudly apropos the ailing fortunes of the side they profess to support, with nary a hint of balanced or constructive comment to be seen (or heard) the whole time through. More chance of finding an intact hair follicle on the already-pristine dome of Richard Chaplow, I reckon.

OK, so we dropped two points yesterday, and valuable ones at that. And ceded our brief tenure on second place to Blues, following their sparsely-attended home win over Stoke, today. But it?s not the end of the world, nowhere near, in fact. ?Tis true we were on the receiving end of a right old kicking from the St. Mary?s mob, yesterday afternoon, and it?s equally true that had it not been for an almighty dollop of good old-fashioned three-cornered luck along the way, we would undoubtedly have finished the game in a much less favourable position than we eventually did ? but, hell, there were an awful lot of compensatory positives to take on board, out there.

It?s a bit like prospecting for gold nuggets, really: above all, you have to be prepared for some awfully tedious sifting of complete and utter mineral dross before success, in the shape of shiny lumps of the coveted yellow metal, finally greets you. A thoroughly deserved reward for weeks? worth of patient hacking through layers of ore innumerable, in order to find it in the first place. And it?s just the same with our own football club.

As far as players are concerned, the one thing that really struck me about yesterday was the continued improvement in form of Richard Chaplow, sometime Burnley player, and now very much a part of Mogga?s master-plan for a successful promotion push. Had we stuck with Robbo as our leader, he might not even be at the club by now, such was his eagerness to get away back then. But since Mogga?s arrival on the scene, he?s more than delivered on the promise of good things that came packaged neatly with the original purchase. Quite a harrying, bustling, tigerish-tackling individual he?s becoming, that lad: what?s more, he?s getting vastly better with every additional 90 minutes he plays at our level.

Kev Phillips? He may have been halfway round the houses, have had more clubs than even the most bellicose Dingle?s wall display of the wretched things would suggest ? but he?s genuine, and I?d never do down someone for not wanting to do their best by the club. 33 is quite an age for an effective striker to be, so it might be politic to use him as a ?secret weapon?, then pull him off once he?s done the biz, which is what seemed to be the case yesterday.

One heart-stopping second half moment apart, Dean Kiely also floated my boat between the sticks: since his arrival, he?s proven to be every bit as good as Houlty was, if not better when it comes to basic handling of the ball. There was one spell of sustained pressure in particular where he managed to pull off a brace of stops, the quality of which would have earned fulsome praise from Gordon Banks himself.

And yes, we got away with murder, as far as the hand-ball thing was concerned. But, come on ? who in their right mind?s going to go straight to the FA and say, in tones more than suggestive of a juvenile George Washington: ?I cannot tell a lie, our keeper did handle the ball outside the box, and the ref never saw it ? we deserve everything that?s coming to us, and more besides?. Yeah, and my name?s Paul Crichton.

As Mogga also pointed out, in his post-match press conference yesterday, the dropping of those two points has to be set in the proper context of the calibre of the opposition. Before yesterday?s kick-off, Saints had the best away scoring record in the entire division: additionally, the very fact that you almost needed a crowbar to separate the two sides in terms of points on the board (only three less than ourselves at that stage in the proceedings), was, in itself, a pretty strong indicator of the fact that the encounter would prove far from easy for both clubs.

In his press conference, Mogga also declared Saints to be ?a decent team?. A mastery of understatement, that one: there?s not too many visitors to our place been as capable of putting us as completely under the cosh for the length of time they did. Conversely, there?s not that many sides in our division capable of withstanding the sort of goalmouth bombardment we had raining in on us for almost the whole of that sticky second half.

Give credit where credit?s due: had yesterday?s fixture taken place before Christmas, they?d have reduced our defence to a gooey pulp, and that?s a fact. It?s got to be a cause for some celebration, then, that we managed to ride out the storm, successfully survive that almighty spherical blitzkrieg, then find sufficient ?reserve? left in the tank to almost nick it in injury time, after all. Could be that when he finally looks back upon this year?s campaign, Mogga?s mate, George Burley, will not have an easy task conquering other opponents blessed with similar amounts of determination to carry the day, no matter what?

And there?s yet another factor that deserves to be considered when passing judgment upon yesterday?s game: that of ?combat fatigue?. It?s something Mowbray himself touched upon during yesterday?s post-match pow-wow, where he described players that: ?put a massive, massive effort in over the last couple of months, played a lot of football matches, and we keep asking them to produce, again and again?. In the last 20 minutes, there were signs of fatigue within the team? There is no rest at all, because the games are going to come thick and fast. We?ve got to utilise the squad over the next couple of weeks.? Amen to that, Vicar, I say.

Of one thing I?m sure: some of our players were genuinely knackered, a barnstorming finish to the entire shebang being a major contributory factor, of course. You could see it writ large in their faces as they wearily trooped off, immediately after the final whistle. Not at all surprising, really, considering there were a fair few engaged in international duties over the course of the previous seven days.

And not necessarily in Europe, either: it has to be borne in mind that not a few of our lot have African connections, dual nationality, even, a basic fact of life that can result in horrendous knock-on effects for our club elsewhere. Were we sufficiently well-blessed to bankroll a larger cast-list, it wouldn?t happen, end of ? but we aren?t, so this will continue to cast a shadow over just about everything the club does for the foreseeable future.

One encouraging bit of news, though, and that concerns the forthcoming Tuesday night game versus Colchester. Mogga reckons he?s done his homework for this one, and exhaustively, if accounts of his diligence in these matters are to be believed. They?d better be good: Colchester are currently an amazing eighth in the heap, and enjoy a home record broadly comparable with that of our own.

Our leader says he?s going there to snatch a win, rather than just go with the flow and steer a safe course for the comparative wimp-out of a drawn game. Should be quite an encounter, that, considering others have made the long trip across country to Essex this season, intent upon putting the little upstarts in their place, only to crash and burn in spectacular style on the absolute pig of a pitch they have there. To play on, I mean: I?ve touched on this before, of course, but you really do have to see the place with your own eyes to fully appreciate the many reasons why their Layer Road domicile has this reputation throughout football for being as good as having an extra player in the side, almost.

Come to think about it, the place was a thorough nuisance back in 1968, when we played them in the opening round of our Cup-winning season: the intimidation factor for visiting players was as great then as it is now, which is the main reason why they held us to a replay. That, plus the most nonsensical award for an Albion penalty I?ve ever seen in my entire life. On such arcane refereeing decisions are great clubs made: trite but true.

And Finally?. As promised, that account from John Homer of his first ever Albion game, and the circumstances surrounding it. John didn?t half pick a rotten time to begin a love affair with the club that was to last some 40 years. Managered at the time by hard-man Jimmy Hagan, former England international, as hard as nails, and expecting every other bugger to be that way as well, he?d got us a League Cup during his tenure, with a European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup jaunt to follow, but following that exciting season, when we?d finished sixth, we were unable to sustain it, and struggled with impending relegation the season thereafter.

That was the background, then, as the young Homer lad pleaded with his dad yet again to be taken to the match: his sixth month of such pleas seemingly falling upon deaf parental ears. Then, come February the 11th, the day of our home encounter with Sheffield United ? Jimmy Hagan?s old mob, coincidentally ? he finally got the parental nod. Cinders could go to the ball after all: by all accounts, John made ready for the game in record time.

With ten minutes to go before the start, John found himself inside hallowed ground for the very first time. Stood on the right hand bit of the Smethwick where it began to curve around to meet the ?posh bits?, the Halfords Lane Stand, where you went if you?d got money. Sure, Albion lost 2-1 that day, with Bobby Cram the only Baggie to hit the back of the net, but to the youthful Homer, he?d been shown the future ? and it was Baggie, mystic, wonderful, eleven fit blokes in striped shirts performing balletics upon a swarth of purest green. The pies, the fusty smells emanating from the gents, the Bovril, the chants coming from the Brummie: John had witnessed them all, and despite the defeat, wanted more, more, more!

And the rot didn?t stop there: in rapid succession, John was to witness us getting dumped from the FA Cup (versus Leeds, shipping five goals in the process, without reply); ignominious exit from the Fairs Cup (a two-legged thing versus Bologna, trashed 6-1 on aggregate, Ray Fairfax the solitary Albion scorer); a further League home game, which must have been the Sunderland one, by my reckoning, Albion scrabbling desperately for the 2-2 draw, in which Duggie Fraser and The King grabbed the goals ? then, the ?piece de resistance?. A March the 4th Wembley League Cup Final, versus QPR, which we lost 3-2, after being 2-0 up at half-time. And, just like me, John can still hear those mocking cries of ?ROD-NEE, ROD-NEE!...? to this very day! Tu ne regrette rien, mon ami?

 - Glynis Wright

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