The Diary

18 February 2007: Baggie Lads Do Us Proud At Boro.

Mogga?s First Commandment: ?Thou shalt have no other gods before me, save those of attractive and entertaining football?..?

Wow ? what a game. If ever the FA decide to market the FA Cup to countries that don?t enjoy the benefits of British football on their TV screens, and want to get them to sign up pronto, they could do a lot worse than use today?s game with Boro as their bait. What was not to admire about our tie? Two sides, one established Premiership, the other with definite ambitions of getting there come the end of the current campaign, both thrown together in the reactor vessel more commonly known as the Fifth Round.

The result? A pleasurably pulsating 90 minutes worth of Cup tie, positively crackling with good attacking play, not to mention far more than the normal ration of thrilling end-to-end stuff; four goals, one of which was a penalty, the underdog coming back twice after the higher-placed side had netted, and the whole thing deliciously balanced right until the very last kick of the ball. All very much in the Albion FA Cup tradition we older supporters took for granted just a couple of generations back. So pleasing, also, to see the current crop show their illustrious predecessors that they, too, could turn it on for the delectation of yet another Baggie-supporting generation.

Any neutrals watching at the Riverside today would have loved it, not just because of the many thrills and spills involved, but also because of a ridiculously cheap admission charge: fifteen quid for adults, and a mere fiver for concessions. Given the remarkable quality of the fare on offer, today?s was a genuine bargain-basement affair. No wonder the place was nigh-on packed today, and I fully expect the same to apply to the replay, scheduled to take place a week on Tuesday. Unless Sky get their meaty little claws into the game, and decide they want to show it live, of course.

Just about every former member of the GD editorial team made the long journey to Teesside today: for Steve The Miser And Sprog, his ?transport of delight? came courtesy of the lovely Sauce. And, in an effort to pay due homage to the competition that first got the name ?West Bromwich Albion? on just about everyone?s lips ? not to mention the enormously successful Cup run we had that particular year! ? I was wearing a 1968-style home shirt, navy and white stripes, long white sleeves, with navy cuffs. Not for the first time today, I wondered whether the shades of The King and Ossie were present in spirit, and if so, what they would have said about today?s side, today?s supporters, and not forgetting today?s superb turn-out, as well.

As far as we four intrepid travellers were concerned, today?s journey started at The Hawthorns, on a leaden-grey, distinctly chilly February morning, with a morose-looking Noise, complete with bulging plastic bag, the contents of which would have comfortably victualled a whole platoon?s worth of hungry squaddies, and standing guard duty at the entrance to the Tom Silk car-park, awaiting our arrival.

And still wearing that ghastly coat of his, too, the stuff of nightmares at many an away game when we all travelled together on a regular basis. If we asked them nicely, would the NHS perform a surgical separation procedure on our chum, and his omnipresent outer-garment, I wondered. Well, it was either that, or borrow a crowbar from some nearby householder, and do the dirty deed that had to be done ourselves!

It didn?t take us very long to find The Fart: at the front of our coach, near enough, and already having reserved three seats there for our benefit. What a nice man! Come to think about it, what a nice following. Going by the astonishing number of coaches awaiting the word to depart, it was pretty clear that a much bigger chunk of our ticket allocation for this one had been taken up since the last update I?d received from the club: make no mistake, this one was going to be a ?biggie?. A mighty Baggies army, on the march to possible Cup glory once more. Wow.

Have pity for our little Stokie friend, though: it being so long since he?d last journeyed to an Albion away game, as he?d got ready this morning, the thought ?Had I REALLY used to do this every other week?? seared through his mind like a white-hot poker, but only momentarily. Secretly, he was delighted to be back in the New York groove, so to speak.

Slightly later than advertised, the almighty convoy eventually took to the road, quickly aligning itself along the slow lane in line astern, a formation they were to hold until our intrepid band reached the assembly point for the police escort, around three hours later.

As our huge convoy started to eat up the miles, The Fart then produced his ?secret weapon?. Don?t get all excited on me, missus, I?m referring to his enormous stash of Albion videos, some of which he keeps in that voluminous bag of his. A ?defence mechanism? actually: the last time we travelled, the chap in charge had shown a truly awful so-called ?live comedy?, the person concerned being blessed with an ability to swear and cuss that would have been the envy of not a few Tourette?s sufferers, had they been on our coach. Which they weren?t, of course ? but there were not a few kids on board that day, something this chap had clean forgotten about. Oops!

Anyway, in order to circumvent the problem, Tel handed our steward chappie a couple, and told the lad to use ?em, if he?d got any sense at all. And that, dear reader, is why every single person on board old enough to remember suddenly ended up fondly reminiscing about Albion football late eighties/early nineties style. And, in the midst of this treasure-trove of Baggie memories, another gem! The Noise, doing the commentary on the club?s matchday videos, and sounding more like a super-squeaky Alan Ball with every successive game where his epiglottal services were required.

All that rich diet of Albion visual goodies quickly sent me to slumberland ? and I don?t mean the bedding specialists, either! I reckon I must have fallen asleep in South Derbyshire, and woken in North Yorkshire: one minute the weather was as grey and gloomy as you could ever possibly want, the next, I was bathed in a watery spring sunshine, its warmth playing faintly upon my face! Time, also, to assemble in the North?s answer to the OK Corral, nice and ready for our escorted trip to the Riverside itself.

One vagrant thought: while awaiting the word to go, on his perambulations around the huge car park, The Fart came across a copper with a bit of a difference: let?s face it, when consulting with the boys in blue the very last thing you want to see is one of their number sporting a massive great badge on his uniform, its message proclaiming to the world that the owner was a Dingle!

Not exactly the most scenic of routes, that one: one minute we were on the very fringes of the countryside, the next, pollution and blight were our boon companions. I kid you not, the city of Middlesbrough is but a giant chemical works: smells like it, as well! And yet there was still evidence in abundance that Mother Nature was more than willing to come up with surprising little cameos. Loads of daffodils, and all of them in full bloom, as well.

Back here, they?re showing little yellow buds aplenty, but have yet to amass sufficient courage to leave the old botanical winter woollies at home, which shouldn?t really come as a surprise, considering Up North they were still picking raspberries off the cane right in the middle of last December, not to mention all manner of gaudy-coloured butterflies somewhat incongruously brightening up the general ambience of the Geordie Yuletide scene. Quite a contrast with what had been the town?s docks in more happy and prosperous days, I suppose, with the famous Transporter Bridge to our left, surrounded by more blighted land than you could shake a stick at.

Once inside their compound, it was an easy task to find their away end, then get through the turnstiles. And that, dear reader, is where we came in! Once inside, and stood in their vast concourse beneath the ?business end?, it was truly remarkable just how many familiar faces had assembled there: clearly the pull of Mowbray-style football was magnetic, almost, with oodles of former away match regulars now very much in evidence out there, Was it the change in the season that had brought them all this way, or was it just the dilapidated chemical plant quietly mouldering across the water?

Folkies like former GD Stroller Muttley, and well-known ?refusenik? Fab Traccana. Now well and truly lured back by the enormous excitement generated in the wake of our Cup draw. The best bit, though, was some mates of Steve Carr (aka Steve The Miser!) who?d arisen from their beds intending to play football for a local side that morning: no sooner had the game been called off at 10.30 am due to weather damage to the pitch, they immediately came up with the idea of piling into the one vehicle, and making the trip north east instead!

?Im Indoors assures me that even in the gents, one could immediately glimpse a plethora of lapsed Baggies returning to the (watery, it being the toilets!) fold once more. There was the lad they call ?Blind Lou? (yes he is, hence the monicker) giving the urinals more than their fair share og plain ornery welly: my other half reckons his ability to imitate Rome?s famous Trevi Fountain while dispatching forth a copious stream of liquid nitrogenous waste is unsurpassed in the western world. Truly, a star was born! As per usual, he was accompanied by ?Al, the Phantom Piddler? ? whose bladder capacity is also truly phenomenal. Fortunately for everyone concerned, he?s not so much into living up to the advance billing suggested by his nickname, these days. Just as well, really. Now why is it we females never, ever encounter such excretory eccentrics in our own ?facilities??

The team news, as seen courtesy Boro?s in-house CCTV, was scary. Bar for a couple of youngsters, they?d chucked just about everyone they could into their starting eleven. A back-handed compliment for Mogga and his merry men, I suppose, but not one all that comforting, when you sat down and thought about it. No stroll around the park for them, and no snoozing in the seats during the game, either: as far as Boro were concerned, this meant war!

As for our lot, a distinct lack of first team squad meant that our options were pretty limited anyway. As we?d thought, our leader decided to ring the changes up front once more, with the rested Phillips and Koumas taking up their accustomed berths once more, and Jonathan Greening returned from suspension. Old hat to Greening, the Riverside, of course, given he?s a former Boro player. As for Mogga?s opposite number, Gareth Southgate, he had also rung the changes: three of ?em in all, to being the return from injury of Jonathan Woodgate, and the lad who rejoices in the strange monicker ?Arca?. Sounds more like a spot-welding firm to me, but there you are: at least third returnee Adam Johnson couldn?t have the rip taken out of his name by opposing supporters. Interestingly, Boro were to suffer yet another injury woe, and before a single ball was kicked in anger, too. This time, the victim was the lad Rochemback, with Jason Euell stepping up to the bench without an awful lot of notice on his part. One amusing touch: on the TV screens downstairs, they actually detailed the preferred playing positions of their own first team squad. Weren?t their followers mentally capable of knowing their favourites? usual playing positions, or what?

So much for the preparatory details, then. What about the minutes and seconds immediately prior to the start? For some unaccountable reason, their PA then started to blast out music from ?Orpheus In The Underworld? (most Baggies know it better as the ?Can-Can?), with what I?d thought was Sunderland?s exclusive poison, the theme from ?Romeo And Juliet, hitting us at Warp Factor Nine shortly afterwards. Blimey, I could only hope that there weren?t all that many environmentalist activists based in the town during the years to come: the amount of noise pollution there was something shocking.

After the emergence of both sides from the tunnel?s anonymous, womb-like murk, there was a pregnant sort of pause, I suppose, then, the whole ground erupted in an impressive show of enthusiasm for our manager, who is still regarded as a near-god by their local Boro fan-base. When you?ve already busted a gut to remove a clear and present threat to a club?s continued existence, then you?ve just got to walk on water, haven?t you?

And so, with a pitch bathed in brilliant-but-not-quite spring sunshine, off we jolly well went, our enormous following giving it big licks in that vast away end of theirs. All went well, in a cagey sort of way, until around the 7th minute, when we got the mother of a let-off, when the Boro lad on the left, tanking down the wing and leaving McShane for dead, managed to get the cross over, right from the by-line, and as mean and nasty as you like. It then shot across our goalmouth like a scalded cat ? all it needed was a simple tap-in, but Boro hadn?t banked on very few of their lads being at an opportune moment to score. Lacking the necessary probing boot, it simply sailed right past our far post instead, to be instantaneously lost amidst the plethora of photographers tenanting that bit of the touchline that day.

Two minutes later, the same thing almost happened again: this time, it was Viduka showing Clem a clean pair of heels, leaving the latter for dead, and the former with a clear sight of goal: fortunately, Curtis Davies was on the ball, and rapidly shifted to negate the danger. But that wasn?t getting to the root of the problem, really. They were threatening to sink us in about the time it takes to walk from one end of the ground to the other.

With just ten minutes gone, Albion were suddenly a lot more proactive than they had been. Just as well, really: the way things were progressing for Boro, it would be ?game over? very shortly. Joe Kamara got things going, finally, with a blistering run that left his minder struggling to keep up. In went his cross, low, mean, nasty, and taking everything Boro knew to prevent Phillips from applying the finishing touch to Joe?s excellent handiwork.

Mind you, Boro weren?t exactly conducting themselves like angels out there: a lot of what they did was down to plain skulduggery, most of it conducted out of sight of the match officials. Despite such unwarranted intrusions on his peace of mind, Koren nicked the ball from his opposite number, quickly sending Joe off once more on one of his havoc-creating runs. Again Phillips was the chosen recipient of the cross, and again, the lad was unlucky not to capitalise.

Then it was Boro?s turn to enter Albion?s Fright Zone: first off, we were damned lucky to get away with a timely clearance following a scary moment when the opposition seemed intent on passing us to death: no matter what we did to stop them, on and on they came, as relentless and damaging as a charging bull elephant on amphetamines: God must have taken pity upon our plight at that moment, because somehow, we finally managed to scramble the thing out of harm?s way.

An Albion goal ruled offside later ? from what I?ve seen of the incident since, the match official looked to have it right ? it was us rocking and rolling in the wake of the Boro juggernaut. And this time, there was no handy lino toting a flag to offer us a much-needed respite from what was looking ominously like the inevitable. With around two thirds of the half gone, we neglected to treat Boro?s cross from the right with the respect it deserved.

Result? Arca, with sod-all in the way of Albion defenders trying to stop him, plonking the bladder well and truly in the hole. One-nil to Boro, then ? and much to our surprise, that was the cue for their normally-passive following to burst into life. Either that, or someone naughty had spiked their pre-match beverages with something highly illegal: with their comatose following, it?s difficult to tell, sometimes.

In common with The Fart, I?d thought that the start of an avalanche of goals, and none of ?em tagged with the name of an Albion scorer ? unless you want to go play ?oggies?, of course. But, after the initial shock of conceding, we then buckled down to the formidable task of rescuing the situation in fairly short order. First off, Jason Koumas had a creditable effort repulsed, then, just minutes before the break, we seemed to once more perform what is rapidly becoming our ?party trick? ? banging one in at or near the stroke of half-time.

Koumas was the engineer of the move that finally did the damage, threading the ball through to the ever-lurking Joe, who then pulled the trigger in very short order: much to our surprise, the ball hit the back of the net, and the entire away end went bananas with joy. Parity restored, finally ? but not for long.

Following a seeming attempt from Yakubu to fashion a perfect swallow-dive, with the added benefit of a somewhat muddy landing, Boro got what they wanted ? a penalty. To be perfectly honest, at the tine of the incident, I?d thought the ref completely and utterly conned by the now-prostrate Smog-Monster, my own jeers finally joining all those winging their way towards the spot, where the now miraculously recovered striker was setting up the spot-kick.

Although having not had the best of luck from the spot, of late, Boro?s aspiring thespian still managed to beat Kiely. (I?ve now seen the incident on Match Of The Day: what I couldn?t see, from my vantage-point, was our man craftily tugging at the Boro man?s shirt on the blind side of the ref. I still think Yakubu made a meal of it, though!)

So, there we were at the break, a goal down, but most certainly not outplayed: everything they?d chucked at us, we?d returned with compound interest. The burning question, then? Could we turn it around, come the second half? After all, they may have been Premiership but they sure as hell weren?t a master-race.

Onto the second sitting, then, played on a ground still bathed in a wonderfully evocative golden, wintry light. ?Start as you mean to go on? seemed to be our mantra, as we took the game to Boro, keeping things in and around their box for long periods of time ? and they didn?t like it one bit. That wasn?t how the script was supposed to go, they were finding us something of a handful to contain, what with McShane belting over from around six yards out, and a long-range try from Koumas meeting with a similar fate.

But our persistence in attack finally paid off when the half had run around 50 per cent of its course. It was Robbo who turned a somewhat unlikely creator of chances, taking the ball as far as the edge of the box before laying it off for Phillips, who didn?t exactly need an embossed invitation to have a go. The effort left his boot like an Exocet, beating their custodian hands down, and ending up right in the back of the net as a result. Parity restored, deservedly so ? and, my, didn?t that away end rock and roll once the ref pointed to the centre circle!

By now, Albion were playing some of the finest football I?ve seen from them in many a long year. Ball on the floor, pass-pass-passing, all the time, from wing to wing, from defender to attacker, in a relentless, slick-moving wave that, at times, threatened to completely overwhelm the home side. They sure as hell didn?t like us coming at them ? and it showed. Over that fine ten or fifteen minute spell, I don?t think Boro had more than one chance end up anywhere near the target.

But it was our own keeper who really earned the plaudits once we?d crossed into that horrible last ten minutes I sometimes call ?The Twilight Zone?, mainly on account of the fact that if there are foul spirits out there wanting to wreck our League and Cup progress, that?s the time they?re going to be at their most determined. And so it proved: with about eight left on the clock, the ball happened to drop most fortuitously for Boro?s James Morrison (wonder if he?s game for a quick rendition of ?Riders Of The Storm?, sometime?), leaving him with a gilt-edged chance from a ridiculously silly kind of range.

It all looked dead and buried for our lot ? but we hadn?t reckoned with the genius of Dean Kiely. Somehow ? don?t ask me how ? he managed to palm the shot away. Pure instinct must have had an awful lot of say in the matter, I reckon, but whatever the means of escape, I?m awfully glad he was there to deal with the threat that day.

Come the last few minutes, and seemingly, everyone resigned to the entire shebang being resumed at the Hawthorns in approximately ten days time. That was when Curtis Davies went and queered our pitch slightly, wrestling with Viduka, and being adjudged to have held him while all that was going on. One might convincingly argue that it was just as well he did: had Curtis not been prepared to sacrifice his disciplinary record for the cause, then I reckon we?d have lost the tie, and in the cruellest way imaginable, too ? courtesy of a very late goal.

Curtis had to walk, though ? which means he?ll be absent for a couple of games. A bit of a body-blow to our League aspirations, that one. The very last thing we wanted was for our Cup exploits to significantly impact upon our promotion efforts. Let?s just hope that we don?t end up biting off far more than we can chew in the process. It?s the past doings of the likes of Sheffield United that provide us with such a timely warning.

Still, we live to fight another day, and on Monday, we finally get to hear our fate, should we get past Boro at the second attempt. On the face of today?s display, I?d say we have an excellent chance of ruining their entire season for them. And, depending upon that sixth round draw, we?d stand at least a half-decent chance of overcoming at least four or five of the clubs still in there pitching. Life could get even more interesting, given half a chance. What a great time to be a Baggie, eh?

And Finally? I don?t know whether it was hysteria that finally supervened on our return to our coach, or what, but from the very first moment I heard some Radio Five Live commentator or other describe Joe Kamara as ?A wandering threat?, suddenly a vivid picture of a bearded, whisky-sluggin? Lee Marvin sprang to mind, as per his starring role in the 1970 musical extravaganza ?Paint Your Wagon?, those gritty basso profundo tones of his grinding out, not the conventional lyrics to ?Wandering Star?, but instead: ?Joe Ka-ma-ra Is A Wandering Threat?? That's when those awful childish giggles of mine first started!

Just to try and get a laugh, I even sang my ?revised version? to The Noise, sat like a beached whale on the seat in front, and trying like stink to recover both his wits and breath after the sheer mental torture of those last few tension-packed minutes. Probably big-time hysterics coming from him, too, but at least he did find the concept funny!

 - Glynis Wright

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