The Diary

24 February 2007: A Successful Fox Hunt To Put Us Top, Tomorrow?

Cast your minds back to early childhood, or, to be more specific, those times when there were scary programmes on TV that you wanted to watch out of a mixture of sheer bravado and stubbornness, even though your parents vetoed them, but when it actually came to the crunch, your final destination would always be behind the back of the sofa. Watching through tremulous fingers held splayed over eyes completely petrified with fear, more often than not. And all the grown-ups laughing like drains. Doctor Who is an obvious candidate, of course, although I was well past that stage by the time the good doctor first started strutting his stuff across black and white 405-line screens galore, and destroying Daleks left, right and centre. To be perfectly frank, when I was of a ?certain age?, Quatermass always did it for me, first time, every time - but that?s another generation, another story.

That?s not to say I don?t get similar feelings, sometimes, when watching doomsday documentaries these days, and not necessarily just those: a couple of evenings ago, I sat in horrified fascination as our goggle-box proceeded to roll out the life and times of two female conjoined twins, impossible to separate because just about every organ and blood vessel, major and minor, situated below neck level, did service for the pair of them. But they did have two separate heads, which meant two separate brains, two separate lots of thought processes, two distinct personalities ? they even had to take driving tests as two separate people, twice, with first one girl?s head, then the other, doing the actual decision making! - and that was the main reason why I could only watch the thing cringing from behind the shelter of an overlarge reference book I happened to be reading at the time. p So many ways in which their quality of life could be affected, so many practical difficulties of other kinds, and so many potential psychological minefields I could see hitting them hard in future ? jobs, relationships, children of their own, that sort of thing ? in the end, I just gave up listing them for the benefit of non-scientific hubby, and watched the remainder in grim silence. Some things really are beyond comment, sometimes.

And yes, there is a strong connection between my opening preamble, and our favourite football club, honest. After what must be considered a diabolical sort of start by anyone?s lights, we?ve finally got our act together, and are now fully living up to our advance billing as strong promotion contenders. And catching the attention of not a few neutrals because of Mogga?s wonderfully imaginative and entertaining playing style. But during matchdays, both home and away, that doesn?t quite prevent the old childish terrors from kicking in from time to time, leaving me then with a very strong urge to find the nearest sofa - then cower behind it once more, hands splayed, and half-covering fear-filled saucer-like eyes, until the final whistle sounds.

Although all common sense and logic currently dictates there are no real monsters out there, and we?re all rational, grown-up people anyway, Albion being Albion, they?re more than capable of creating bespoke versions laden with scary stuff in amounts more than sufficient to wreck many an avid supporter?s night-time dreams for years to come. One minute it?s bellicose Daleks on the Beeb, the next it?s Cardiff, in the flesh. Or Leeds. Or Southampton. Or Derby. The way things are going, the time will soon come when I?ll have no choice but to let the sofa come to Mohammed. Assuming I can sneak one past vigilant stewards guarding away ends innumerable in the first place, of course. Where?s The Fart?s bag, the one with the interior that extends into hyperspace, when you desperately need it, eh?

My reasoning? It?s getting pretty tight out there ? too bloody tight, for my liking. Tonight Cardiff took Preston to the cleaners, quite unexpectedly, and to the tune of four goals, with the Lancashire club only getting one by way of reply, a result that slightly helps us, I reckon, one having taken points from the other in such dramatic style. I only caught that game midway through the second half, by which time the damage had already been done, of course, but going by the replays, The Bluebirds ? courtesy one-man demolition squad, the newly-returned Chopra: thank the Lord he couldn?t turn out for them last Tuesday night! - made a right old mess on their windscreens, before finally ?declaring?.

With Southampton hosting Ipswich at St. Mary?s, fifth placed Sunderland and current table-toppers Derby going head-to-head, Blues travelling to relegation-haunted Hull, and The Dingles doing battle with what will undoubtedly be a desperate Leeds tomorrow afternoon, we really do need a win at 13th placed Leicester tucked safely under our belts come five to five. What with Blues currently being only one point behind us, and with a game in hand, still, it would be awfully nice if we could start getting some clear blue water between our two clubs. ?Twould be even nicer still if Sunderland did the decent thing, and really whopped The Rams for us: three points at Leicester on top, and we?d be emulating James Cagney?s gangster character in ?White Heat?: ?Top of the world, Ma ? top of the world!?

Should Derby further implode because of ongoing internal strife, as I believe they may, and we carry on truckin?, still, I strongly suspect we could be in for a rerun of the almighty struggle we had with Sunderland the last time we went up, back in 2003, when Lloyd Dyer disobeyed Megson in the last minute of our crunch game with them, to provide the assist for a last-gasp winner, and an effective six-pointer that saw us as good as promoted that day - but let?s worry about that one only when we have to face it, eh?

Time to look at personnel availability, once more, then. Apparently, Mark Venus is a good mate of the current Leicester leader, former Dingle Rob Kelly. It?s a fair indication of the massive turnaround there?s been at Leicester ever since Kelly took over, that they?ve now managed to put all their relegation woes right behind them, by stringing together three wins on the bounce, something that?s taken them to the comparatively exalted spot they now enjoy.

And there?s at least one loan player of theirs that won?t be going back come the end of the month. Jason Jarrett, their midfielder, currently on loan from Preston, has been given the OK to stay for a bit longer. On the ?sick, lame and dying? front, our foxy chums will be sorely missing midfielder Danny Tiatto and striker Matty Fryatt: both injured, one with a hamstring, the other with a painful toe-bone. A miserable position to be in, sure, but not nearly half as miserable as their club captain, Paddy McCarthy, who has a shoulder injury. He?s already been declared out for the remainder of the season, poor lad.

Stephen Hughes, he of the back and groin problems (well, that should stop him swinging from the chandeliers in the near future, won?t it?) who was given 45 minutes during the course of their 1-0 win at Burnley earlier this week, has now been given the green light to play, so he?ll be looking to be included in their starting line-up also.

The Walkers Stadium will also be hosting a bit of an Albion Old Boys? Reunion of sorts, tomorrow. Former striker Geoff Horsfield is now very much a Fox, as is Andy Johnson, our one-time midfield human dynamo. The bad news is they?re both in the pink and ready to do battle with our finest. EEK! Personally, I?d have The Horse back tomorrow, such is the terrific amount of energy, not to mention good old-fashioned leadership by example he devotes to the cause, ANY cause. Let?s just hope we don?t have those pair making life as torrid as they possibly can for us, and that could save us a deal of trouble in the long run.

As far as our line-up is concerned, the main news is the return of Curtis Davies from suspension. That will mean either Paul Mc Shane or Alby having to make way for him. Personally, after a somewhat lacklustre performance on Tuesday night, I suspect the man to get dropped will be the second of those two options. That minor change apart, everything else seems to be hunky dory.

So ? that?s the scene set, the cast assembled for the opening scene, the leading roles having learned their lines with all due diligence. All that remains now is for City?s ?theatre? to throw open those massive doors to its ?audience?. Should be a bumper gate, this one: from our end, it?s been a sell-out for several days, so that means we?ll be taking around 3,000 to the place that used to be the knitwear capital of England, once in a lullaby. By tomorrow night, now less than 24 hours away, we could quite easily be top of the whole heap, and sporting enormous grins the entire length and breadth of that famous East Midlands city, as we three former Dick Eds-turned-intrepid-away-travellers head back to God?s own Black Country via the motorway.

Come on you Baggies, have faith: once more, Destiny seems to have hi-jacked our entire season, lock, stock and corner-flag. Just as happened come the end of our gloriously successful 1991-92 promotion campaign, we can bloody well do this again ? but with one significant difference. This time, we go up ?the Albion way?, bags of panache, pass and move, ball skills executed in truly sumptuous style, allied with lashings of entertainment, pure and simple. Traditionally Albion, in other words ? and that can?t be such a bad thing for football, now, can it?

And Finally?. And, amidst all that breathless prose above, here?s a slightly belated ?Well Done? message for Ronnie Wallwork, who came through his first game since that awful stabbing a few months back without any complications whatsoever. It?s always a long process recovering from major abdominal surgery, never mind the sort made even more tricky by Ron?s assailant landing his knife there as well, and by doing so, tearing everything to shreds, just about. The main thing is ensuring that all the layers of abdominal wall that had to be stitched have healed properly, which seems to have been the case as far as Our Ronnie is concerned.

The game was versus Walsall, the score 2-1 to us, and he was on for the entire 90 minutes, which must speak volumes about his current fitness-levels, stabbing or no stabbing. Nick Worth and his medical chums have clearly done a great rehabilitation job on the lad. All that remains now is to get him back to the fitness levels he?d reached before his assailant decided to do a re-enactment of Julius Caesar in some Manchester nightclub or other. Albion are now strongly hinting he could be back in contention for a first team place before the season?s through: should that prove to be the case, we?d be witnessing one hell of a happy ending to what could so easily have been a tragic tale. Welcome back to our beautiful world, Ronnie.

 - Glynis Wright

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