The Diary

09 March 2007: A Reunion Attended And New Technology Reviewed.

Hooray, hooray! As The Fart would say, it?s ?official?! Spring has definitely sprung! Today has been a distinctly pleasant one, here in the Black Country. This afternoon, the sun was shining fit to bust, cream-coloured clouds aplenty scudded across our bit of urban sky, and even the local birds ? starlings, and pigeons, both wood and ?normal?, for the most part - were out there giving vent to their considerable musical talents. Add to that the piece of good news I had yesterday, that Cyrille, my previously-ailing cat, is now surpassing splendidly all the gloomy prognoses most veterinary textbooks had in store for him ? our vet genuinely can?t get over how wonderfully his condition has improved, of late ? and, for this particular Baggie, at least, with Puss no longer halfway through death?s door, the coming months should prove both exciting and fulfilling. So rumour has it.

It also has to be said that not a little of that keenly-anticipated contentment will come concurrent upon my football team making a decent fist of it during the final run-in, which commences very soon indeed. Some might want to argue it?s started already, but my personal viewpoint rests upon the assumption that we still have an awful lot of games ? and therefore possible points ? to play for, still: ten and thirty respectively, in fact. The real time to reach for the nerve pills will come towards the end of this month, by which time most of the myriad issues revolving around that part of our league table will have been resolved, leaving only a fraction of the clubs now in contention with a realistic chance of staying the course.

Ideally, of course, we?d want to go up automatically, but given the blistering current form of both Derby and Blues ? thinking purely pragmatically, the best possible outcome, from a Baggies viewpoint, of their clash tomorrow night, might well be a Derby win - we may have to settle for a knock-out resolution of our more immediate problems after all. Talk about ?worst case scenario?.

Given the fact that we now possess both manager and first team squad positively aglow with job-satisfaction ? small rewards for the multifarious delights of playing attractive football and scoring for fun, but one hell of a buzz for the people concerned! - seeing our lot having to settle for the play-offs after all would be a bit like sentencing a very young and innocent Bambi to five years in the Scrubs. Then letting him loose unsupervised on B Wing just as the entire lot of them were about to take their compulsory weekly shower, and every single one greatly looking forward to an impromptu game of ?drop the soap?. Looking at it from an Albion supporter?s (and, more likely than not, players?!) viewpoint, the end result would be pretty much the same. Ouch.

But all that?s very much in the future, and there?s a helluva lot more water to flow under the bridge before anything?s resolved at our level. At least tonight?s doings were a break from the normal bump-and-grind of nervously anticipating yet another Sabbath Molineux encounter. The occasion? The Supporters Club celebration of our 1975-76 promotion to Division One, the one where we travelled to Oldham mob-handed on the last day of the season, needing a win to do it, and Bomber Brown obliging with exquisite timing, his second half strike doing the biz for us. Just as well, really: down in London, promotion rivals Bolton were also playing, and they just happened to beat their own opponents by four clear goals. So much, then, for the rumours, spread via the Boundary Park ?bush telegraph?, that they were losing by a similar margin!

Anyway, returning to the present once more, the Supporters Club certainly did a good job in flushing various ex-Albion players from out of sundry holes and corners, then twisting their arms ? no, belay my last: perhaps the phrase ?by employing very robust negotiating skills? would be far more diplomatic! ? persuading them to come and join their gargantuan bun-fight tonight. And, I?m pleased to say that the vast majority of those invited positively leaped at the chance to recall old personalities, and even older stories, in the company of some like-minded people.

Take your places, then, for a close encounter with people like Johnny Giles; Bomber Brown; Ian Edwards ? I?m ashamed to say I?d forgotten he even existed, let alone played in that 1976 first team squad, until John Homer mentioned his name ? Willie Johnston, all the way from the Port Brae Tavern in Kircaldy, Gordon Brown?s constituency, by the way; Joe Mayo; Paddy Mulligan; Ally Robertson; Bryan Robson; Tucka Trewick, unlike Willie, all the way from the cider-lovin? wilds of Hereford United; John Wile ? was it El Tel who was naughty enough to suggest that John Homer And Co auction off that famously bloodied bandage of his? - and last, but not least, Ray Wilson. How does that little lot grab you all, then?

All these people were aided and abetted by various other members of the Former Players? Association, including Graham Williams, SuperBob (who, typically for him, arrived late!); Daryl Burgess; Richard Sneekes; all those, plus many more, gave up their time to make the evening go with something of a swing. Oh, and even my other half was mixing business with pleasure, insofar as Simon Lowe, ?Im Indoors?s long-suffering publisher, was there to shift a few more copies of his ?Cult Heroes? book, also Adrian Goldberg, who acted as the ?Little? foil to Mister Lowe?s ?Large?, all six foot-odd of him. Watching both of them making their sales pitch at various points in the room was a bit like watching a small moonlet orbiting a gas giant planet, such as Jupiter, the smaller ?heavenly body? buzzing around the more stately larger one at a tremendous rate of knots. Not that I?ve ever seen the planet Jupiter march its nightly course across the heavens with a bloody great book in its grasp, mind. And the actual concept of an annoyingly-small satellite called ?Goldberg? is simply too ridiculous for words. Just watch Patrick Moore prove me wrong on the next ?Stars At Night? programme, then.

The media proper was also represented, in the form of Adrian Chiles, plus Chris Lepkowski, with John Simpson doing the biz for our fave football club, represented also by Doc John Evans, our soon-to-be collecting his free bus pass and pension-book Chief Exec. Backroom staff were also plentiful, with Dave Matthews, kit-man at the time of our Oldham triumph, plus Albert Macpherson, former trainer-cum-physio-cum-God-alone-knows-what-else, prominent. On the medical front, who else but Doc Rimmer to fly the flag (made from a quantity of gash bandages, of course)!

Well, I certainly take my hat off to the Supporters Club, who organised the entire affair themselves: well over 300 people were gathered in the biggest function room the East Stand had to offer, tonight, and what with all the necessary skills incumbent upon getting all these former Baggies luminaries to the right place at the right time, and the other guests also, you?d have thought John Homer and chums had secretly drafted in the military to sort out all the logistical donkey-work for them.

It?s no small tribute to their many organisational talents that the evening passed off as smoothly as it did; just getting all those tables decorated with balloons (blue and white, yellow and green, naturally!), cutlery and crockery laid, and so forth, must have been a massive undertaking alone. Sure, Albion?s caterers were responsible for that side of it, but even so, they still had to operate to a set of instructions. And all that matching of people with tables must have given someone a whanging great headache along the line, as well.

After assisting our publisher and Mister Goldberg in trying to persuade some of those present to flash the cash ? he might be a tad small, our Ade, but he ain?t half persuasive when he wants to be! ? it was then to our places for the meal. While the first course ? soup - was being dished up, the elegant, lovely and talented Mister Homer introduced his special guests on an individual basis, as they were seated for the night. As you can well imagine, there was quite a cast-list to read out, with very few absences indeed.

And you could probably say the same about the audience, I suppose: just about every Albion supporter, be they there for reasons of notable longevity, as per Vic Stirrup, or simply because they regarded it as their bounden duty to support such functions, and therefore felt constrained to be there on the night. Which all added up to an awful lot of years collectively spent either tearing one?s hair out by the very roots in sheer frustration, or approaching near-orgasm on those rare occasions when our football club managed to hit the headlines for all the right reasons.

Yes, they were all there: the young, who know little of football save the commercially-oriented beast it is now; the old, with sepia-tinted memories of a time when Albion competed with the very best this country could produce; those whose playing careers brought honour aplenty to the club; the fringe players; those prematurely retired from the game, hip and knee-joints irreparably damaged through a career?s worth of sharp twists and turns. All these had their tale to tell, in much the same way that old soldiers attending regimental reunions feel constrained to reminisce, once the old falling-down water gets flowing good and proper, and one of their number starts the ball rolling with some prompt or other, be it conscious or otherwise.

A multiplicity, too, of old friends from Supporters Club branches either sadly defunct these days, or, in some cases, still going strong, and occupying many, many tables. Despite a rather savage upwards swing in collective disillusionment over the course of the last ten years or more, the lamp still burns as brightly for such (masochistic?) people as it ever did.

With the arrival of the main course, chicken, came the raffle ticket sellers: on the Homer front, the lad then surpassed himself fighting off the attentions of over-keen autograph-hunters, later devoting his considerable vocal talents in the general direction of the raffle draw, with what was colloquially known as a ?heads and tails? knockout game, the last person standing winning a cool hundred squid for themselves, chucked in for good measure.

Oh, and the Supporters Club also held an auction of related Baggies memorabilia, provenance also circa 1976, to keep the troops happy. It was truly astonishing what some of those items made on the night, it really was. A massive team photo of the 1975-76 squad fetched somewhere in the region of five hundred quid, believe it or not. I have to say the comedic ?light relief? didn?t half work: by the end of the evening, I?m sure people would have been willing to sell their souls to the devil, thanks to John?s silky-smooth sales skills.

The nicest bit of all, though, was that portion of the evening?s programme devoted to what one might have termed ?Albion?s forgotten heroes of 1975-76?. Nothing to do with the Boundary Park ?away team?, this time, just our FA Youth Cup-winning side from that self-same season. The one and only time Albion ever collared the junior version of the adult-size pot. Oh, what joy to see them whop the Dingles in that two-legged Final, the first one taking place about a week after the senior side?s amazing triumph at Oldham.

Returning to the 21st century once more, it was also a good night for our then-keeper Mark Grew, who got missed when the Cup-winners? medals were being dished out, on account of the fact that he?d only played in the second leg of the final: as only twelve medals had been struck, and he was an unexpected thirteenth, he was never given one. Fast-forward to the present, then: tonight, the Supporters Club managed to rectify the matter, with a little help from both the FA, who had another specially struck for the occasion, and Doc John Evans!

Mark did say that the absence of the necessary hard evidence had led his disbelieving offspring ? ?come on then, Dad, show us your medals!? ?Err ? I was never given one, actually!....? to think he was telling them porkies. At least he can now go home with his head held high, and a cup-winner?s medal burning a dirty great hole in his pocket by way of proof.

Even The Fart was happy with the way the night went; yet another bunch of signatures to add to the collection, then! Perhaps I should explain in more detail: when not admiring the various skills of our favourite football team, The Fart goes in search of famous names to add to his already huge autograph stash, and tonight was no exception. There certainly were rich pickings to be had out there, which is probably why our ancient chum was walking about like a cat that got the cream, the remainder of the entire evening.

What with all the flotsam and jetsam associated with our defeat at the hands of Sunderland, and the ample bellyful of Albionite angst that accompanied said loss, I almost missed out on a potentially-groundbreaking slice of football news, for the most part buried among all the top two divisional match reports to be found in the Sundays, both broadsheet and tabloids. And, unlike most stuff that comes skulking within the confines of an apologetic paragraph or two, this one should certainly strike a whopping great chord with all you lovely Baggie-people out there, especially those veterans of at least five years unbroken Hawthorns service, that is. Let me explain.

Sitting comfortably? Good. Now, hands up all those who remember our home game versus Rotherham, the year we won promotion to the Prem for the first time ever. As you will recall, the game itself, played during one of those memorable but frenetic Saturdays constituting the fag-end of season 2001-02, ended in a 1-1 draw, of course, a state of affairs that was to prove far more satisfactory to our Hawthorns guests for the day than our own players.

How come? The draw kept Rotherham safe enough, but would end up just enough to push unlucky Crewe Alex right over the edge instead, despite them amassing a total of 49 points, a final tally that would have seen them just scrape by in previous seasons. Thanks to that draw, we promotion hopefuls had to keep the celebratory champagne on ice for a good deal longer. How come? Well, let?s just apportion most of the blame to the ?goal that never was?, eh?

SuperBob Taylor had given us the lead quickly enough, but Rotherham were really desperate to retain their First Division status ? and who could blame them? Not surprisingly, they eventually managed to equalise ? and that was when ?it? happened. During the later stages of the second half, in a distinctly fraught effort to grab all three points right at the death, a sweaty, nervous Albion were almost chucking the kitchen sink at a somewhat robust Rotherham defence: it was during the course of one of our ?cavalry charges? on their net, ending in the usual goalmouth scramble, that the Brummie suddenly let rip with one almighty bellow. Sitting in the Halfords, we knew that something important had happened down there ? but what?

It was only after the final whistle that we found out: during the course of that Albion-led free-for-all in the six-yard area, someone actually managed to get the ball over the line. And not by a matter of centimetres, either: subsequent newspaper and TV coverage was to show the ball in closer proximity to the back of the net than the goal-line itself ? and still all three match officials missed it! That led to an awful lot of ?conspiracy theories? given an airing on the internet come the start of the following week, one of which was speculation that the lino (if I remember correctly: if not, I?m sure there?s someone out there can fill me in on the correct details!) was a closet Dingle. Anyway, the point was that we should have been awarded a goal, but weren?t, and in the most blatantly-unjust circumstances imaginable, too. No wonder our then-manager moaned his bag off to the press, afterwards.

Not the first time we?ve been caught like that, of course, and certainly wouldn?t be the last, either. Unless what the press have been trumpeting to the four winds over the course of the last week or so eventually comes to pass. Whisper it quietly, all you Baggie people, but at long last, I do declare the International Football Association Board have finally agreed to run trials on new technology designed to make such unfortunate incidents a thing of the past.

There have been experiments with differing technologies in Serie A and FIFA junior tournaments already (something I didn?t know), and following on from that, the FA and FIFA now seem most keen to give such systems an actual trial at football?s sharp end. Ironic, really: when I wrote my diary entry for that Rotherham game, all of five seasons ago, I remember opining that once such a thing happened to one of our bigger clubs, then enthusiasm for the introduction of such aids would know no bounds. And that?s the way it was to pan out: following on from incidents like Man U v Pompey, FA Cup 2006-07, and the infamous Man U v Spurs one around 18 months previously, minds were concentrated wonderfully, and in record time, too.

As it turned out, the latter one of the two examples I?ve culled from the Prem was wonderfully Rotherham-esque. During the course of one particular Spurs attack, the Red Devils then-keeper, a chap named Carroll, failed to prevent the ball from crossing the line, but by dint of instinctively scooping the ball away from the danger area at light-speed, his actions somehow led both referee and lino to believe that Pedro Mendes, the unfortunate Spurs striker involved, hadn?t struck home, if you get my drift. Later TV evidence would show that just like the Albion-Rotherham caper, the ball ended up considerably nearer the back of the net than the actual goal-line itself, but by that stage, there was sod-all anyone could do about it! No wonder Spurs and others started to squeal like pigs in a slaughterhouse.

The FA being bureaucratic to the core, they?re imposing stringent conditions that any such new technology will have to comply with, before it?s let loose anywhere near a major football ground. Fair comment, I suppose: having seen the other side of the coin, American football, where TV evidence is used extensively to resolve spats such as those we?re discussing today, then it would be completely and utterly wrong for that to ruin the flow of a game. What the English game?s rulers are looking at is a system whereby the very moment the ball crosses the goal line, the ref ? and only him - gets an audible instantaneous signal. Having heard it, the ref can then act accordingly. Should the equipment be on the blink, just like the present situation, I?m sure TV footage would tell its own story, although once the technology?s been perfected, I reckon that such an occurrence would be rare indeed.

Mind you, as far as I?m concerned, that?s not the only thing in the game that needs similar modernisation. What about the thorny question of offsides, one of the most contentious aspects of the modern game that I know? Don?t take this as an attack upon the mental co-ordination and agility of linos, though: far from it. No, the real root of the problem lies within the indisputable fact that the game is played at frightening speed these days, and is rapidly getting to the stage when determining such issues will become a task far beyond the abilities, be they either mental or physical, of the average Joe to sort out in just manner.

Just thinking about what an actual lino does makes this issue abundantly clear. (For reasons of clarity, I?ll leave out the other thorny-but-relevant issue of whether other attackers are ?active? or not the very moment the ball is kicked.) When, say, a midfielder belts the ball from his own half, to the striker standing some way further upfield, and beyond the halfway line, the chap with the flag has two instant decisions to make. The first? Was the guy receiving the ball in line with, or in front of, any defenders trying to stop him? The second ? and as near simultaneous with the first as dammit? What was the actual state of play up front, come the very first moment boot made contact with ball? In line is now deemed ?onside? these days, don?t forget.

As I said before, the sheer speed at which the game is played these days can conspire to make such fine judgment-calls an impossibility, almost. Oh ? and the very fact the lino only rarely gets to see the ball being kicked other than from an angle, means what?s known as ?parallax? (the way an image can shift markedly when viewed with alternate eyes closed: try it for yourself, with a couple of pins stuck about a foot from each other, and you?ll see what I mean) comes into it as well.

In fact, I remember reading some research on that very same subject, how offsides get to be called wrongly ? all done at a French university, if I remember correctly ? which came to the startling conclusion that most linos, even the really competent ones, got it wrong around 40 per cent of the time. Frightening, when you think of the amount of money swilling about the game these days, and what a wrong call could mean for a club ending up on the losing side through a goal being mistakenly ruled out for offside. Or vice-versa. Or, as happened to poor Chesterfield in an FA Cup semi not so very long ago, a vital goal being disallowed when it was quite clearly over the line, as subsequent video evidence was to prove conclusively.

And that?s why we so urgently need a drastic rethink about the introduction of new technology in that sort of instance. The ability to rule one way or another just fractions of a second after such contentious occurrences is shifting way, way beyond that of mere humans to do the job diligently. Let?s face it, if the crusty and hidebound set of old farts that run Wimbledon tennis tournament can let the cameras in for what is, to all intents and purposes, the same thing, then it?s got to mean football has to follow suit PDQ, and the sooner the better, as far as I?m concerned.

And, with that, I?m off to my well-earned kip. Back again on Saturday night, for a preview of the Dirty Job That?s Got To Be Done (Part Three). By that time, also, we?ll have a better idea of how the rest of the table is shaping up, or, more to the point, the bit of it that directly affects us. It might well be we?ll need a little bit more than the usual vocal enthusiasm to see us through, come the Sabbath. Now where?s the Reverend Hipkiss when you most need him, eh?

And Finally?. One.... Well done, Dave Holloway. While performing ?auctioneer?s assistant? duties tonight, that collar and tie get up of yours didn?t half make you look for all the world like an undertaker?s ?gofer?. All you needed was a coffin or three in close proximity, with or without dead bodies tenanting them, and you?d have been well away?.

Two.... When we both arrived at the ground, tonight, we asked the two on the door, both of Throstle Club fame, whether Ade Goldberg and/or Simon Lowe, our publisher had got there yet. "Ooh, no - haven't seen either of them, we'd have recognised 'em both...." A bit of a blow, that, as we had their tickets in our hot little mitts, and we needed to give them back to their rightful owners ASAP. So, what did we do? Pass them over to our dynamic duo, for presentation when they finally turned up, then, with that, made our way to the function room. Where we found both Ade and Simon, surrounded by copies of my other half's book! Apparently, they'd both come slightly early, and had made their won way upstairs.

And that was where we left it - or so we thought. About half an hour later, when we were both sat down up strolls on of the pair on the door. "Sorry, we haven't seen either, so I suppose you ought to have these back...." An interesting conversation, that, considering the two in question were both sat not a million miles away from where we were sitting! Any suggestion that I promptly directed both to find the nearest branch of SpecSavers is totally without foundation!

 - Glynis Wright

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