The Diary

15 March 2007: Screaming Eagles In A Smethwick End Last-Minute Mugging.

What a complete and utter sodding disaster, tonight: never before has the synonym ?debacle? looked quite so apposite, either. A goal behind after leading, a penalty, a dismissal, a key player crocked, a dramatic equaliser, a referee called Friend who proved to be nothing of the sort, as far as our players were concerned ? and all followed by the real choker of the night, that gutting Palace winner deep in stoppage-time. Yes, I know, when you?re down to ten men, chasing the game, then start pushing up for a possible three-points after coming back from the dead courtesy a pretty unlikely equaliser, you always run the risk of getting caught right at the back ? and that?s precisely what happened tonight, my little Baggie friends. Caught by the daftest of sucker-punches. And in true Albion style, too: right in the last minute of injury time, and more or less with Palace?s last kick of the ball tonight.

And the bad news doesn?t end there, sadly. About half an hour after we got back from the ground, our phone rang. It was The Fart, really low, with yet more grim tidings. Curtis Davies, poor sod, now diagnosed with a broken foot - well, a metatarsal, actually - after being withdrawn late in the first half of tonight?s game, now out for the remainder of the season. And in yet another ironical twist to the sorry saga, in the same breath, almost, the club website?s ?newsflash? service breezily announced his call-up today for the England Under 21 squad! They don?t half choose their moments, our people. For sheer tact and diplomacy, I?d rank that particular one a great big fat ?zero?.

As our football club?s nastygram arrived on my PC screen, via a ?pop-up?, I could only hope poor Curtis hadn?t been officially told: implausible, though, given the sheer speed of modern communications, and the likelihood of the FA informing the players concerned well before they put out the appropriate press-release. Poor sod, and what an awful way to finish the season.

And what a shitty way to finish ours, too. I?m willing to bet anything you care to name that both Bluenose and Dingle persuasions are down the pub, right now, and having necked the amber nectar to repletion, every single man-jack of them rapidly heading for drunken oblivion, by now, I would think. Come the final whistle, no wonder we both spent several minutes hitting various bits of inanimate brickwork with our fists. Didn?t do our hands much good, mind, but certainly helped both of us get rid of a shed-load of pent-up frustrations.

Well, there?s nothing quite like having the bottom ripped right out of our bid for promotion glory in the space of but a few heartbreaking seconds, is there? By that, I mean we?ve now got sod-all chance of going up automatically, that?s for sure. And what?s more, I?m now harbouring serious doubts about our ability to make the play-offs, even. But thinking on a tad about what happened tonight did lead me to conclude that as a going concern, we?d lost the game early in the first half, when our finest laid on a complete horror-show of a performance for our delectation: no surprise, then, that we were later punished mightily for our sins.

It just goes to show how unbelievably cruel the game of football can be, sometimes. Not that we?d expected the night to turn that pear-shaped on us, mind. A side hovering in mid-table, and looking as sure as you like not to go anywhere, or to harbour pretensions of grandeur, even, that was Palace, all right. Ten points of the play-off places by this stage of the season usually makes for a pretty strong signal for managers to start thinking about next term?s campaign, and for their underlings to take on board vague thoughts apropos this year?s planned close-season holiday in the sun, and preferably to a place where they don?t sell all that foreign muck in their restaurants, with the beer in the bar all coming imported from Blighty. And with a big screen on tap should any televised summer footie make it to one?s country of choice. Looks very much as though The Eagles never read that piece of the script, did they?

Sure, there was a sense of profound apprehension in the air as we made it into the Hawthorns pub at around half-six this evening, but given what had happened last Sunday, that was about par for the course, really. No-one there could have been reasonably expected to predict the outcome of tonight?s game, after all said and done. And The Noise was in jolly mood, so everything had to be hunky-dory, didn?t it?

No Daughter Numero Deux tonight, though: singing with her school choir, apparently. What we did have, though, was Carly, pretty happy bunny that she was, having been conditionally accepted by her local FE college, just recently. Going to France with her school she is, in April, too, around the time we play Norwich at their place. And given her predicted stellar GCSE form, I?m sure the actual exams will prove no hindrance whatsoever to that young lady?s ambitions. At least she stands far more chance of eventual upwards mobility than this football club ever will this season!

One ?downer? for our young Baggie, though: she?s recently been diagnosed asthmatic, and is now getting to grips with the arcane ritual involved in using an inhaler. Welcome to the club, Carly: both ?Im Indoors (who really suffers, at times) and myself are already in the ranks of the ?puffing billies?. Seems to me as though the medical profession is now far more clued up regarding this complaint than it was just a few short years back; after all, it took the quacks about thirteen years to diagnose mine. Prior to that, I?d always been told my annual winter chest problems were down to chronic bronchitis. Even though I?d never smoked. Whoops.

An almighty debate then ensued between The Noise and The Fart on the relative merits, or otherwise, of Shergar ? apparently, there?s a bloke in the Brummie who sits quite near The Noise, and goes absolutely mental each and every time our Stokie chum addresses our recent acquisition in terms other than those of his ?proper names?. Oh, dear ? seems to me as though the guy needs to get out more often.

And as we prepared to quit the joint, there was still this undefined air of tension hanging around the place. Hardly surprising, given what was potentially at stake, tonight. But it was Tel that came out with one interesting observation: apparently, on local radio recently, a certain Steve Bruce opined that our side was: ?Bryan Robson?s team, not Mowbray?s?? Well, being a bosom pal of our former gaffer, he would say that, wouldn?t he? Mind you, leaving tonight out of it for the moment, you wouldn?t have expected to see a Robson side score so many goals, and play such delightful football on top, would you?

A quick diversion via Anoraks Corner to run a few ideas past the occupants, and we were in. Well, His Nibs was; for me, the technology decided to have a small whoopsy. Not as big a whoopsy as our players were to have over the course of the next 90 minutes or so, but irritating, all the same. Still, the nice man with the ?override? got me in safe and sound, in the end. On reflection, I do harbour the gut feeling that perhaps he shouldn?t have bothered!

Of one thing I was certain: thanks to the Molineux defeat, tonight?s gate was going to be pretty awful. Gaps to be seen everywhere in the Albion bits, and thundering great ones in Palace territory, too. Only to be expected, mind, given the enormous distances the Croydon crew had to travel, and in midweek, as well. Finances must have featured heavily, too: supporting a club away from home on a regular basis doesn?t come all that cheap, even at our level.

And so, off we went: one of the most low-key Hawthorns starts I can remember for quite some time, in fact. That thunderous weight of expectation kicking in once more, of course. Not the best of beginnings, either; within around 30 seconds, we?d gone and passed the ball to The Invisible Man lurking on the touchline. Invisibly, of course!

That seemed to set the tone for the remainder of the half: was it my imagination, or were several of our finest really off their pace, tonight? Gera, Greening, certainly. Chappy? How can a guy go straight from ?brilliant? on the Sunday, to ?complete and utter blankity-blank liability? come the Wednesday? Had I been given a tenner every single time he passed the ball straight to one of theirs, I would have undoubtedly been a very rich Baggie, by now. Predictably, the sixth minute saw a very familiar cry of ?RUBBISH!? go forth from the Halfords Lane Stand: no prizes for guessing who said it!

Once more, the approach spadework was good, but the final ball absolutely dire. Palace were getting stronger bolder, by the minute: they might not have started out with specific intentions of trying for the three points, but as the game progressed, you could see increasing confidence percolating through their ranks like caffeine-heavy coffee. So the Baggie Colossus had feet of clay, did it? Time to make hay, then; after that, we were very much forced onto the backfoot. Hell, you could tell things were serious: possibly for self-defence purposes, John Homer had quickly donned one mother of an awful woolly hat!

A third through the half, now: a series of appalling errors on the part of the men in the stripes soon demonstrated we still had to rid our nostrils of the stink of last Sunday. Contributory factors? Nerves; awful weight of expectation; forwards seemingly lost their way; a loss of rhythm in the middle; the numbing tiredness borne out of our Molineux frustrations ? all conspired to make a pretty ghastly Palace side look far better than it actually was. And it didn?t help, either, that their keeper was afterwards busily mopping up pretty well everything we happened to lob in his direction.

Even the normally-effervescent Gera seemed to be suffering: instead of laying the ball off to a more handily-placed colleague, as he would normally, he decided to let fly instead, and with typical results! We were looking distinctly lacklustre right, no doubt about it: then came the incident that seemed to breathe new life back into the tired old dog, all of a sudden.

It all started when Joe Kamara, full of righteous indignation, was fouled around 20 or so yards out. As Palace braced themselves to repel boarders, up stepped a very familiar figure indeed for a crafty pot at goal. Blimey, it was Clem. Remembering other disastrous attempts from the same player, of late, the words ?Are you sure?? started forming on my lips, all of a sudden. After all, it was about three years since he?d last buried one. Taking his run-up, he then let fly ? and I?ll bet no-one was more astonished than he to see the damn thing go right into the bottom corner, right past the desperately flailing arms of their well-beaten keeper.

So, that made us one in front, then, and with around 25 minutes gone ? and within seconds, we almost made it two. That was when I began to suspect that Joe Kamara was another one really off his normal pace: just a few months back, he would have caught up with that Robinson-created chance, and well and not only buried it, given the ball a bloody Viking funeral, as well. He must have really rued missing it, too, because just a few minutes later, after some truly shocking defensive work from our lot, we were punished hard for our failure to negate the Palace threat, Clinton Morrison seeing the ball home with comparative ease. Parity restored, through crass stupidity at the back, and boy, were we Halfords Lane people furious. Rugs, Thermoses, all flying in crazy directions: hell, you pampered and sheltered lot in the Brummie don?t know the half of it, back there!

And that equaliser was to prove even more costly than we?d first imagined; somewhere among the melee that resulted in the six yard box just before Palace struck, poor Curtis Davies got clobbered. Watching Nick Worth?s actions intently, it was clear that he wasn?t going to be able to continue, of off he hobbled, very slowly indeed, first for a (clutching at straws?) but of touchline titivation from our physio, then the long walk back to the players tunnel. At no time did he look like a bloke with a broken bone in his foot, although, as I was to explain to my other half when the murder was out, metatarsals are very small bones comparatively speaking, and it?s perfectly possible to break one, then still be able to walk afterwards. Didn?t the same thing happen to Becks, during the World Cup? Or was that Rooney? Dearie me, this football club is really addling my poor brain!

Any road up, on came Alby, by way of replacement. And, I have to say, it takes a certain amount of genius to not only concede a penalty within about a minute of getting onto the pitch, but head for an early bath as well! Wouldn?t have been worth having one, really, considering the brevity of his stay out there. What happened? He upended Palace?s Hughes right in the box, and right in front of the ref, too. Cue for discussion between John and myself: should he have let Hughes carry on, probably concede the goal? Sure, we?d have still been one behind, but with eleven men out there to rectify matters and not bloody ten! Whatever the minutiae of the matter, a penalty it was, and duly buried by Watson, too. Bloody annoying, to say the least.

After that, the remainder of the half was conducted in an atmosphere that was positively funereal. Neither the Brummie nor the Smethwick could be arsed to come up with a chant, even. Not even the unaccustomed sight of Clem running nearly halfway the length of the pitch, then letting fly ?on spec?, could raise morale behind either goal. Time for the half to finish, then, and to a ragged chorus of boos. Clearly, a proportion of our support was distinctly unimpressed by that awful first-half showing. Not the best of times to remind people that The Hawthorns was a no-smoking zone, either. Hell, why deprive supporters of that one pleasure just when they?re badly needing it?

Out for the second half, then, ten-man Baggies versus a very rampant Eagles side indeed. Contrast that with poor Chappy, who was still steering a very dangerous course indeed. Just minutes after the start, only some timely intervention from Lady Luck kept Palace from increasing their lead: first of all Clem prevented Scowcroft from pulling the trigger successfully, then the loose ball ran to thorough-nuisance Morrison, who looked a dead cert to score ? but he only succeeded in hitting the crossbar. Phew!

As the half progressed, it became clear that the Albion game-plan was to run at them anyway, and take a chance on them biting back unexpectedly. Gera had a go with a shot lacking power, then, as the game zig-zagged from end to end, it was Kamara?s turn to give Palace keeper Kiraly some grief. He kept out the effort, and well, too, but my doing so, set their forwards up for an effort that almost saw them go three in front: enter Paul Robinson, Saviour Of The Universe, dissipating the danger ere it threatened. Talk about The Alamo Siege; as the seconds and minutes advanced, that was what the Palace goalmouth closely resembled ? and I?m not talking about the US car hire company, either.

And, interspersed among all that lot were a series of refereeing decisions that reeked more of a Sunday morning game, than one conducted at this level. ?GOO ?AN BILE YER YED, REFEREE!...? No prizes for working out who that was, then. Two free kicks in our favour, taken just outside the box, and the first of these smacking more of an offence perpetrated when the ball had actually transgressed the magic white line that led to ?penalty territory?: add to that Palace?s blatant spoiling tactics ? talk about tearing the arse out of the situation to the max - and you had all the ingredients of a pretty peed-off Brummie, who trowelled on sarcasm aplenty, by pointedly roaring out the requisite number of paces to be taken by the match official in order to measure the stipulated ten yards Palace retreat from the ball. Problem was, though, it all contrived to put off our lot, confidence still badly bruised by the unexpected turn of events in the opening half.

Having said all that, gradually our finest were building up a sizeable head of steam out there. Was it because their pride had been stung by what had happened? Or had the ref?s antics maddened them beyond belief? Whatever it was, with around 15 minutes to go, we finally struck oil ? or rather, Kev Phillips did. Low, hard, mean, nasty was the drive, and it had their keeper beaten hands down. 2-2. Bloody hell: suddenly it was all looking eminently retrievable, once more. And all that in spite of the ref?s best efforts to frustrate our aims: quite honestly, I?d genuinely thought he?d lost it by then.

Renewed hope then surged through our followers, in one almighty adrenalin rush. Suddenly, Palace weren?t finding it at all amusing, as wave after wave of blue and white stripes bore down relentlessly upon their now fragile-looking wood-framed eyrie. And yet, with five to go, still, there were supporters getting up to leave, old codgers, most of ?em. Said a chap sitting behind me: ?Must be grab-a-granny night at the local??

Four minutes of stoppage time on the board, now ? and even given that short length of time in which to turn it around, it genuinely seemed as though the Palace dykes were buckling under the excessive strain, finally. Small puddles of water, metaphorically speaking, formed in their six-yard box: any second now, the whole shebang would blow, and we?d get the three points??. And that was the moment just about every Baggie heart in the place was fractured, doubly, trebly, whatever: it really didn?t matter.

As I?d said previously, we?d really committed ourselves to go for it, to the detriment of our rearguard, probably. One minute the ball was bobbling around dangerously in their box, the next, it was carooming way, way upfield, with Palace?s Grabban very much in possession. Over came Robbo to sort out the problem, which he did: trouble was that in doing so, the ball hit Grabban on the back: a bounce of lucky proportions indeed, especially as it was to put him in the driving seat once more. Kiely did manage to beat out the shot, somehow, but as luck would have it, the blasted thing then came back to its newly-discovered mummy: in went the ball, and doolally went the Palace persuasion. As I said earlier, that was just about the last kick they had, that night.

Cruel? Too bloody right, but it has to be said that to all intents and purposes, we?d lost that game the very first moment our midfield and defence decided to go walkabouts during the first half. And our strikers? lack of concentration right when it mattered didn?t help, either. A far gutsier second half showing, by way of compensation, but anything had to be an improvement on that first mistake-ridden 45. p Anyway, what the hell?. Forget automatic promotion, and write off the play-offs, too, if Blues sink their claws into us next Sunday as well. We?ll just have to set ourselves up for another attempt next time round ? but not with the lads we?ve currently got, methinks. They?ll have moved on to much better things by then, the likes of Kamara, Gera, Robinson, Davies (when recovered), all well and truly snaffled by predatory Premiership vultures. Oh, well - I wonder who?ll be available in Scotland, come the close season?

And Finally?.. One. I hate to introduce yet another gloomy note into this already-downbeat piece, but it sure as hell puts our current troubles into perspective. I?m referring to the recent Sunday Times glossy magazine leader-piece on global warming, and climate change, in which the writer boldly asserts that even if we put in place robust legislation to address current concerns right now, we?re still going to end up in deep, deep trouble.

In a few years time, and in the absence of any really effective concerted effort on the part of the human race to bring down global temperatures, a lot of ?hidden? sources of greenhouse gases, already considerably heated by global warming ? carbonate-type minerals in bedrock, the gas-rich Arctic permafrost, methane hydrates at the bottom of the sea - will then start unlocking from the minerals they?re currently bound up with, pushing up the amount of free carbon dioxide in the atmosphere pretty dramatically, thus adding to global temperatures already risen, with the one feeding voraciously off the other, a truly vicious climatic circle indeed. More heat, yet more carbonates and methane unlocked. The implications for the future of the human race are pretty horrific: the writer of this piece argues we may even be past the point of no return right now. Feel better for having shared that nightmarish thought with me? No, I didn?t think you would ? but it sure as hell distracted you from tonight?s happenings, I?ll wager!

Two. Again forgetting about tonight, how typical of metropolis-based and arrogance-ridden TalkSport Radio in the manner they chose to announce the selection of the England Under 21 squad today. Gave out only the names of those people currently playing for London clubs, they did, which isn?t quite in keeping with the intended spirit of the thing, now, is it? Wall-eyed so-and so?s: no doubt you lot can think of a much more appropriate synonym describing their behaviour, therefore you now have my full permission to let rip in cyberspace, and to your little hearts? content, too! And get well soon, Curtis: methinks it?s high time some of those London-based Flash Harrys had their noses well and truly put out of joint!

Three?. Birthday greetings, in advance, to John Homer, Supporters Club Head Honcho ? well, one of ?em - who will be a truly-wrinkly 57 this coming Friday, poor old sod. Not the most auspicious of times to celebrate, really. But it could have been much, much worse: on one memorable occasion, his birthday just happened to clash with the infamous Battle Of Bramall Lane!

 - Glynis Wright

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