The Diary

01 April 2007: Albion Back To Winning Ways At QPR's Expense, Finally - And Serve The Sods Right, Too!

It?s been a bloody long time coming, hasn?t it? Bringing home the bacon from just about anywhere, I mean, home, away or just plain prancing around the bottom of our garden with all those nice fairy people. And what a time to strike, too: just six nerve-shredding encounters remaining ere the curtain finally rings down on 2006-07, and every single particle of its attendant hopes and fears: quite frankly, I?d set out this morning having effectively written this one off also. That way, you don?t end up too disappointed come the end of term, do you?

Failure and West Bromwich Albion have been bedfellows for far too long, which is precisely the reason why I?d long since calibrated my expectation levels to register towards the bottom end of the scale: whoever was destined to take a ride on that Promotion Special pulling out of the station in but the space of a few short weeks, it sure as hell wasn?t going to be us, of that I was cast-iron, copper-bottomed, Triple-A certain. Typical Albion, then: today, they let me down by NOT letting me down, if you get my drift!

Boy, were we lucky. Was it Jeremy Peace suddenly changing the club badges on the Astle Gates, thereby really ruining the Great One?s day, Up There, that made our late King even more determined to upstage our chairman? Or had a consensus of deceased Albion greats suddenly decided enough was enough, and our faithful followers suffered long, hard, and, even worse, more than most? Whatever the root cause, that frankly-fortuitous end result at Loftus Road now leaves us hanging nicely around the bottom end of the play-off places: another two or three wins, and we?ll be in there pitching. Chuck into that little lot more than enough schadenfreude moments to keep a whole horde of Dingle-haters deliriously happy until the dawning of the next millennium, and you?ve got the perfect recipe for a genuinely Perfect Day. Assuming you?re an Albion supporter, of course.

It?s always a hectic sort of time, getting ready for an away trip. While my other half labours mightily on sarnie-preparation duties, I?m to be found shoving thyroid pills and beta-blockers down the reluctant throat of the Special One like crazy. Following all that, it?s into our kitchen at a rate of knots to feed all four felines: it only needs a shout of ?Nosh-Nosh!? from me to get them all jockeying for position around their bowls. All that, plus my own wash-and-brush-up routine, and before I know it, it?s high time to hit the road, Jack. Why I should even want to, when the road?s never once felt inclined to wind me up beforehand, I really don?t know, but that?s Albion life for you.

Just as well we?d left with plenty of time to spare, too: no sooner had we commenced our usual walk around the rear of the Smethwick, in order to reach our own ?transport of delight?, we bumped into two very familiar figures indeed: Laraine Astle, and daughter Dorice. A very propitious time to see her, too. How come? Just minutes earlier, my other half was telling me about the book he currently had on the go, Burnley gaffer Stan Ternent?s biography.

Or, more pertinently, the time, around 1970, when Stan Yer Man was but a Carlisle player, and travelling down from the wilds of Cumbria to do Hawthorns battle with the mighty Baggies. Must have been the League Cup semi, that, as both sides were poles apart in terms of League status, back then. Anyway, cutting to the chase, in his book, Stan made much mention of the fact that, in complete contrast to their own wives etc. (no word of a lie, the precise sartorial description Stan used was: ?Looking like Dingles wearing duffel coats?!) by way of complete contrast, Albion?s distaff side were almost all attired in ?leopard-skin cat-suits?!

Not my words, Stan?s, honest! And, as Laraine was like Everest ? ?just there? ? we suddenly found it desperately incumbent upon our good selves to seek the veracity of this tale for once and for all, and by the simple expedient of asking her! Result? Very much a ?first? for me, that: seeing Laraine nearly wet herself with laughter on the spot! I guess her response pretty much served to answer my question, and beyond all reasonable doubt, too!

With the sky a welcoming baby blue and the warm spring sunshine streaming down fit to bust, a really nice trip ?Dahn Sarf? awaited our intrepid bunch of travellers. Shame the game would dissipate that all-too-rare ?feel-good factor? literally within seconds of the start, wasn?t it? En-route, our well-ripened chum told us more about his recent inaugural Wembley trip, when our Under 21s engaged with those of sunny Italy. A high-scoring draw was the outcome, of course, but the real downside for El Tel lay in the rip-off prices charged at the refreshment stalls lurking beneath those spanking-new seats. Far more leg-room than would be found in a long-haul passenger aircraft?s ?cattle class?, reckoned The Fart. Tickets probably about as expensive as jetting off to New York on the spur of the moment, too, thought I!

All that, plus his recent exploits watching Birmingham Speedway riders in action, too. Who needs The Noise, when our very own tame decibel-generator?s services can be had for such reasonable rates? As we neared the outskirts of the metropolis, we suddenly spotted, in a field hard by the M40, one of the biggest car-boot sales I?ve ever encountered in my entire life. Literally hundreds of cars there, owned by sellers and buyers alike. And to keep the kids very much amused, there was even a bouncy castle nice and handy! Whooshing by the thing at a rate of knots, a sudden evil thought percolated through my brain ? and immediately felt compelled to share it with my other half, too: ?I wonder if John Hartson?s up for sale in that lot, somewhere?? mused I.

Not far to go, now ? and for us, at least, our first real glimpse of the new Wembley. Aw, you know, ?The famous place in London we seldom get to see?.? You play it, I?ll hum it. OK? Tel also assures me there is absolutely no truth in the vicious rumour that Albion hired him to do an undercover recce job on the place, going cunningly disguised as an England supporter, in eager anticipation of us actually getting there, for once!

An easy journey, traffic-free, for once, through the main drag, and we quickly found ourselves in close proximity to The Beeb?s Shepherd?s Bush studios, situated not all that far from Loftus Road itself. Our coach disgorging its occupants, finally, we were just having a pow-wow about where to go to kill time, when a couple of elderly Baggies rolled up, wanting to reminisce with The Ancient One about March the 4th 1967, And All That. Not my personal favourite topic, that, for obvious reasons, but these guys clearly wanted to exorcise whatever lingering remains of that day that haunted them, still.

It was then I discovered something about The Fart I wasn?t previously aware of: anticipating an easy Albion win, our wrinkly friend had, ages before the day, booked a ticket for a West End show, curtain up well after the final whistle. Big mistake, that. Yes, Tel was there, all right ? but so were a whole heap of QPR supporters, and all still pinching themselves to see if they were dreaming, or not! In fact, come half-time, and Albion two up, Tel and his mate were actually discussing where best to meet, in order to see our finest parade the trophy through the town?s main streets! Oh, whoops.

By then, several other Albionites had stopped to bat the breeze with us, for a variety of reasons, one of which entailed someone saying some awfully nice things about this here column wot I writ. Aw, shucks, you?ll make me go all red in the face, you will! Time for the Old One to split, then, the words ?I?m going to walk on?.? playing about his lips as he headed in the opposite direction. Cue for me to commence singing ? if that?s what you want to call it! ? the old Rogers and Hammerstein tear-jerker made even more famous by Gerry And The Pacemakers, of course. A few other Baggies then joined in, and before we knew it, there weren?t half some funny looks on the faces of the locals. Mad? ?Course we are, missus, and got a certificate to prove it, too!

In search of some pre-match football, was our chum ? aw, you work it out for yourselves ? but the trouble was that pubs were a tad reluctant to open their doors to our lot. Dunno why: we?re a damn sight more house-trained than those bloody Dingles will ever be. Said another passing Baggie as we headed on out for the main drag: ?Going to sample some local culture, then??

Me: ?Yeah ? as in ?bacterial culture?!?

Back came The Fart once more, having finally cottoned on to the (totally unwarranted, may I say) misgivings locals had about us. And with the same two well-matured Albionites in tow, too. The topic of conversation this time? Our lot getting Villa relegated on the last day of season 1958-59. A 1-1 draw was the final score, but that was more than enough to send ?em crashing. Ever wished you?d been around to see some classic Baggies game or other for yourself? Yep, were someone to give me the chance to see that one for myself, and I?d have literally wrenched your arm from right out of its socket in order to do so.

Oh, well ? no pub, so it had to be the apology for a park situated right in the middle of the two roads bisecting that part of London, then. On the way across the road, a car actually stopped to let me sally forth, for London, an astronomical event all of its own, may I say. The Power Of The Stick? Nope, The Power Of The Albion Shirt, more like, a swift ?Boing! Boing!? giving away the driver?s true identity. Cue for the arrival of The Greater Wittering London Nutter in the park, that.

As we sat down, enter, stage left, a female, slightly younger than myself, I would say, whose grasp of reality was very tenuous, to say the least. Whether through drink, drugs, a combination of the two, or just good old-fashioned drain-cleaner, I know not. Could have been a bagful of what the professionals euphemistically call ?mental health issues? chucked in there, too, just to complete the set. What a surprise. ?Care in the community?? As risible a joke as that hoary old NHS chestnut: ?Free at the point of delivery,? I reckon.

Still, away she went: once she had, we spent a profitable few minutes soaking up the unaccustomed spring warmth, before heading on back to the ground. But not before The Fart had procured as ?iron rations? a Belgian bun, all icing, and topped with a cherry, then discovered a huge but wonderful mutt being exercised by its owner: from that moment on, Tel wasn?t with us any more, ditto the police horses we encountered on the street in close proximity to the away turnstiles!

Because of our early arrival, and our inability to find a pub where there was seating space to be had (accepting away supporters would have been just peachy, also!), we found the ground comparatively deserted once inside. Mind you, that unhappy state of affairs still persisted right up to the kick-off, for them, so I guess they?d be really feeling the financial pinch by that stage. And their small maximum gate, just 19K, didn?t help much either. Mind you, it was nice to watch our finest warm up in comparatively congenial surroundings, for once, with the top of the BBC building peeping coyly from behind the stand serving the opposite goalmouth.

We even had time to natter to Tony Vass, our fungoid-featured London Baggie-cum-cabbie chum; possessive of the grottiest clump of facial growth ever seen this side of a mycological laboratory, I reckon. Bet it doesn?t half scare the kids, mind. Tony, I mean, not Baggie Bird, last seen hugging his QPR (feline?) counterpart as if it was going out of fashion! The genetic outcome of such an unlikely-looking coupling? I really do dread to think!

A quick glimpse, finally, of ?Old Man Watkin?, rolling in just as things were about to get underway. Did he have possession of a note from Mum saying why he was late, I wonder? Nice of you to drop in, Dave. Can we kick off, now you?re here? Not so welcome was a posse of young lads, well flown in drink, I reckon, all of whom were sitting to our left. Such was the knock-out blow alcohol in quantity had delivered to their anti-diuretic hormone levels, they made a complete and utter nuisance of themselves the whole 90 minutes, one or the other wanting to get to the ?facilities? at various points in the game. Come the end, both Tel and I were ready to do murder.

So much for the preamble, then, on to the meat and drink of this piece, the game itself. Where shall I start, I wonder? Working out our side by process of elimination ? QPR?s PA system was truly chronic, it really was, and I?d hate to have to rely upon it for evacuation instructions come an emergency situation ? I suppose. In was Kev Phillips, also Darren Carter, Clem and Robbo, the last two courtesy Doctor Needle, I presume. The Duke was benched for this one, likewise newly un-banned Alby.

The real fun and games started right from the kick-off, good work from Clem and Koren getting the ball to Kev Phillips, now lurking with malice aforethought, up close and personal with their defenders. Too close, in fact, Rangers scooping the bladder away well before significant damage could be inflicted. Then they hit us on the break, and with alarming speed, too, almost stuffing our defence in the process.

Not that it helped any when we backed off, and backed off, getting the ball back, then gifting it to them once more. Not for the first time in that game, I then wondered precisely what brand of suicide pill they?d swallowed, in the dressing room beforehand. Any road up, the ball eventually finished up scorching its fiery path right across the goalmouth: had any West Londoner?s boot managed to make contact, we?d have been one down for sure. And deservedly so, in my book: yea and lo, I say unto you, that was bloody shocking defending by anyone?s standards.

That narrow scrape seemed to spur our lot on to renewed effort; just minutes later, Joe Kamara had a pop, and from a very long range indeed, his effort almost removing paint from the right-hand post. Then it was new lad Koren?s opportunity to rise and shine, his lobbed effort also giving their keeper ample food for thought. Cue for our ?songsters? to give the relatively sparse home crowd an impromptu choral rendition along the general lines of: ?This ground?s too big for you, this ground?s too big for you?.? Can?t remember the precise operatic roots of this one, but I?m sure some culture-vulture out there will oblige before too long! And, we did have a point, albeit a discordant-sounding one, their gate eventually proven to be a shocking 14,784.

That one must have provided Rangers with sufficient impetus to renew their efforts to break the deadlock: not long afterwards, and with nearly a third of the half gone (well it makes perfect sense to me, that one, so why not you?) they were forced into making a subbing, the injured Idiakez going off, and replacement Lomas entering the fray instead. Cue for the home side to tear through our defence as if it wasn?t there, only rank bad luck preventing Rangers from opening their account that time.

The main source of the grief from Rangers was coming from the right: every single time the ball got out that way, the home side threatened to get behind our rearguard: suddenly I had the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that they would eventually grind us down and score. God alone knows it wasn?t for any great lack of effort on their part: in fact, on the break, they were constantly looking a damn sight more dangerous than we were. About halfway through, that?s precisely what happened, Macca having to nip in pretty damn smartish to prevent disaster, the second time we were caught out that way. Talk about being enveloped entirely in thick treacle, as we sluggishly adopted attack mode once more.

Yep, that?s right, we were being caught out big-time by a side that adopted, as its main tactic, a policy of not letting us play our normal passing game, ensuring passes went astray, that sort of thing. And, just like all the other occasions it happened this term, we seemed to have great trouble in trying to contain, then counter, the problem. Our normal pass-and-move style, the one that had previously wowed ?em all, from Elland Road to Layer Road, simply fell to pieces under the considerable strain of having to do so much defending.

Whatever we were supposed to look like, by that time, it sure as hell wasn?t a side heading confidently for the play-offs. In fact, a complete stranger would have had considerable trouble simply trying to work out who were aiming for the top, and who were trying like stink, just to stay up! More and more, the niggling suspicion grew within me that we were about to pay the price for all those awful errors ? defensive, attacking, whatever - we?d perpetrated out there, that opening 45.

Ample proof came just minutes away from the interval, when yet another right-flank hammering resulted in new lad Sodje having to literally nick the ball right from off the massively-hypertrophied head of ex-Bluenose Furlong, just as he was about to nut it goalwards. The ball, not his head, I mean. Mind you?. But we were still in there pitching: had Joe Kamara been able to put away the cross he got from Macca, we?d have gone in for the break very happy Baggies indeed.

Just one trouble with Joe, and it?s the old chestnut once more: when will he realise that football?s a TEAM game, and not one played by a collection of individuals, all of whom are similarly hell-bent upon doing their own thing? Were he to get that one sorted, he?d get the goals, and our play-off prospects would instantaneously soar to similarly-stratospheric heights. A little less selfishness, and a lot more awareness of other playing colleagues when sniffing around the six yard box, and we?d well and truly crack it. We can see that, so why the bloody hell can?t he?

Enter at that point a local radio commentator, who opined courtesy The Fart?s steam radio that ?Albion have missed loads of chances?.? Really? The same Albion that nearly conceded on at least three occasions I can recall that fraught first half? Blimey, I?d have dearly loved to have had a crafty smoke of whatever he was on, I really would!

Meanwhile, while adrenaline levels in the away end were breaking every record in sight, thanks to the miracle of modern-day communications technology, we were all - well, The Fart was! ? being kept in touch with events elsewhere, and nowhere more so than at Molineux. Naughty Baggie that I was, I hadn?t taken all that much notice as a gleeful El Tel reported those pesky Dingles to be, first, one down, then, not too long after that, a stonking TWO. Then, an almighty THREE, around the time the lad Sodje was saving our bacon at the back, in fact.

?Time to regroup at half-time?? muttered The Fart, distinctly disconcerted by the turn of recent events. ?With what?? countered my beloved, laying on the sarcasm with a bloody great trowel, as he said it. Injury time, finally. ?Hold on!....? screamed The Fart, all British reserve finally leaving his body by the nearest available exit. More than the bladders of the lads I mentioned earlier could do: much to the annoyance of both Tel and myself, with just a minute or so remaining, they all insisted upon heading straight for the gents once more.

And, talking of which, the halfway point also saw this column trying to sort out her own excretory arrangements. Memo to all those females proposing to visit Loftus Road in the near future: whatever you do, never, NEVER try to head for the bogs at the same time others are trying to grab drinks at the bar. It just doesn?t work, trust me on that one: furthermore, all you succeed in doing is wasting a considerable proportion of your dwindling energy reserves in trying to swim against the tide. Ten minutes or so of that, and I?d completely lost the will to live. As a nearby Baggie said to me, as I regained my perch once more: ?God knows how this place got a safety certificate: if they ever needed to evacuate in a hurry, those in the top tier wouldn?t stand an earthly???

Time for the resumption of operations, then. With an Albion subbing chucked in for good measure, too. Off went poor Carter, and on came Duke Ellington, hoping to make his current goal tally look far more respectable, no doubt, chumming up with Kev Phillips up front. And, not too long after the outbreak of hostilities once more, Clem nearly wrapped it up for Rangers, game, set and match, thanks to falling over at a most inconvenient time, defensively speaking. Luckily for Clem, when presented with what amounted to an absolute gift, Furlong stuffed it up from a distance of about 12 yards. There you go, give Furlong an ?erm ? furlong, and he?ll take a mile. Ahem, sorry about that, must be premature senility setting in, finally.

And that, dear Baggies, proved to be the moment when Rangers let their guard slip. Hitting them on the break with lightning speed, Jason Koumas (who else?) slipped the ball to Kev Phillips, lurking handily just in front. A real cardiac arrest of a ?Will he? Won?t he?? moment, as our lad took on first one, then two, of their defenders: just as we were all about to give the first aid people a stern test of their healing capabilities, Kev finally let fly from around the vicinity of the 18-yard area. Result? Into the net it went, and with that, just about every Baggie in that stand, myself included, went absolutely wild. Thank whatever it is you worship that one went in, finally.

A ragged chorus of: ?We are QPR?? emanated from the stand to our right. ?Never mind, you?ll get over it,? muttered my other half, somewhat grimly. ?Yeah, the NHS can do wonders, these days?.? added this column. But it wasn?t to last, of course. This is West Bromwich Albion, remember? Mind you, not too long after play did eventually resume, Kev nearly staged an encore: had that one gone in, it would have very likely saved us a whole load of subsequent grief along the way. What happened? The Tatters now being four down apart ? Tel?s delighted expression as he passed the word along the stand was truly wondrous to behold: coo, what a not-so-closet sadist he can be at times! ? come the midpoint, Rangers chucked on yet another striker in a desperate attempt to regain what they?d just lost.

And it certainly worked: just a scant minute later, ex-Saint Blackstock nutted in the equaliser. Much bad language in the away end, of course: the fault lay not in our stars, Horatio, but in yet more Sunday League standard defending: I really do despair, sometimes. And Saturday was undoubtedly one of those times. One fine day, our rearguard will manage to shake off its current ?registered charity? status, and start playing football as it should be played. The day that happens, watch out for plagues of boils, not to mention showers of frogs innumerable. And if you just happen to be a snowball reading this, your chances of surviving a short spell in Old Nick?s fiery domain will also improve immeasurably. Trust me, I?m a gynaecologist.

Three minutes later, it looked all over, as far as we were concerned. Rangers piled on the pressure even more, Furlong looked set to capitalise, when put through around the half?s mid-point. Enter Robbo, clearly waiting for just this very moment to occur. In went the tackle, mean and nasty, and to the spot pointed the ref, without any hesitation whatsoever. Yet another three sodding points gone down the drain, or so it seemed to our disconsolate crowd. ?Absolute garbage!? was brassed-off Tel?s considered opinion on the subject.

But we hadn?t reckoned without the considerable custodial skills of our old chum Dean Kiely, either. Up stepped the wronged party to extract a terrible revenge courtesy the spot-kick: not to be outdone, up stepped our keeper also. Or should I give all due credit to the incredible save he subsequently pulled off, and right in front of their followers, too? Truly it was turning out to be a really black day for the Rangers persuasion!

Mind you, my fury regarding our earlier incompetence was still raging white-hot out there, fuelled also by those aforementioned Albion supporters yet again seemingly enduring a terminal case of ?weak bladder syndrome?. At one point, I even thought they were doing it for a bet, just to get The Fart even more riled than he already was!

It was around that time, my concentration slipped considerably regarding what was going on out there on the pitch, and promptly went into a sort of private ?brown study?, out there. Nothing at all to do with the Bomber, of course, just lots of questions, all of them needing answers, and quickly, too. What it all boiled down to were the fundamental reasons why we were still giving the ball away so cheaply in the first place: hadn?t we learned anything at all from that kind of disastrous stuff-up, even now? Even the heady delights of the news from Molineux getting progressively worse failed to delight any more. A shame, really, as they were now a massive FIVE in arrears, by that stage!

Meanwhile, back at Loftus Road, we?d earned ourselves a free-kick, around 30 or so yards shy of the intended target. Cue for the farcical ?counting session?, where the crowd counted down the requisite number of yards for the ref, thereby saving him the bother! Finally, Koumas was ready to proceed: OK, the bladder then bounced right off the wall, and to safety, but we were getting closer, gradually. Another set-piece saw us get even closer still.

Just eight fraught minutes remained on the clock: meanwhile, the considerable tension generated as a result of our attacking activities got completely dissipated, and all in one go, too. Blame Tel once more: no sooner had he announced the Dingles were now an astonishing SIX down at their own place, in front of their own (thoroughly peed-off, by now?) following ? you should have seen the news get around: think ?ripples after a brick gets chucked into a handy pond, concentric circles heading rapidly outwards, always outwards?, and you?ll know what I mean ? our patient build-up work finally reaped its just reward.

Just seven minutes after replacing Kev Phillips, Zoltan Gera struck hard and fast: a low cross, courtesy The Duke, as mean and nasty as you like, skeetered right across the goalmouth, and finding its intended target lurking not all that far from the far post, if you get my drift. Just the moment Our Zoltan had dreamed of: a second?s work, and the ball crashed straight into the back of the net. How the hell our tame Hungarian managed it, I honestly don?t know: a more acute shooting angle you?ll be pretty hard pushed to find, to be perfectly frank. But, hey ? QPR aficionados apart, who?s complaining, here? We certainly reserved judgment the precise moment that ball crossed the blasted line. Perhaps someone Up There loves us after all?

Time for some time-wasting subbing, methinks. Off went Joe Kamara, on went Chappy. Stiffening the defence was the right thing to do: having worked so hard to rescue this game from the jaws of death, it would have been a complete and utter tragedy to cock things up again. ?I go down, you go down, we all go down together?.? How to blast the opposition fans with a decibel-laden rendition of our current Top Of The Pops! And, just in case they hadn?t grasped the full import of the ?lyrics? first time round, we went and did it again!

?Let?s go reffin? mental?? also got a belated airing, closely followed by the by-now bog-standard ?We Are Albion, Say, We Are Albion?.? As for the QPR lot sitting in the seats to our right, to say they were completely shell-shocked by what happened doesn?t even go a small way towards conveying the full import of what had hit them with all the force of an express steam train, with the throttle jammed on ?full? and the boiler about to blow. Verily I say unto you, when you?re immovably stuck at the bottom of life?s heap, then Fate doth have nasty ways of reminding you, from time to time.

And this is the point at which everything turned really mysterious, folkies. There we all were massed in that away end, no handy clock for reference, a PA system so awful, even British Rail would have disowned it years before. ?Twas time, surely, but how much was the ref going to add on? All this further complicated by two players, one from either side, going down like a sack of spuds when tackled, so on came both physios. And still no board! And it wasn?t just me: just about everyone else in our immediate vicinity had failed to see what the ref had finally ordained. Six minutes of hair-tearing frustration, bordering upon complete misery, later, Chummy finally brought proceedings to a close. Thank goodness for that: cor, what a relief ? WHOO-EE!

Back in the New York play-off groove once more, we were, but it was far from a classy performance from us. As I said before, there?s lots of issues bubbling away out there, still: eradicate them we must, and soon, otherwise we can forget London jaunts come the end of the season proper. That?s a topic I intend to discuss tomorrow night. Strange, though ? as our charabanc took us out of the capital, once more, we caught a glimpse of that awesome Wembley arch completely dominating the landscape around the ground. Know something, folkies? Somehow, the very idea of us having an unexpected extension to our season doesn?t look quite so crazy after all. Or is it just the fact I?m knackered giving me renewed hope? ?Still Crazy After All These Years?, as per Simon and Garfunkel? Just enough to make me a Baggie, I reckon!

Mind you, as we exited the ground, every single one of us was giggling like mad about the Dingles disaster. It wasn?t just the six they?d conceded, mind: in amongst all that lot, they?d also managed to miss a penalty, and not to be outdone, their lad Breen had also given away an ?oggie?! My one dread had been meeting the gold-and-cack persuasion in the play-offs: with Wulves scheduled to meet a rampant Sunderland next week, maybe the threat will have completely receded from sight, come the end of our season? And that would be an irony too delicious for words, now, wouldn?t it?

And Finally?. One. Just what are these BBC wallahs on, for goodness sake? The reason I ask is because, according to those nice Radio WM people (cheers, Mister Fart, for the info, as gleaned from your trusty steam radio, of course!) the Dingles had quite a good game, actually! High time the Drugs Squad paid them a visit, I reckon ? with the emphasis most certainly on the ?high?!

Two. So excited was The Fart by our unexpected victory, when we finally arrived back at our coach, post-final whistle, while tucking into what he?d fondly thought was his packed lunch, he tried to eat the fridge magnets we?d recently found for him down in Darkest Gloucestershire, instead. A pretty unique dieting concept, that one, Tel, and if you?ve got anaemia, all that lovely iron taken internally will work wonders, of course - but it?ll never catch on in a month of Sundays!

Three. What do you do when you?re really busting for the loo, having not managed to go at all during the half-time break, due to sheer pressure of bodies on the place? I?ll tell you: what you do is sneaky-beaky it into the blokes? bog, and hope like hell no-one notices as you crouch over the ?business end? of their urinals. Not for the first time, mind: Fiorentina?s ground had unisex toilets pretty much in place when we played them, back in 1993! More sordid details in my next instalment, which will hit your PC?s on the first day of the fourth month, so until then, keep smiling. OK?

 - Glynis Wright

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