The Diary

30 April 2007: The Riddle Of The Stands - Its Causes, And Probable Solution?

Anybody out there got any answers to this one? As a mystery, this doesn?t rank anywhere near the practically unsolvable ones of the Marie Celeste, or the Bermuda Triangle (which at one time seemed to consume USAF fliers as rapidly as Diego Maradona once did Colombian Marching Powder) but it?s certainly a question ripe for the want of an answer, so here goes. Why was it, when returning home after our much-needed win at The Ricoh, the only emotions I could summon up were those largely born of a profound sense of severe anti-climax coupled with one of profound frustration?

Thanks to our narrowly-scraped win over ten-man Sky Blues, that much-sought-after play-off place we all wanted is now so close, you can almost reach out and touch the bugger. No mean feat, that, after all the frustrations and disappointments of the last few weeks and months. By rights, we should have enjoyed adrenalin levels sufficiently elevated enough to have all three of us hanging on to the car roof by our fingertips, coming back up the M6 that gloriously warm Saturday evening, but try as I might, my adrenal glands just couldn?t be arsed. And neither could those belonging to The Fart or ?Im Indoors, either.

Even The Noise was considerably-less animated than normal, when I rang him with an impromptu ?match report? as we wended our weary way home. Admittedly, he has been told by his GP to rest, and in the most forcible terms possible, too, but even so, trying to prevent Martin from getting worked up because of an Albion game is about as productive an activity as watching King Canute ordering the advancing tide to bugger off back where it came from. Or getting our moon to try Mars for a bit of a holiday, for a change.

Were our distinctly-deflated emotions down to the inescapable fact that we?d underperformed mightily for the greater part of the season? Or was my own almost-indifferent mental state a by-product of the profound sense of disappointment I?ve experienced over the course of recent weeks, I wonder? Witnessing on a regular basis Albion displays that had more than a strong whiff of the old Japanese kamikaze pilot about them (not to mention one of Messrs. Laurel and Hardy, with a swift detour by way of George Bush and Tony Blair, included in the set price) does tend to leave you like that, I?m afraid.

And then there?s what might be the real root cause of my profound malaise, the repeated failure of our board to invest sufficiently in players capable of taking us to the next level. It won?t have escaped your notice, I?m sure, that Blues and Sunderland, both promoted without a ball being kicked today, courtesy a seriously-underwhelming performance from a seemingly-perturbed Derby County side at Palace, took a great deal of trouble during the most recent transfer window to get in the sort of players that would greatly facilitate their prime task. And in the meantime, what have we spent lately? Half a million? A million? No chance. A bag of cheese and onion-flavour crisps, with a couple of gash, past-their-sell-by-date Wagon Wheels, chucked in for luck, more like.

We aren?t a cash-strapped club any more. Far from it, and for that, the board do have to be praised for not losing their financial heads at a time when it would have been much easier to pander to popular pressure, when we were first relegated from the Prem. But we?ve now gone way too far in the direction of needless parsimony for such an all-embracing policy to remain a sensible option for much longer. I?m heartily sick of saying this ? as I?m sure you?re sick of reading this, also ? but had we splashed the cash last February, would we still be embarking upon a last-minute dash to the newsagent in order to purchase a ticket for football?s answer to The National Lottery, I wonder?

Whatever happens come next Sunday, I really hope that the small, but gradually growing vocal element, now pushing for Mowbray to be given his P45 and cards forthwith will think on a bit, then cut him a bit of slack, for once. I genuinely don?t think that the main proportion of the blame for this season should lie at his feet; if we are to seek out scapegoats, then you?ll have to look elsewhere. Perhaps our own boardroom might be a damned good place to start.

And it?s not just about the straight cash issues involved, either. Whose bright idea was it to give Big Dave clearance to talk to Derby, after he?d intimated to the club he wanted much more in the way of first team football than he was getting at that particular time? Different manager, sure, who wasn?t impressed the day he did give Darren a Premiership recall, versus Wigan, where he tried way too hard, and ended up collecting a red card for his sins. That, more or less, sealed his Albion fate.

But players possessing genuine leadership qualities don?t exactly grow on trees, do they? As former Albion gaffer Denis Smith once so memorably remarked apropos the very same subject, during the course of a supporters club meeting: ?They?re as rare as rocking horse shit?. Albion?s loss was The Rams? undoubted gain. Billy Davies must have thought it was his birthday and Christmas come, all in one lovely go. What on Earth possessed our club to let it happen in the first place?

Had our former man-mountain hung in there until the advent of Mogga, who knowing a kindred spirit when he saw one, would surely have lapped up his strong leadership qualities like gravy ? Big Dave still had some 18 months to run on his Albion contract when he left the club - I?m darned sure that it would have been us, and not Derby benefiting from his amazing physical presence and power of command at the back. And what?s more, I?m even more darned sure we, and not Blues, would have been occupying one of those much-desired ?automatic? berths tonight, had that been the case.

You have only to read Billy Davies?s fulsome words of praise in one of today?s tabloids to realise what a tremendous job he?s done for The Rams, and in such a short space of time, too. No matter what happens on the pitch, football is still very much a game where battles can either be won or lost inside players? own heads. So impressed was the leader of the East Midlands ovine flock by Darren?s considerable motivational powers, although his captain was still suspended, Davies specifically asked him to travel as one of the official party for today?s Selhurst Park shit-or-bust showdown.

From what I heard on Radio Five Live this afternoon, their commentary on the Derby caper, and with seemingly-innumerable episodes of argument and bickering among their players breaking out all over the pitch, even in the face of rapidly mounting adversity, the absence of Darren Moore from the Rams line-up must have been felt keenly indeed.

And so our thoughts must now turn to yesterday, what lessons we should take from that dreadful game, and what preparations we need to make now in order to firmly seal our place in that final top six next Sunday afternoon. One thing?s for certain, though. Whoever does make the starting eleven for that one, it?s as sure as hell Joe Kamara won?t be among them, sent off with virtually the last kick of the ball, for a completely unnecessary trip on an opposing player.

OK, Chris Foy (check out my ?And Finally? section for some really rib-tickling stuff about this chap) was also a congenital idiot in the first place for succumbing to temptation, responding red for an offence so trivial, the whistler?s punishment was completely disproportionate to the nature of the crime. But that doesn?t mitigate for one moment Kamara?s irresponsible idiocy by making Foy feel he had no option but to reach for his red card at such a late stage in the game. He?s been around for quite some time, has Joe, and should have known better.

The knock-on effect of his irresponsible behaviour will undoubtedly be team-mates having to work that much harder in his absence. Those goals we so badly need, in order to finally clinch our place in the top six, will be pretty hard work without someone with a fair amount of experience leading the attack. But then again, I don?t suppose Joe gives a tinker?s stuff about what happens to our club, right now. Just about everything about his body language these days positively screams: ?I?m out of here very soon, whatever happens, better club, more money ? so long, suckers!?

But any such move might not necessarily be on his specific terms. From the overall timbre of the words spoken by our manager at yesterday?s post-match press conference ? ?He knows how disappointed we all are with him, and he is very disappointed with himself?? - something tells me, irrespective of whatever division we play in next season, the insufferably arrogant and mercenary Joe Kamara won't be wearing the stripes. Mogga's undoubtedly a man with strong principles when it comes to issues of that nature, and he'll have zero tolerance for someone so clearly dragging such an unpleasantly mardy attitude around with them all the time.

Sure, you do have to make some allowance for obvious match-winning talent producing petulance in its wake, as and when occasion demands, but he?s not even coming up with the goods any more. A liability, I say: GET RID. The King would have practically slaughtered him with his own hands, were he still alive and well, so great was his love for the club, and utter hatred for what he perceived to be unacceptable performances from players. Take the money and run, Albion, then get someone else in who genuinely does have the good fortunes of the Baggies at heart, is more than willing to run through brick walls for the cause. If not, the sound of Jeff rapidly rotating in what is now his final resting-place will prove unbearable.

Sam Sodje, a player I?m very much starting to warm to, defensively, could still have serious doubts raised about his recovery from injury, come next Sunday. As we saw yesterday, the lad had to go off yet again, and it?s looking very much as though the prime cause is a recurrence of the ankle injury that kept him out of contention recently. What I hadn?t known, though, was the fact he?d first niggled the injury during yesterday?s pre-match warm-up. He then went and took a nasty hit on it very early on in the game proper, an undesirable state of affairs that led to his precautionary removal come the break.

I hadn?t realised, either, that he?s yet another one having to pop strong analgesics very close to kick-off. Are we now in the game of providing a novel, very much ?alternative?, money-making opportunity for the club, allowing both ground and players to be used for location shoots of ?Casualty?, I wonder? Blimey, the rate these things are piling up, come the end of the season, our players will have had about as much practical experience of things medical as most doctors and nurses get in an entire career.

Loved also Mogga?s further remarks apropos Sodje, and the recent loss through injury of both Clem and Curtis Davies. ?It destabilises your team a little bit?? A mastery of understatement, Tony? Not ?arf! But the main thing about Sunday has to be keeping our cool, concentrating on the task in hand for every single minute and second of the game, and not just during vague patches of it.

That?s what nearly cost us so dear yesterday: that, plus a collective attack of what Victorian ladies used to term ?the vapours?. It being highly impractical to tell our entire defence to go lie down in a darkened bedroom, sniffing super-strength smelling-salts, while the game?s going full-blast, we have no alternative but to impress upon our back four, in the strongest possible terms, the necessity for complete vigilance at all times. And not to let a massive rush of red mist to the head terminate in complete and utter disaster, either. In view of the enormity of what?s potentially at stake, perhaps the enforced absence of the aforementioned Mister Kamara from the scene might not be such a bad thing after all.

I?ll probably be back around Saturday night, but might produce beforehand, should any significant news break affecting Sunday?s showdown tryst with The Tykes. But I won?t be relaxing, far from it. Despite my genuinely despondent demeanour prior to, and after Coventry, I reckon the old nerves will be twanging like good ?uns, as our very own Appointment With Destiny draws ever nearer its climax.

All we need now is a Clint Eastwood-look-alike, a hick Wild West town mock-up, tumbleweed and dust in quantity flying in all directions, the theme tune from ?The Good, The Bad And The Ugly? playing in the background ? oh, and someone capable of wielding a six-shooter when it really matters. Anyone know what Sergio Leone?s got planned for this coming weekend?

And Finally?. Now here?s a good one about yesterday?s whistler, Chris Foy, as revealed in today?s Birmingham Post. How many of you knew that the Merseyside official controlled most of the first half with only one contact lens in place, after losing the other one earlier in the game? Explains an awful lot, that. Which also begs a quick-fire answer to one other simple question. Did the sending-off come about as a result of what Foy thought he saw through his ?good? eye, or the ?gammy? one? Worrying, whichever way you come to look at it!

Joking apart, I really do feel sorry for the Coventry lad, Ben Turner, who got undeserved marching orders from Foy just before the break. Only eighteen, and appearing in his first full game ever for the Sky Blues, he was. No wonder Coventry gaffer Iain Dowie did his crust after the game, never mind get marching orders all of his very own during it, courtesy the busy but (temporarily) semi-sighted Mister Foy, for making what I can only presume were uncomplimentary remarks about his handling of the game, around five minutes or so from the end!

Two? Loved the headline on the unofficial Sky Blues website, Coventry City MAD. ?TERRY?S TIME IS UP?, is the message boldly emblazoned in block capitals. Do they know something about The Fart?s overall state of health I don?t? And, more to the point, have they actually gone and told The Fart what they seemingly believe to be absolute gospel?

 - Glynis Wright

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