The Diary

13 May 2007: High Noon - Six-Shooters And Bike-Clips At The Ready, Folks?

Oh, brother?? It?s here at last, and failure isn?t an option, as far the vast majority of our followers are concerned. It never was with the play-offs anyway: it?s just that our little Sunday tete a tete with our local rivals has given the whole thing something of an edge. Players will find themselves having to pull out all the stops to impress our followers, and it?s got to be a case of ?up and at ?em? right from the very start. As a result, this week hasn?t been a very easy one for me: despite my avowed intent not to let thoughts about this game impinge upon my normal existence, happen, it most certainly did!

TUESDAY 8TH OF MAY (DINGLES-DAY MINUS 5 AND COUNTING?.) Something of a break from the anticipatory stresses of play-off football, today, when the pair of us journeyed across the city for a lengthy photo-shoot, albeit one with considerable variation from the norm. Sure, my other half had to remove all his clothing for the benefit of the cameras, while I patiently awaited his eventual emergence from another part of the building, but was I resentful of the fact my physical presence wasn?t actually required for this one?

Not a bit of it: ?Im Indoors was striking up an intimate acquaintance with the camera lens, all right, but not exactly the sort that would have set my thoughts green with envy, as said camera was taking the picture of a lifetime from inside a very delicate part of his anatomy, at the time. Now you all know why I was only too happy to give this particular photo-call a definite miss!

But what an unexpected eye-opener for me, while I was waiting outside, and it was nothing whatsoever to do with the medical procedure in question, either. Opening up the pages of the women?s magazine I?d brought with me to pass the time away, the literary equivalent of tapioca: bland, and not unduly taxing upon the body?s thought processes, while my other half ? erm ? ?showed his good side?, what did I find lurking within the awful dross of that part of the publication devoted to celeb-coverage? Only Kevin Phillips?s missus, that?s what.

Because I generally find such things a crashing bore, I hadn?t really been aware of it, but she?s currently taking part in some sort of ITV reality show involving the so-called WAG sorority ? and that?s where the giggles started. According to the info she gave this publication, Our Kev?s banking around a cool million squid a year! With Albion? Can I have some of what you?ve been taking, love? That one almost produced a personal appearance in Casualty ? the root cause being intractable hysterical laughter from this column! Well, it certainly got some of the staff giving me worried looks: probably thought I?d wandered off from the psychiatric wing, or something. What are the odds on Our Kev getting all kinds of stick from his team-mates over this, very soon, I wonder?

Later that night, it was a butchers at Oxford-Exeter in the Conference play-offs, Oxford having ?done a Dingles? after being a cool twelve in front at the top of the table, around the midway stage of the season. A very brief look, too, for me, as I?d fallen fast asleep before the game even started, and didn?t wake up until the end of the first period of extra time, the normal ration having finished 2-2!

Sure, I?d missed an awful lot while updating my zeds, but the brief bit I did see completely astonished me. How come? The absolutely blistering pace they still maintained, both sides. Not a single case of cramp did I see, either: quite remarkable, that, for any outfit, let alone two from the Conference. Spoke volumes about respective fitness-levels, I guess.

Even more remarkable was the eventual penalty shoot-out, with Exeter storming right back to win at the ?sudden death? stage, after stuffing-up their first of the normal five chances. Took bags of concentration, dedication ? yes, and good old-fashioned strength of character, too ? to make Oxford crack after that awful start, and well delighted was I that they triumphed. Now they face a cracking Wembley day out, for the first time ever in their entire history, versus Morecambe, a bijou outfit based on the borders of the Lake District, the town itself having a tragic recent history concerning dead Chinese cockle-pickers, of course.

WEDNESDAY 9TH OF MAY. (D-DAY MINUS 4, AND COUNTING?..)

Cor, talk about ?panic in the streets? earlier today: more knicker-twisting angst than I?d really want over the course of an entire lifetime, really, never mind over the few remaining days until our ?High Noon? re-enactment in the Custard Bowl, this coming Sunday.

The nature of the problem? Tickets for the aforementioned Valium-fest, that?s what. Despite sending off all the paperwork, payment etc. to the club well in advance of today?s deadline, still no whisper of those three precious bits of paper hurtling through our letterbox. A swift check with the club website, to ascertain whether or not it would be justifiable to press the panic button ? they were saying that all the away leg tickets had been dispatched to their intended recipients by post already ? revealed that we just might have a knotty problem in the offing. Time to run around doing Lance Corporal Jones impersonations, then. Eeek!

?Check the Boing list to see if anyone else is having trouble,? suggested my other half ? and that?s when I discovered El Tel?s personal mail to us. Before I?d opened it, even, I?d already jumped to the ? somewhat premature, in hindsight - conclusion it was him panicking about them not arriving. But stay thy wildly-beating heart, dear reader! It turned out that Albion had dispatched tickets all right, but to The Fart, and not ourselves ? we?re still quite puzzled about this, as we?d never once specified our Crimean War veteran chum be made custodian of our precious bits of paper! ? so our Methuselah-clone quite properly went on to send a mail to inform us of that very same fact!

THURSDAY 10TH OF MAY (D-DAY MINUS 3 AND COUNTING?.)

Headed off on out in the direction of West Bromwich, today, to pick up some more OU wants, including a scientific calculator. They?ve certainly come down in price ? the model I purchased cost me slightly less than a tenner. Felt quite virtuous, though, as I?d managed to violate the premises of WH Smith without even a single cursory glance at their bulging bookshelves! Has to be a ?first? for me, that one.

But the most encouraging aspect of my trip came from a very different angle. The sheer number of replica shirts etc. worn by fellow-shoppers, had to be seen to be believed. In both shopping precincts and High Street, the scene was either dominated by a preponderance of Albion-style leisurewear, or coming very close to doing so, producing nods of approbation aplenty among those thus clad, including this column, of course.

The same sort of superior ?belonging? feel as those serving in an exclusive military unit get when walking around in uniform, I guess. Just one fleeting glance at the cap-badge, or insignia, and looks from those belonging to a lesser breed immediately change to ones of complete respect. (But not in my case, once I heard from a Dick reader serving with the Forces, about roughie-toughie SAS men seen sparring over the best seats for watching ?Corrie?, when my informant was based in Northern Ireland, some years ago!)

And there?s another similarity, especially relevant to those of my vintage, the mutual realisation that membership comes at an unspoken price. Not the sort of John Wayne macho stuff at which organisations such as the SAS particularly excel ? or masochistic, depending upon your personal point of view: untold hours spent yomping over a windy, rainswept Brecon Beacon, humping weapons and equipment nearly as weighty as the person humping it, wouldn?t do a lot for me ? just countless years of dross and misery spent at the fag-end of what is now the Championship.

That, and even a recent brace of Premiership promotions notwithstanding, some equally-dispiriting times largely spent watching a standard of play calculated to entertain only those incurably-smitten. Yep ? if you are one, it certainly helps to know other idiots share your lifelong intestinal fortitude.

Very much later than I?d normally expect, in rolled ?Im Indoors, at around half-eight that evening. No, he wasn?t in for any heavy-duty grief from me: he?d just returned from a work-related meeting in Durham, of all places, and the late return was all the fault of British Rail, or whatever passes for the nation?s choo-choo infrastructure, these days. All to do with a derailment at Newcastle, although why that would necessitate services for Durham terminating at nearby Darlington, I really wouldn?t know. And it didn?t help, either, that the coach-driver tasked with taking passengers to the seat of the County Palatine hadn?t even the slightest clue how to get out of Darlo!

FRIDAY 11TH OF MAY (D-DAY MINUS TWO, AND COUNTING?..)

Am going down with some variety of ?awfuls? or other, chest bubbling like a good ?un, cough shattering decibel-levels to smithereens in the house. Just what species of bug have I got? And what a time to contract it! Oh, well, let?s see how things progress.

Went to see my stepmother as usual, along with my other sisters, my very noisy one included. We?d also learned, earlier in the week, about the death of one of my aunts on my mother?s side, and now we have to attend the funeral, in around ten day?s time. Apparently, the sole surviving member of my mother?s family, Mavis, had been talking at great length to my sis: remember how I said we?d discovered our propinquity to the Irish race to be much closer than previously thought, a few months back? Well, now Mavis has been sorting through Aunt Nellie?s personal stuff ? yes, that was indeed her name ? it turns out that the family is a bit more of Eire than I?d thought. Far from his own parents having to make the trip in their own youth, owing to awful poverty and famine in that isle, it now it now appears my granddad himself actually emigrated from the Emerald Isle in his youth. Which couldn?t have been very many years before he?d married my gran, as I can remember an old picture of him, stood next to gran in Army uniform, holding one of his kids. By the look of his uniform, I reckon it must have been taken at around the start of the Great War.

It?s certainly shook our family rigid. There you are, you think you know where you come from, no mysteries whatsoever casually chucked to the back of the skeletal closet ? and then all this suddenly sees the light of day! Apparently, there?s also a family Secret That Should Never Be Told lurking in all this, somewhere. Should be fun trying to tease this one out from the shadows, after all those years!

Oh, yes, and and another thought. When discussing our 7-0 rout of Barnsley, we accidentally discovered that my stepmother, normally one to avoid the beautiful game like the very plague, actually took considerable trouble to listen to it on her radio, last Sunday! Blimey, if that carries on, we?ll have to go buy her a season-ticket before too long! SATURDAY 12TH OF MAY (D-DAY MINUS ONE, AND COUNTING?..)

Not that I knew an awful lot about it, as I?ve spent most of it asleep, my normal response to any sort of illness. Whatever bug has done it can go straight back, as far as I?m concerned. Given I currently have a rotten fever, and a cough of monumental proportions to go with it, it?s bound for the nether regions of Dingle-land. In fact, I?m now wondering whether I?ll be able to make the game itself. I really do feel rough, honestly.

Strange, isn?t it? I stay in, get to see no less than three games on the box, Derby-Saints, Kiddy Harriers-Stevenage Borough, Bristol Rovers-Lincoln, no less ? but can only recall bits and pieces of said games! All down to my desire for sleep whenever illness overtakes me, I?m afraid. Mind you, with the Harriers game, there were definite shades of Wembley 1967 in it for me.

Just like Albion-QPR, Harriers were 2-0 up by the break, and then went on to surrender that lead during the second course. The whole thing was settled by a Stevenage strike with around five to go, just like QPR, and bloody Rodney Marsh. About the only thing in this game not to have a common ancestry was the manner in which that goal was scored. Back in the days of miniskirts, etc. Rangers lashed in their third by injuring our keeper, Rick Sheppard: knocked unconscious before the ball went in, and remaining so for quite some considerable time after it.

These days, it would have undoubtedly merited a free-kick to the Baggies, and possibly, a booking for the offender (Rodney Marsh himself?), but back then, head injuries were very much considered an occupational hazard, and not something roughie-toughie keepers were expected to succumb to, in the ordinary way of things. How times change!

Hopefully, I will be in some sort of fit state to make tomorrow?s game, but at the time of writing, I really do have my doubts. It?s not so much the game itself, as the long walk from car to ground then back again, post final-whistle, and any possible stress incurred trying to cope with the Gobbing Gallery, and whatever manner of ordure they try to lob down this time round! It?s for that reason ? and I?d be there, honest, were I able to ? I might just have to settle for watching it on the box instead.

Thoughts about tomorrow? Well, taking the local rivalry angle out of it for a moment, a fair number of similarities between 1993 and the present day. Our final League position the same, ditto Swansea?s (who did have an almighty nutcase element at that particular time, so I guess it?s not all that far removed from the present after all!). Back then we also finished banging in a hatful of goals (5-1), Wigan being cast in the role of sacrificial goats ? and all that after they scored first!

Add to that the shared link of a manager whose whole philosophy revolves around the scoring of goals in quantity, plus having a plethora of strikers, who all took great delight in doing that precise thing for fun, almost. That, plus our side going through a similar spell of indifferent form after racing from right out of the blocks at the start. Not quite the same, sure, but we did have a change in manager after October, to one whose policies were almost diametrically opposite to those of the previous incumbent.

Attack and entertainment, lots of goals, were twin concepts enthusiastically taken up by Ardiles, no mean attacker himself, in his playing days, of course. And because of the bloke?s impeccable track record on that score, his players unwaveringly respected what he was trying to achieve with the Baggies, and would have followed him to the very ends of the earth to achieve that aim, I reckon.

Mogga? He might come from much more modest stock ? well, Ipswich and Scotland aren?t exactly synonymous with pampas grass and Latin temperament in the Argentine, sure, but he?s been around a bit, and thus far, his looks like the sensible road for Albion to take. Should we actually achieve escape velocity at Wembley, then we?ll have to be a tad more pragmatic about things ? but hey, let?s worry about the Prem if and when it happens! All I want to see on the scoreboard, right now, is Albion with more goals than our local rivals, and preferably, at the end of both legs!

And Finally?. One. Nothing to do with Albion, this, but I was particularly charmed by one brief space-filler spotted in The Times, earlier this week. Apparently German brothels, more accustomed to some pretty bizarre ?asks? from their clients, are now having to get used to the sight of tax inspectors passing through their hallowed portals ? and not in search of ?the obvious? either.

Since the entire business was legalised there, back in 2002, sex workers have become just as liable to pay income tax as anyone else: according to the figures I saw, the industry has a turnover (or should that be ?roll-over??) of ?200 million-plus, which now puts these blessed damozels on a par with German builders, painters and decorators, apparently. The bowler-hatted, clipboard-wielding invasion has come about because most ?ladies of the night? don?t bother with such governmental niceties as tax and insurance ? and now the Germanic Inland Revenue has launched itself forth in an initiative to rectify the situation.

Not that much different from builders, etc. in fact: just like them, the girls probably operate on a similar ?cash-in-hand? basis. But as to where that hand had actually been before any transaction took place, I really wouldn?t like to speculate! What does set my mind boggling, mind, is how they might arrive at the criteria they?ll set for various ?personal services? rendered, and their relative worth.

Cue for hilarious visions of some clipboard-wielder or other actually ?sitting in? on sessions with clients, scribbling furiously as each and every ?extra? requested by that client is performed by the sex worker concerned. Even better, in much the same way as casual bystanders being asked to hold intravenous drips etc. for medics at the scene of a particularly nasty accident, do the German Revenue find themselves being even more proactive, by dutifully passing ?props? such as bondage-wear and suggestively-shaped fruit, as and when required? Whips and banana ice-cream, too, should these also prove necessary for the efficient performance of their subjects? more esoteric duties? It?s a thought.

Two. (This one caught my eye purely and simply as a result of my voracious appetite for trivia!) Those discovered in flagrante, puffing away like mad behind the bike-sheds, in their schooldays, might find particularly strong resonance with this one. Especially if your memories of that time happen to include a somewhat painful visit to the Headmaster?s study, afterwards! Believe it or not, during the Great Plague (circa 1665, as all good history students will recall), boys at Eton were thrashed severely if caught NOT smoking every day!

 - Glynis Wright

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