The Diary

05 August 2007: An Unbeaten Run Of Pre-Season Friendlies, And A Beattie Hat-Trick Chucked In For Good Measure!

The above (slightly mangled) lyrics taken from the opening track of Paul McCartney?s 1976 album, ?Venus and Mars?.

So, there you have it. All our pre-season stuff done and dusted and a 3-1 victory seeing off our last opponents in fine style. The very next time we take to the park, it?s all for real. Don?t y?all forget those brown corduroy trousers while y?r all tied up a-settin?and a-sippin? in good ole Turf Moor, now - ya hear me, boy? Sure, I?ve always maintained pre-season friendly form to be a pretty unreliable indicator of subsequent League fortunes, be they good or ill, but what I will say is that I?m currently at a complete loss to remember the last time we weathered that particular course with nary a defeat to trouble our pretty little heads.

Isn?t it amazing how the glorious prospect of the round-ball code doing meaningful things once more seems to bring about a complete change in our glorious British weather? Just a couple of weeks ago, the massive deluge that descended upon most towns situated within the bounds of the Gloucester/Worcester/Hereford ?triangle? created scenes more suited to the paddy fields of the Far East than England?s ?garden? counties: now, bar those few unfortunate folks still living entirely bereft of electricity and running water, it all seems like a horrible dream. Never mind, the footie?s started, so the world can return to normal again.

That was certainly the case in West Bromwich this afternoon: it?s always been an axiom of Black Country folklore that the sun always shines on the righteous, hence the steady stream of shirt-wearing home fans we spotted making their way up Halfords Lane, all simultaneously revelling in the unaccustomed sunshine, of course. A powder-blue sky, dappled by the sort of clouds that only present a ?fluffy? face to their ?general public?, no hidden twisters, no thunder and lightning, and ? miracle among miracles ? no bloody rain!

Something of a late arrival for us, today, owing to ?Im Indoors wanting to crack on with his decorating. He?s currently awarding our office window the VC.(see below for full description in all its magnolia-laden ghastliness) so we needn?t have rushed. No problem whatsoever plonking our jalopy in its normal socket, which made for a relatively straightforward journey on foot, in the general direction of The Shrine, of course. Once there, it was simplicity itself to join the queue now snaking its sinuous stripey way towards the cash desk. ?One and an Old Fart, please?? said I, proffering the necessary dosh. That flippant remark from Yours Truly must have tinkled the guy?s ?sense of humour? bells something rotten: grinning like a Cheshire cat high on skunk weed as he did it, he came up with the goods within a matter of seconds.

Drawing near to our former GD-selling spot outside the Police Post (oh, happy days!), we came upon an elderly supporter we vaguely knew. Not a happy chappy at all, being of very limited mobility, and using the aid of a stick, he?d sat down there to give his weary limbs a little bit of a respite. Being something of a ?fellow traveller? myself, I commiserated with his plight, to which he replied, ?At least I?m fitter than that bloody John Hartson, aer kid?? Fair point. But, then again, just about everyone and their kid sister?s fitter than John Hartson, aren?t they? (Cue Baggies supporter soliloquising in true Shakespearean style: ?Alas poor Hartson, I knew him well. He was a fellow of infinite jest, not to mention immense rotundity?.?) But don?t upset the guy just yet: aren?t we supposed to be saving him for dispatch to Swansea City by way of replacement for the recently-departed Lee Trundle, or something? Allegedly. Well, if it?s in the Mirror, it?s got to be true, hasn?t it?

Onward, ever onward ? and you just know no Albion game would ever be the same, deprived of it?s normal coterie of Stattos gathered around what was once the entrance to the players? bar, BM - Before Megson, that is: no sooner had he landed at The Hawthorns, he closed the place down quicker than Elliott Ness on discovery of yet another sleazy Chicago gangster-run ?speakeasy?. Some of our finest were so put out by what was, to them, an unthinkable state of affairs, they never quite got over the shock. One other thought, though: the collective noun for football statisticians. Would it be fair to christen such an eminent gathering ?an obsession of Stattos?, I wonder?

Having left Colin Mackenzie to ruminate further, we then moseyed on up to The Hawthorns Hotel, where quite a strange sight greeted us: various wedding paraphernalia dangled around the entrance our supporters? club normally uses. You didn?t need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out the fact we?d been bumped from our normal place of worship and moved to another room instead, but it really wasn?t a problem. All the Albion folkies we needed to see were stood in what?s now fast becoming the adult equivalent of the ?Naughty Corner?, those Spartan outdoor areas pub licensees set aside for smoking drinkers (aw, you know what I mean?). I wonder how soon it will be before our old friends, West Midlands Police, bring down the boom upon people both smoking and having a pint out there?

The Fart was the first to appear on the horizon, and champing at the bit to get his Burnley ticket from ?Im Indoors?s Tardis-like wallet, he was, too. There then followed one of those pleasantly potty conversations where you conduct a snap-appraisal of individual players? form in those pre-season games played over the course of the previous two weeks: inevitably, the conversation finally tracked round to our recent Stafford Rangers outing, the 1-0 win where a 15 year old Academy stripling called Lateef Allyu not only broke the club record for being the youngest player ever to score for our (admittedly scratch, as most of our main men had turned out versus lovely Bristle Rovers the night before) first-string, he also created quite an additional stir by lamping in the blasted thing from a range of approximately 45 yards, lobbing the ball as cool as you like past the unfortunately-named Stafford custodian Alcock. Blimey. Start as you mean to go on, my boy?..

So many familiar faces out there, and so little time to talk to them. Sauce, Andy The Chain Smoker, The Bloke On The Door, Alan Cleverly, looking very dapper, attired in a cornflower blue jacket. Guess what, Alan: after all the floods we experienced over the course of the last few weeks, I came very close to contacting you with regard towards establishing an Aquatic Branch of the Supporters? Club (bring your own flippers and mask to meetings, of course, and mind all those bloody seals!). The Drinking Family were there, plus many, many more. All of them real ?hard core? Baggies, in fact ? and I mean that in the very best sense of the phrase, I really do. These guys genuinely do follow Albion ?over land and sea, and air ? and water!?, so more power to their elbow, say I. With a pint of something suitably refreshing/alcoholic stuck firmly in the fist lurking at the other end of it, naturally enough.

Oh ? and another thing, and this concerns YOU, Mister Homer. Didn?t I see a certain Sherjil McDonald, known to all and sundry as ?Shergar?, net for the stripes at Edgar Street, last Friday week? Remember the little secret you were daft enough to blurt out in my presence, during both the fag-end of last season, and when we played ? no, make that ?trounced? - The Dingles? Something to do with you running around Lower Gornal stark naked, should the lad ever find the net for The Throstles, if I remember correctly? Well, he?s now gone and done it, and in front of credible witnesses, too ? so when?s the appointed time, date and place going to be, Mister Homer? And, more to the point, should I come equipped with a powerful pair of binoculars, or just a silly grin of satisfaction adorning my lovely little face? My public eagerly awaits your decision, dear boy.

Tempus fugit, and all that jazz?. With around 15 minutes to go before the start, we tore ourselves away from the crowd adorning the outside of Albion?s nearest boozer, and headed in the general direction of our usual turnstile. Odd to be handling ?proper? tickets once more, after all this time mucking about with a credit card-sized bit of plastic: oooh, just handling the thing got me all nostalgic again. As did my first proper glimpse of the business end of our spiritual home since the end of the Dingles game: wow, what a contrast. Then, all was roiling tension, inkjet darkness lurking beyond the friendly glow cast by those floodlights: raw emotions, knife-edge atmosphere, the works, and all played out in front of a packed Hawthorns crowd, none of whom could ever claim genuine neutrality in a month of Sundays, unless attendance at the scene of the crime came courtesy one of those ghastly ?corporate packages?, of course.

Half of ?em wouldn?t know decent football if it were bored or punched: parasites, leeches, a festering boil located on the very face of football, the whole bloody lot of them. And, talking of taking whopping great liberties, I wonder whose bright idea it was to charge punters ?1.80 for a humble bottle of Coke, today? That is extracting the urine, it really is: for that sort of price, I could brew up gallons of bathtub gin instead, and sell it surreptitiously to all those Baggies taking a pleasant pre-match constitutional along Halfords Lane.

Compare and contrast the events of last May with what greeted our eyes today, as we emerged from the bowels of the stand, eyes blinking furiously in unaccustomed bright sunlight once more. A Hawthorns bathed in a summery glow, blue sky, cotton-wool clouds looking for all the world as if they?d been glued there in the firmament by some child wielding a judiciously-applied tube of Evo-Stik. Oh, and while I?m at it, let me not forget the sterling efforts of our brand-new brace of ?Baggie Birds?, for lurking beneath those hellishly-hot costumes today were none other than a certain John Homer, he of the outstanding bet previously described, also the unlikely form of Dave Holloway, he of the Albion away travel service. Did they do it for a bet, I wonder ? a losing one? As for today?s crowd, it was one very much removed from the undulating sea of humanity that shoehorned themselves into the ground that momentous night last May: more like scattered knots of stripey spectators ranged all around the ground and soaking up the sunshine, family groups, most of ?em.

Mind you, at least the Smethwick tried to impart a semblance of normal matchday choral ?service? to the proceedings. 10 out of 10 for trying to get some sort of ?atmosphere? going, chaps, but 0 out of 10 for giving Curtis Davies the bird every single time he touched the bloody ball. It?s not big, it?s not clever ? and, what?s more, it most certainly isn?t Albion. Cut it out.

Talking of Curtis Davies, I was most surprised to see him stay on the pitch the length of time he did: given the near-certainty he was expected to depart for sunnier climes very soon, I would have thought our manager would have been far more inclined to see how a possible replacement would fare against a Dutch side who were clearly no mugs, that?s for sure. UEFA qualifiers they were, and you don?t normally get to participate in that sort of competition by playing like a sack of well-ripened manure, do you? Could it be that moves to upwardly-mobilise the lad in the general direction of the Prem have hit some sort of snag, I wonder?

So much for the preamble, then, and on with the business in hand. Bear in mind that this was the very first time I?d seen some of the new guys in action, so the whole thing was very much on a bit of a learning curve for me also. On parade today was Craig Beattie, our ?1.25 million capture from Bonny Scotland, also starting were Leon Barnett, and Albion?s ?Portuguese Twins?, Filipe Teixiera, and Tininho. Coo, what a bind it was to get those bloody names right, just now: oh for the halcyon days when new recruits were simply called plain ?Smith?, or ?Jones?! One other new lad collected a fair number of bum-splinters courtesy the bench, and his name was Shelton Martis.

Hail Cesar? Er ? not quite: his international clearance hadn?t arrived, so he had to sit this one out. That lad?s going to be a headline writer?s dream, he really is: I can feel it in me water already. Oh ? there were also a couple of significant absentees from that final friendly. Clem, reportedly suffering from some unspecified medical malady or other, and Robert Koren, who apparently tried to emulate the eyeball-destroying feats of King Harold recently. Not on the rolling field of Hastings, versus William The Conquerer?s tame Dingle-clones, the Normans ? he?s around ten centuries too late for that one, sadly ? but in a much more mundane place, the training pitch of West Bromwich Albion. Whether or not the event?s been recorded upon some modern-day equivalent of the Bayeux Tapestry no one from the club is prepared to comment: suffice to say that it?s highly probable that Mister Koren?s not exactly seeing eye-to-eye with Albion?s medical team right now!

For their part, the visitors were without sex-on-legs striking sensation Alfonso Alves (How the hell can you take seriously a footballer carrying a forename like Alfonso about his person, I ask myself!), who bagged no less than 34 goals for the Dutch side last time round, finishing the season second in the goalscoring charts to yet another lad bearing a silly name, the legendary Totti.

That?s all the preliminaries over and done with, then, so onto the important stuff. Impressions? A highly satisfactory 3-1 win against what was, on paper, at least, a pretty formidable side. But the real star of the show, for me, was Mister Beattie, three-goal hero of the hour. Funny, that: as we emerged from Wembley just after the final whistle sounded, thereby putting the kybosh upon our promotion hopes and dreams for yet another 12 month period spent ?in durance vile?, my other half made an extremely profound remark. (Yes, he does have a licence for it, dearie?)

?What we need is a Scottish scrapper?.? No doubt uttered with the likes of Bobby Hope, ?Oor Wullie? (Johnston), Del Boy McInnes and similar very much in mind, but it certainly made sense. Well, it sure as hell looks as though we?ve found one now, at long last. Jonathan Greening means well, of course, but he?s no leader, as he himself would probably testify, given the opportunity to speak candidly. Since Del Boy departed back to the land of Robert The Bruce, our lack of someone capable of taking a game by the scruff of its neck, then urging others on to greater things by sheer force of personality, has been glaringly obvious.

Beattie? He ran, he urged, he battled, he barged, created, even ? and like all good boys who prove themselves worthy of the famous shirt, he eventually got his just reward, his first coming just before the break, his second not long after the restart, and the one that earned him the matchball coming just five minutes after that. It was good to see young Jared Hodgkiss turn provider for Beattie?s first ? well done, Mogga, for picking him for a start in the first place: it doesn?t half encourage the others ? so it was with a happy heart I saw our finest trot off the pitch for a well-deserved half-time break not long afterwards.

Come the second half, Mogga started to ring the changes in earnest; within a very short space of time, there were more arrivals and departures taking place out there than flaming New Street Station. Just about everyone in contention for a precious first team place got their chance to shine, yet another demonstration of how justly our leader tries to run the ship. Anyone not making the final cut next Saturday will have little room for complaint, as I see it: everyone?s been given a fair whack, and if they can?t avail themselves of the opportunity to do their long-term Albion prospects that little bitsy extra piece of good, then it?s their own flaming lookout, isn?t it?

But back to the matter in hand. Come the 56th minute, Beattie struck again ? but, miracle of miracles, the assist was provided this time by none other than a certain Nathan Ellington! That Beattie third strike? Yet another interesting provider for our tame ?Flying Scotsman?, none other than Zoltan Gera. One vagrant thought, mind: I wonder why no-one?s bothered to come in for him, to date? My appraisal of the situation was largely based upon what I regarded to be the nailed-on certainty that someone from the Prem (or another club based in Europe, possibly) would come in for him during the summer break, then take him off our hands forever. Strange such a move never quite materialised for Our Zoltan, wasn?t it?

Others, the likes of Nathan Ellington, Greening, Teixiera (who stuffed up something chronic when he had the goalmouth at his mercy) were equally deserving of getting onto the scoresheet, but the day truly belonged to the ex-Celtic new guy. Three classy strikes, and given the right circumstances, he could have grabbed several more, no worries. No real ?black marks? to hand out, save what?s universally recognised to be Chappy?s normal matchday modus operandi, these days: winning the ball well, then making a total pig?s ear of not only the subsequent lay-off, but at least five more on the bounce thereafter. But that?s Chappy for you, and we supporters are pretty well used to his various eccentricities, by now. Mind you, if he?s bamboozling us with his peculiar antics, the opposition have absolutely no chance of working out what makes him tick, have they?

Still, it was a pretty entertaining affair, overall. Made one hell of a nice change, that. For the first time in years I actually came away from that ground NOT feeling as though I?d been bored something rigid for the entire 90 minutes. And so did The Fart, running hell for leather in an attempt to grab a seat on the very next Metro tram due in. I did try to tell him that such was the volume of humanity that tried to shoehorn themselves into those trams after the final whistle, the one he wanted to catch wouldn?t be going anywhere for quite a few minutes, but The Fart, showing us both a clean pair of heels, was off once more.

I wonder whether the authorities have ever considered employing those Japanese blokes you see cramming bodies into Tokyo rush-hour underground trains to do the job? That would certainly ginger the proceedings up a tad, that?s for sure. But some things never change, mind: yet again, the road nearest the ground is reduced to naught but a mass of luridly-coloured plastic piping, interspersed with the mouths of some bloody big holes, as yet another heroic gas board crew try to get to the bottom of what really ails Halfords Lane. The last time it happened, I actually threatened to bake those holes a birthday cake: I wonder if I can get around to doing it, this time?

But hang on a minute?.. Could it be that they?re actually trying to dig their way down to Australia, I wonder, and just using the Gas Board stuff as a front? Or could the whole thing be pretty nifty cover for a concerted attempt on the part of the residents to claim rightful ownership of any undiscovered oil deposits lurking within those smelly depths? If that is indeed the case, and they do find a gusher hidden within the prevailing murk, the next new members of the OPEC cabal could well reside in houses within a 400-yard radius of the ground! The United Emirates Of Smethwick: has a certain cachet to it, no? Oh, well ? suit yerselves.

And Finally?.. I?m sorry to report that the dreaded magnolia outbreak has now pervaded the hallowed portals of our ?office?: where there was once joyous decorative harmony and colourful matt emulsion-inspired peace and love, there now prevails the sort of wishy-washy vomitus-producing interior d?cor that should have been killed off around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Anyone out there remember the 1968 Beatles-inspired cartoon feature film ?Yellow Submarine? ( and have another close look, if you should get the chance: within those reels of celluloid resides pretty much all the pop video techniques they all thought was ground-breaking stuff, back in the early eighties. Whisper it quietly, but that badly-received 1968 cartoon was actually years and years ahead of its time!) and those magnificent villains of the piece, The Blue Meanies, stomping all over brightly coloured Pepper Land and in the process, turning the entire thing into a vast swathe of monochrome?

Well, that?s precisely the way I feel about bloody magnolia paint, and the highly pernicious manner in which it?s gradually impinging upon our daily lives: slurp, slurp, slurp, on it goes, and with every additional drop of paint that leaves the bloody tin, yet more colour and individuality, the sort of personal foibles that makes us what we are, permanently disappears from view. Goddammit, I?m even getting regular nightmares about a platoon?s worth of reality TV show so-called ?experts? descending en-masse upon our new place, wherever that turns out to be, and once there, repeating the whole soul-destroying exercise for the general delectation of the viewing public! Oh God ? PLEASE MAKE IT STOP? Just one small ray of hope remains for whatever vestigial remnants of sanity are in there pitching, mind: the gloriously anarchic and delicious prospect of getting to slap on something much more cheerful, once we get there!

And another ?And Finally??. I had a mail from that nice Mister Adrian Chiles this very same morning, wanting me to plug his forthcoming book, so in an effort to give the lad precisely what he wanted, I immediately hot-footed it over to our local hardware shop, situated just a couple of hundred yards further up the road, and after a short conversation with the young Asian chappie that runs it, I got just the very item to keep our journalistic chum ecstatically happy for ages.

It?s round, rubber, and a pleasing sort of cream colour, all of which is set off nicely by the generously-chunky brass chain purchasers normally use to tether the thing to either wash-basin or bath. Ridiculously cheap it was, too. Er - will that do you, Ade? You wanted a plug, so I?m giving you one: generous, or wot? I can?t for the life of me see why he?s trying to plug his book, mind. Surely his bath has a much stronger claim for permanent freedom from leakage? So here?s the $64,000 dollar question, then: was Our Ade more badly affected by the recent floods than most, or does he have a more-than-unusually persistent rising-damp problem lurking within the gloomier recesses of his PC, I wonder? All answers to the usual place.

Thanks also for all the nice things said about this column by the young lady who sat next to me for most of this afternoon?s game. I didn?t know her from Adam, and didn?t quite catch her name either, sadly: all I know is that she?s currently reading English at Bristol University, and when she graduates, she plans to become an embryonic hack ? so welcome to the wacky and wonderful word of frantic attempts to successfully ascend the greasy journalistic pole, aer kid. Dot Lepkowska, where were you when I had urgent need of your services, that?s what I want to know? Why? To dissuade the poor deluded girl from embarking upon an unwise dalliance in journalism, that?s why!

 - Glynis Wright

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