The Diary

26 August 2007: Bryan's Blades Inflict The Unkindest Cut Of All On Woeful Baggies

Oh, dear. On a gloriously sunny late August evening, a rarity in itself, given the awful run of grotty weather we?ve been having lately, we saw our favourite football club come an awful cropper at Bramall Lane ? and, for once, not a single vestige of poisoned-dwarf former leader Neil Warnock in sight.

Not that a cast-iron alibi could ever absolve him from a fair proportion of any blame subsequently dished out, mind: as per my comparison of him to Gollum, yesterday, one clear mental image I currently have of him is sat in front of some pagan altar, somewhere, a TV monitor tuned to Sky at his elbow, a bevy of strange prayers and incantations escaping his lips, while at the same time, pulling heads off live chickens with a zeal and ardour that would be considered highly commendable in any other walk of life.

And, that done to complete satisfaction ? now, this is the important bit, mind ? turning to face a double-spread team picture of our finest, raising a handily-placed silver goblet, now replete with avian blood, to the heavens, then shouting into the inky void: ?Concede, you navy-striped Black Country b******s, CONCEDE?..?

Aw, come on. Anyone else got a more plausible explanation why we simply couldn?t cut the mustard tonight? Talk to Mogga nicely for an hour or three, and, in all likelihood, even he might up believing that Warnock-controlled occult forces have been at work upon his strangely-incommunicado back four tonight.

Having gratefully taken up El Tel?s offer of watching our game at his place, we always knew that the entire day would prove a somewhat surreal experience, and that?s precisely how it panned out. One sort of gets acclimatised to a certain routine on footie-days, doesn?t one? So, instead of either jumping onto a coach, or loading up what was once the Dickmobile, as we would have done in more conventional circumstances, come lunchtime, we headed on out for the environs of Dudley and Sedgley instead. Yep ? it was house-hunting time, once more.

Not that our football club failed to impinge upon our enjoyment of the day: earlier still, we?d hied off to The Shrine with a merry song on our lips and a beatific smile on our faces, of which the Mona Lisa would have been truly proud. Yes, I know it?s a mug?s game, but in a mad rush of blood - or something ? to my sorely-overheated head, I?d agreed to accompany The Fart to Peterborough this coming Tuesday.

Mind you, when I asked ?Im Indoors if he would be coming also, he declined. Going to watch Hereford take on the collective might of the Bluenoses, he is. Oh, well, at least things should be a tad drier for him than the last time both clubs clashed at St. Andrews. That night, the skies absolutely burst, courtesy of a near-monsoon, the like of which I?ve only ever seen before in the tropics.

Oh ? and Blues won 1-0, the game also being notable for Birmingham City FC?s demonstration of how NOT to run a cup-tie featuring lower-division opposition. For further details, just ask ?Im Indoors, who will be only too eager to supply you with a blow-by-blow account.

It has to be said that the journey over to the ground was a pleasant one indeed. The sun was sunning fit to bust in a sky bluer than that found on a discarded Coventry shirt ? a comparative rarity thus far, this year, I crap you not ? and the ambient temperature a gloriously-mellow 80F as we pootled off the main drag and onto the East Stand car park. Walking into the Ticket Office, there was a distinct lack of bodies on either side of the counter, and what staff were on duty seemed about to slip into a comatose state. Time to do a bit of livening-up, then.

First off was the purchase of those wretched Peterborough tickets, Old Farts for the use of. A relatively straightforward transaction, as I?d known it would be, and one I could sort out with The (Original, accept no imitations!) Fart later that day. The real cruncher will come in around seven days time, when the Scunthorpe tickets come up for grabs.

It being one of the very few grounds remaining that has NOT seen my great clumping Baggie feet on it over the course of the years, I do want to get this one done. Not so ?Im Indoors: he?s already done it, so if you should see a smug sort of smile alighting upon the lips of my other half, as we Scunny ?virgins? try to get our cherry busted (Ooer, shouldn?t that be Bournemouth?), please feel free to rearrange it, courtesy some major structural alterations.

The real problem for our traveling faithful is going to be the laws of supply and demand: Scunny only have a limited number of away tickets on sale, be they seats or terrace, and these will be like gold-dust: like this column, there are an awful lot of Baggies out there wanting to get the ground done. The Bristol City game, also coming soon will, by way of contrast, present no purchasing problems whatsoever. As you?ll have gathered already, with any luck, we?ll be attending both, although I will be keeping my fingers (plus anything else I can muster up in the remaining time!) crossed for a successful Scunny purchase.

Having returned, and having fed my face, it was time to look at houses. The five or so destinations on our ?hit? list, a couple of likely-looking properties in the Halesowen area, then through Brierley Hill, to Dudley?s Broadway, and finally, Sedgley, took us a good two and a bit hours to look at: again, it was all about areas, not so much what was up for grabs at that particular moment.

But all shared the same failing: they lacked a nearby ?sell everything? shop, which was a crying shame, as the Sedgley possibility especially was so beautifully located, with magnificent views of the Clent Hills to the south. A real essential, that, easy access to one of those multi-purpose emporia, what with my back and legs both being so horribly uncooperative these days, with the actual aesthetics of the location coming a poor second, with me, sadly. In direct contrast to Meatloaf ? no, not a newly-reinvented John Hartson trying the pop business for luck, post-Albion! - 0 out of 5 IS bad, so there.

There is a Plan B, though, albeit a nebulous one at this stage: if push should come to shove, and still countless viewed properties not fulfil our various criteria, then I might well have to look towards the possibility of taking up bike riding once more! Not an ideal solution, as I would imagine my back would go through absolute agonies from the very first moment I tried to mount any newly-acquired metal steed, but I have read somewhere that such activities are particularly beneficial to those with the same kind of back injury as mine, in the long term, so there might just be a pleasant spin-off, in terms of my future health and comfort. Well, that?s my story, and I?m blooming well sticking to it. So there!

But back to the football. Once we?d seen every single place on same hit-list, it was back that same afternoon to Chez Wright, to compare notes. And, guess what ? we still haven?t found The One For Us! Time to get really serious, then, and before bordes of fellow house-seekers muscled in on our gains, hopefully. That?s in the future, of course: the here and now consisting` of trying to figure out which Black Country district should now be regarded as a potential new home. And that?s the point where I first came in, folks: one quick dose of zeds on our living-room sofa, and it was off to El Tel?s for a spot of serious Baggies-watching.

As we set off, I was still trying to get my head around the complete and utter surrealism of the entire situation, of which heading straight for Stirchley, and not Sheffield, was but a small part of the whole. On the way, I noted that our in-car temperature gauge read a fiery 79C, still. Wow, that was really hot for the time of day: repeat that at Bramall Lane, and there could well be not a few of our finest getting an unrequited ?sauna experience? along the way. Oh, and despite the comparative brevity of the journey, it was of sufficient duration to ascertain that the Dingles had won 2-1, and ? incredibly ? Leeds had won, yet again, this time it was Forest that played the fall-guys. Only a six-point deficit for Denis Wise to worry about, now. Talk about closing ranks in the face of unbridled unpopularity with the remainder of the football world.

It?s the old ?backs against the wall? mentality asserting itself, of course. Only two League outfits - the Elland Road mob and Millwall?s - truly qualify for membership of this particular ?club?. True, if Ken Bates suddenly popped his clogs, I?d be found eagerly pouring petrol right into the crematorium flames, but you do have to have a sneaking admiration for what Denis Wise has achieved there, and all on less than the proverbial widow?s mite. In fact, anyone able to cope with such an unreconstructed oik as Ken Bates deserves a medal, in my book.

Elsewhere, Villa triumphed over Fulham by the odd goal in three ? guess which Craven Cottager got booked lateish in the game, eh? ? while Blues sorted out the rapidly-ailing Derby by the same winning margin. Still want to take the rip out of us in the same vicious way you did after the final whistle at Wembley, Rams? Having travelled by the same route on two previous occasions, we told you your fortunes back then, and in no uncertain terms, too: I bet the sounds of Premier League chickens finally coming home to roost are proving absolutely deafening, right now.

Arriving at Chez Fart around ten minutes before the scheduled start, we were just in time to catch the old codger?s missus Dot about to depart for church. And, wonder of wonders, what was that strange contraption in the middle of Tel?s living-room, replete with bright images of both League tables and Sky commentators, as they succinctly rounded up the day?s doings, both Premier League and ours, be they good, bad or indifferent?

Why, it was our old absent friend, the errant TV picture! Harold Wilson once famously remarked that a week was a long time in politics: well, I can now tell the ghost of the dear departed Man With The Pipe And Raincoat that so is the same length of time stuck without a blasted telly!

And so, cold drinks in hand ? cheers, Mister Fart! - we finally settled down to watch whatever horrors the next 90 minutes would hold for us. And, this being Albion, we knew there?d be plenty before the game was through. First images of Bramall Lane showed an away end sparsely occupied, by comparison with the sheer amount of shoehorning this fixture has produced in recent years. I can only assume that something of much more import than the Curse Of Neil Warnock had struck: that of the Black Country Coach Operator During Bank Holiday Weekends, for instance.

Cut to images of Jonathan Greening in the players? tunnel, about to lead his troops onto the field of battle, albeit one far less contentious than the one we confronted back in 2001-02. Of the original eleven that took to the field of play that crazy day, only Clem now survived. Was it me, or was our new captain looking even more like one of those religious icons found lurking in churches elsewhere, especially those of Greek and/or Russian Orthodox origin?

When the sunlight glinting off some fitting or other bounced straight down the barrel of the camera lens, causing an artificial ?halo? to shine upon his rampant locks, it suddenly seemed for all the world like Mister Greening had had instant sainthood suddenly thrust upon his hirsute shoulders. Not that the local rozzers would unanimously agree, mind, unless it was about the fact our man was bloody lucky not to end up banged up for a goodly few weeks!

As far as the team news went, just one Baggies change to worry about, Zoltan Gera making way for new boy Fillipe Teixeira. Don?t suppose our resident amateur gymnast would have been too pleased about it, but that?s the way these things go, sometimes. Also in the starting eleven was the previously-hamstrung James Morrison, but no chance of any spectacular feats of derring-do from loanee Ishmael Miller, sadly. As The Clash might have sung it, when they got the same tune to Number One, some thirty years before: ?He fought his groin, and his groin won?.? Sorry, I?ll get me coat?

Pele was also featuring, with Kev Phillips and ?our? Beattie ? the Yorkshire side had their very own version, also a striker ? providing the means of getting those ?bullets? to the target. Said she, hopefully. As the home side were still searching for a win with which to kick off season 2007-08, there must have been a certain amount of pressure upon Bryan Robson to start getting results, which was the way Sky?s resident expert, some former Baggies ?unknown? called Don Goodman, saw it!

As we kicked off, and settled down to watch, even The Fart?s resident cat, Heidi, decided to share in the ranting and raving to come, plonking herself down not far from ?yer man? himself. Even felines have to be avid Baggies-watchers in both our households, see?

During those wary opening minutes, of the two sides, it was The Blades who seemed to knuckle down the quickest, helped along a tad by a following seemingly determined to give the late John Denver and his songwriting masterpiece, ?Annie?s Song? (Revised Version) some big licks for the benefit of the viewing public.

In those opening minutes, it was both Beattie The Blade and our very own Kev Phillips who had the chances, but with very little additional time on the clock, it was Hoefkens who proved the undoubted hero of the (early) Albion hour, with an astonishingly-well-timed interception inside the box that neatly frustrated any ambitions on the part of the home side to spoil our day so soon in the proceedings.

As for what happened not so long after that, I can only assume that Beattie The Baggie will still be cursing his luck several days further down the line. Phillips was the provider of what would have been a cast-iron scoring chance, had things run a tad more kindly all round. Over came the ball from the flank, with Beattie desperately trying to latch onto it with his foot.

Unfortunately, instead of boot and ball making solid contact ? had they done so as planned, then the home side?s keeper would surely have been complaining about chronic backache within a matter of seconds - the ball struck a Sheffield United body, then looped wildly into the air, finally hitting the crossbar on its brief aerial flight above the goalmouth. As for their keeper, he was all over the place, well beaten, in other words. If only that one could have had Beattie?s name written on it!

Twelve minutes gone now ? and the tension finally proved too much for poor Dot, who made off for her local church at a rate of knots. ?Don?t forget to say one for us!? was The Fart?s parting remark, as she headed on out into the prairie, leaving us three to suffer in anything but silence.

With around a third of the half gone, Beattie The Blade gave us due notice that he was planning to make his mark upon this game. Not that our woeful lack of marking helped us any: come on guys, did he have terminal BO or something? Whatever his state of bodily cleanliness, by the time the ball left his foot, it was going at a fair rate of knots: just as well that his aim was bad, really.

Five minutes later, Greening had a poke at the pot, but his effort met with about as much success as Beattie The Blade?s effort had. Now we were well into the game, one big failing of ours was sticking out by a thumb, not so much sore, as stinking with gangrenous pus. No matter how hard we tried, we simply couldn?t get going up the field.

Once more, that same old problem, simply not knowing your team-mates, or what they were likely to do over the course of the next ninety minutes, caused our downfall with monotonous regularity. We?d get a lovely series of passing moves started OK, and progress up the pitch, and right into their own half, even, but when it came to placing that killer ball/pass in the optimal position for our strikers to latch on to, you might as well have asked a half-trained orang-utan to deliver it. The necessary cohesion, not to mention mutual understanding, simply wasn?t there.

Another half-hearted Baggies break, thwarted by United, but with Greening, amazingly, being allowed sufficient time and space to get one away, about the only real mistake I saw United make the whole game. Which Sky person remarked about the whole thing descending into a ?Battle Of The Beatties?? Starting the silliness off by bringing film star Warren Beattie into the conversation, I came up with one better: Admiral Beattie, hero of the Battle Of Jutland, circa April 1916. And what about department store Beatties of Dudley, too? Oh, dear ? still not used to my warped sense of humour, are we, Mister Fart?

Once again, I remarked that this was a very surreal way of watching a game: countered my other half, ?This is a very CHEAP way of watching a game?.? Had His Nibs been listening to financial guru and Cheapskate-In-Chief Steve The Miser again, I wonder?

Not long after that, our fortune was well and truly written when Kiely had to make his first ?serious? save of the game, beating down a nasty-looking United effort along the way. Incidentally, I don?t know what planet Hoefkens was on at the time, but it certainly wasn?t ours! The tide was inexorably turning, but not in our direction. Every time United ran at us, they looked dangerous, so it came as no real surprise to any of us when Beattie The Blade put Bryan Robson?s mob into the lead, around seven minutes before the break.

The whole thing came about courtesy some criminal defending, as per usual. In came the ball, from the left, screwed back across the box, and running very nicely indeed for our own Beattie?s Sheffield United counterpart. Up he rose, with naught in the way of let or hindrance, and as he did so, the header, a looping one, soared way above the desperately flailing Keily?s hands, and right into the back of the sodding net.

1-0 to them, then, and yes ? on the face of it, they genuinely deserved to be in front. Interesting to note our former gaffer?s demeanour after United took the lead: when with us, he seemed to possess all the animation and passion of a three-toed sloth, but subject to United?s tender caresses, everything he did was tinged with a passion and fervour never seen before by this column.

It was as if someone had done a ?Duracell battery? on him, effecting the replacement by removing the ?dead? one, then inserting a surreptitious hand where the sun didn?t shine, and by doing so, providing the lad with a renewed source of power. I have to say I never saw him quite this passionate, or so intimately involved, when with us!

Half time, then, one down ? and as I?ve said, we only had ourselves to blame. Just like at Turf Moor, we seemed to have not so much as a football team as a bunch of complete strangers. I?d thought we?d managed to evolve way past that point, by now, so what on earth was queering the pitch? Tel, being a man of few words, but succinct ones, simply said, as both sides somewhat wearily left the field of play: ?I?ll take the draw?..?

Now Tel?s a great believer in multimedia: no sooner had both sides left the scene of the crime, on went the radio for WM?s latest take on the situation. During the break, we also sat back, and sipped the cooling drinks at our elbows, yours truly scribbling notes like crazy. Quite a difference from our normal half-time routine of visiting the bogs (always interminable queues in the Ladies: when will the penny finally drop that a lot more females attend games these days, and start to make proper provision for them?), then nattering away to what was likely to be a pretty tormented and disaffected soul by then.

And then came a form of entertainment you?d NEVER find in any Football League ground, not in a million years of trying. The problem was Heidi, who, nice puss that she is, elected to choose half-time to inform The Fart she needed feeding ? and fast. Once more, up stepped our chum, persuading her to come to her ?proper? bowl, and while doing so, playing yet another Wills bit of gadgetry - one of those ?talking fish? thingies that proved so irritating around seven years or so ago. All part of our hero?s normal routine to persuade his cat she really ought to go outside to do her whoopsies, of course. By this time, I was in stitches. ?Tell you what,? I said, ?Perhaps it would do better if Tel were to be seen preening himself up and scratching around for a bit if nocturnal ?relief, with Heidi watching from the relative comport of her own little chair??

And so it was time for Round Two, with backing accompaniment provided by those noisy, if not noisome, Sheffield United people,bless their antisocial ways. And yes ? once more, it proved Groundhog Day for our weary troops. The truth of the matter was, that we weren?t hurting them any, nor were we ever likely to be. More and more, we appeared to be on the back-pedal, so why on earth United?s Armstrong earned the wrath of the ref by chopping Paul Robinson, I?ll never know. Cue for laugh as I made free with the usual platitudes, all of them uncomplimentary towards our errant defender.

But mostly, it just got worse, one glaring example being of the time both Kiely and Albrechtsen went up for the same ball, with predictable results: i.e. United almost saying ?Thank you very much, squire?? and my other half bawling ?TALK TO EACH OTHER!? at the top of his little voice. Finally, Mogga saw the light, and decided to change things. Off went Beattie and Pele, and on came both Gera and Duke Ellington. As the Sky chappie said, ?Positive, but predictable?.?

With just over 15 minutes left, we finally forced their keeper into making a save, and one he had trouble sorting out, too. No marks for the fact that it was a defender, and not an attacker, that almost forced the home side into making the error. Well done, Hoefkens, for letting loose that almighty screamer, and from all of 25 yards out, too,

Come the last ten, it almost seemed as though we?d finally woken up and smelt the coffee: suddenly, the wick was turned up, and United started to appear slightly rocky, for once. Just one small thing, though, chaps. Why on earth leave it until that late to hit them with all guns blazing?

Cue that precise moment for Dot to return from her little spell of ?knee-drill?, and complaining about the heat something rotten. Not half as hot as the roasting our lot were getting at Bramall Lane, but I didn?t push the point. ?Did you say a prayer for us?? asked an increasingly-exasperated Fart.

?Well, if she did, it certainly didn?t reach the intended recipient?? snarled an equally-exasperated, not to mention frustrated, This Column, as yet another Baggies attack broke down in the face of Sheffield United cussedness.

But, even as I was snarling, I spotted something that really was a delight to behold: Mogga and one of the local coppers, clearly a leathery-faced veteran, both scowling furiously at what was going on right in front of their very own eyes. Could they both be legitimate contenders for the title of ?Ugliest Face Seen At Bramall Lane This Season?, perhaps? Let me put it this way, anyone toting a carton of milk whilst in the vicinity of those two would have been in grave danger of seeing the stuff turned into butter on the spot.

Six to go, and not much likelihood of us salvaging anything from the wreckage, flukey or otherwise. Cue entry of Heidi, who had decided a spell outside was far too hot and just wanted to commune with the humans in perfect peace and quiet. ?Any chance of tabby cats breaking the ?good luck rules? that normally apply to black moggies?? I enquired.

And then it was all over. A game where we hadn?t even come close to hurting them, save one rare occasion when their keeper was forced into making an uncharacteristic error. As I?ve already intimated, we bring such problems upon ourselves by not talking, end of story. We saw what that could cause at Turf Moor, just the other week. How many more defeats will we have to witness before our players finally get the message that they?re a group of highly-paid professional sportsmen, and not a raving mob?

More about the same thing tomorrow: any thoughts regarding what went wrong to the usual place.

 - Glynis Wright

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