The Diary

27 August 2007: Martin Jol - A Lesson From Albion History?

It?s now Sunday the 26th of August, and the ongoing search for our personal Shangri-La progresses apace. Today, we looked at a place on the other side of Stourbridge, well served by small shops and public transport, and yet so delightfully close to open countryside you can literally hear the cows mooing, and get copious whiffs of their dung the very first time you inhale, me old dears. Oo arrr, fertiloizer...

We?re both pretty upbeat about the place, and what the surrounding area has to offer, so we?re going to arrange ourselves a nifty shufti with the estate agent concerned very soon ? probably after ours goes on the market, which should be around the time The Fart and I go a-wandering around the East Midlands in search of what used to be Barry Fry?s domain, London Road, home of The Posh. ?Im Indoors, who has instead elected to pay his second side a League Cup visit later that very same evening, will be having meaningful words with our own estate agent, so as to do the dirty deed officially. As there?s no upwards chain involved from our end, that cuts out half of the potential booby-traps in one easy sweep. Needless to say, having moved once before, and ended up with self-inflicted alopecia as a direct result of all the attendant hassle, I?ll be hoping for a relatively stress-free ride on this one, although I do appreciate it?s almost axiomatic that no property transaction is without its hair-tearing moments, one way or another. Still, we?ll just have to suck it and see, won?t we?

Reading the Sunday scandal sheets this morning, it?s become quite evident that the past seven days haven?t exactly been kind to former Baggies man Martin Jol, who, despite copious denials emanating from the Spurs boardroom, looks as though he?ll be shortly ditched for a much flashier Continental model, name of Juande Ramos, poor love. A bit like buying a faithful puppy that loves you unconditionally for months and years on end, then chucking it out on its ear the first time something more congenial appears in the local pet shop. Well, I mean, Spurs having their best consecutive League finishes since 1990 (not all down to Jol, ?tis true, but you?ll get my drift), and landing Spurs into (bare minimum) the last eight of major Cup competitions over the course of recent seasons ? well, it?s just not good enough, is it? Never mind cup runs and top-six finishes, why aren?t we in the Champions? League, damn your hide to hell, Sir? The bottom line is: Shape up, or ship out, my boy (and don?t let on we?ve gone behind your back, and already had talks with a Spanish chappie about replacing you!).

No wonder there?s been a peculiar smell coming from my daily paper over the course of the preceding seven days ? and it?s got nothing whatsoever to do with the semi-rural location of the property we?re interested in buying, either. Given the sheer amount of double-dealing, twisted words and broken promises inherent in the beautiful game at its highest level, you won?t be too surprised to hear that there is an historical precedent to note in all this, and shamefully, it?s Albion that provided it. Sound familiar, that line about Cup glory not being good enough for a top-flight chairman? If you?re my age or above, then it darned well should be. And if you?re not ? well, this is an object-lesson in how NOT to handle employees, irrespective of line of work. Read and learn, as I turn back the clock to around 1971, when Alan Ashman was still at the Hawthorns helm.

Since his appointment as replacement for the sacked Jimmy Hagan, way back in the hippie-dominated Summer Of Love, 1967, we?d not only won the FA Cup, but two seasons further down the line, reached yet another Wembley final, a losing one on that occasion, versus Man City. Furthermore, the year after we?d netted the country?s most prestigious knock-out trophy, we?d not only reached the quarter finals of the Cup Winners Cup, but narrowly lost (to a very, very late Alan Clarke strike, delivered through a crowd of closely-packed players, leaving goalkeeper Osborne completely unsighted) an FA Cup semi versus Leicester City. Even our youth team managed to climb upon their elders? trophy-hunting bandwagon, eventually reaching the FA Youth Cup Final, and eventually dipping to Sunderland after a two-legged affair. In other words, back then, Albion possessed a Cup-fighting record that chairmen of most First Division clubs would have died for, even today: back then, when good managers were much less-prone to fall victim to the various whims and fancies of boardroom politics, it seemed to most avid Baggies that Ashman had carved himself a job for life.

Enter into my cautionary tale Jim Gaunt, Albion?s chairman at the time, who for reasons best-known to himself, then decided that running an entertaining side scoring hatfuls of quality goals for fun, and generally to be found occupying a respectable position in the First Division table come the annual cessation of hostilities, simply wasn?t good enough. That?s what prompted his famously-injudicious remark about Cup wins not being good enough: he was reliably quoted to be fed up of the Cup, and what Albion should be really looking to win, instead, was the League title itself. And, what?s more, he privately knew just the bloke to deliver the goods on a plate for him ? a balding chap called Don Howe, ex-Baggie-turned-Gunners-first-team-coach, one-time organizer of so-called ?Albion tracksuit rebellions?, and as keen as you like to take on the Albion job. Just one snag, though: Alan Ashman?s name was still on the office door. No problem to Our Jim, that ? he simply sacked Ashman, then installed Howe as gaffer before the blood had dried on the boardroom carpet, even. The fact that Ashman just happened to be on holiday in Greece at the time didn?t come into it: the really sordid aspect of the entire affair came when it was discovered that the absent Ashman only found out about his dismissal via a local newspaper! Then, as now, boardrooms and chairmen lacked sufficient common decency ? or just plain ?bottle?? - to tell their man to his face that his P45 would be sitting on the doormat by the time he?d flown home.

Ironic, isn?t it? History is said never to repeat itself, but in this particular instance, it didn?t half have a darned good try. Around the time Bryan Robson got the bullet, and Albion were searching for their Ideal Man With The Midas Touch, we?d heard through the grapevine that Albion had put out feelers in Jol?s direction, on account of his good record as Spurs first team coach. In fact, my understanding was that Albion had then made him an offer, and Mister Jol only too happy to accept it ? and then Fate, in the shape of Spurs losing their own gaffer, intervened. Managerless at the time, having sacked the previous bloke and appointing Jol as temporary incumbent pending the recruitment of a more photogenic chappie, the White Hart Lane outfit, finding an ideal replacement almost impossibly difficult to attract to the place, then discovered that their current man was about to run up the M1 as fast as his little legs would take him.

So, what did they do? Panic, that?s what, quickly ascertaining precisely what kind of terms Albion had offered their about-to-fly Dutchman, then just as promptly ?gazumping? their earlier offer. Human nature being what it is, Jol eagerly snapped at the London-based bait dangling so enticingly above his more-than-ample body, and we blew the chance of landing a first-choice replacement for Robbo. The rest, as they say, is history.

According to the two national scandal sheets I?ve seen today, it not only looks as though we?ll be acquiring yet another striker to add to the fierce competition already existing for those coveted few Baggie berths, we may also be about to say ?Tara, and thanks for all the cowin? faggits!? to a clearly-unhappy Nathan Ellington. Watford are the club interested, it would seem, and as we now have sufficient resources in that direction to fall back upon should we unexpectedly hit an injury crisis, maybe it would seem churlishness in the extreme not to let the lad go.

But it?s not so much the desire to leave that mystifies me about the lad they used to call ?Duke?, it?s the blatant fact that since ever his arrival at The Hawthorns from Wigan, he?s consistently failed to find the coruscating form that shot him straight to the head of the Championship goalscorers? list, around two or three seasons ago. Even within the scope of the hour and a half comprising all League games of note, he can be a world-beater one minute, but possessing all the grace and skill of a lumpy sack of spuds the very next. We all know he?s perfectly capable of bringing in the striking bacon, all right, so why isn?t he doing so consistently for the Baggies? Talk about a mystery wrapped within an enigma - and one only remediable by his prompt removal to another club, and a possible fresh start for him there, I would suspect.

One thing you may have noticed about tonight?s offering, folks, is my distinct lack of both discussion or comment apropos last night?s depressing defeat at the hands of Sheffield United. So, as it?s nearly the end of this piece, here?s a few more vagrant thoughts about the entire mess. The complete failure of our players to achieve any sort of rapport, meaningful or otherwise, I touched on last night, as was the underlying cause, the enormous changes to our playing ranks ? and it?s not over just yet. By all accounts, our leader is still seeking to get at least one more body in place before time calls a halt to all the horse-trading for a few more months.

One person proffered the view that yesterday?s game was a straight rerun of our play-off fiasco versus Derby County, and in retrospect, I can certainly see where they?re coming from. We played a side that played it ?robust?, just like the Rams, and we didn?t like it one little bit. Once they?d struck, all they had to do was pack their defence, and hunker down for the remainder of the game. In fact, they didn?t need to do that, even, thanks to the precipitous fall in genuine attempts on goal generated by what seemed a puzzling lack of urgency on our part. It was only once the eighty-minute mark was reached, and the penny finally dropped that unless we were a little more proactive, we were in great danger of forfeiting all three points, that all eleven finally decided to turn up the wick.

The main problem I?m having right now concerns our recent ?supermarket sweep-style? foray into the transfer market following the summer departure of Kamara, Koumas, Macca, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, to pastures new. I?ve always maintained that mass signings weren?t necessarily a bad thing in themselves PROVIDED ? and this is the important bit, peeps ? what came in to replace them was either as good as, or better, than the ones who?d recently gone and legged it. I hope I?m wrong about this, but on yesterday?s evidence, I?m beginning to fear this won?t necessarily be the case for a goodly proportion of our recent recruits. Or is it just that we failed to pick the ?right horses? for that particular Bramall Lane ?course?? Whatever the cause, this lot have better start to ?gel? as comrades in arms, and soon. As we?ve already seen, this league is bloody unforgiving when it comes to errors, tactical or otherwise.

But I will chuck in one other vagrant thought, an optimistic one this time. Remember 2000-01, the season we first reached the First Division play-offs? How many points did we drop in those opening games, before those much-needed goals and points finally started to kick in? In fact I do have a vivid memory of being practically deafened by a certain Gary Megson, sitting, not to mention bawling his bloody head off, in what was then the Directors Box, just a matter of a few feet away from little me (he?d been banned from the touchline for the opening four games, owing to getting ?sent off? at Pompey in the dying weeks of the previous season), our finest having a collective ?mare? in front of their own followers, and the entire shambles resulting in some brave (but clearly brassed-off!) soul in the Halfords finally shouting ?Megson OUT!? The fact that Megson instantaneously machine-gunned the crowd with his eyes, in a vain attempt to locate the culprit, is neither here nor there! Remember also Crystal Palace, who came from nowhere in the second part of our own promotion season, 2003-04, to finally grab promotion via the play-offs. There?s still a long way to go, in other words. Now where the hell did I put that half-filled glass?

And Finally?. More about Mandy, she of Sutton Branch, not to mention the poorly ankle. Remember when I recently mentioned that the lady had secured what I regarded as a most prestigious guest for their next branch meeting? And my thinking that it might well put the whole thing in serious jeopardy, were I to be so daft as to give the details out publicly? Well, I can now come (reasonably) clean, as it?s looking very much as though the rug?s been pulled from under her feet anyway. The guest in question was our very own gaffer, Tony Mowbray, but now the whole thing is in serious jeopardy ? most certainly NOT Mandy?s fault, and not Mogga?s either ? I now feel able to come (partially) clean. Mandy says so disheartened by the entire episode, was she, that she was seriously tempted to tell Albion to rotate on the axis helpfully provided by her upwardly-pointing middle finger, but as she suspects that?s precisely what they want her to do, she won?t do it, if only out of sheer cussedness. Nil desperandum, and all that jazz, Mandy, me old mucker. You know it makes sense.

 - Glynis Wright

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