The Diary

05 October 2007: Stoke City, Journalistic Memories, And Other Related Matters.

If there?s ever been a time when I?ve suddenly been overwhelmed by a strong desire to pitch a tent on the East Stand car park and be done with it, then this week has to be it. So often have my little legs carried the rest of me to The Hawthorns, over the course of the last few days or so, I?m starting to think in terms of asking Sandwell Council for a poll tax rebate, on account of the fact we no longer reside at our current address.

Well, I mean, we aren?t half getting about, we two? Leaving tonight?s shindig out of it for the moment, last Tuesday evening, and we were moaning our bags off after the Cardiff defeat, then there was Sunday?s turkey-shoot involving poor QPR. This Monday just gone, we attended the FA Roadshow, also with the East Stand as the venue (Memo to The Daily Mirror: Not only was your brief report of the proceedings totally bereft of any sort of intimation Albion supporters had actually dared to question the party line on various issues, you also showed an unbelievable amount of geographical ignorance by putting the venue for the meeting firmly within the bounds of Birmingham!). Wednesday evening saw us engage in what amounted to urban warfare, almost, with bloody Stoke; Saturday morning, we?ll be there again, not only buying tickets for Watford (and, possibly, in my case, Colchester), but also letting the coach take the strain while we journey to Southampton?s Saint Mary?s Stadium, for what we all hope will be yet another win.

That brings me neatly to next Monday evening, when Mogga will be holding forth in public again, all admission money going to a club-nominated charity, as I understand it. As our manager?s past public appearances in front of supporters have always coincided with our presence in Herefordshire, we?re just grateful we can make it this time. No wonder our three cats think we?re deserting them, every single time we take the car and head out in the direction of the ground.

So much for the preamble, then; precisely what were we doing in the Pennington Suite, East Stand, tonight, then? Easy, that one: this time, it was the turn of those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed gentlemen of the local press to let us have a distillation of their innermost thoughts, foibles, hopes and desires, this keenly-anticipated soiree, organised by the Supporters Club, and ably chaired by The Gornal Cat Strangler, alias John Homer. But with no Fart in attendance, sadly: normally, he would have lapped up an evening like that like gravy, but a few days before the event, he told us he wouldn?t be attending, as he?d been out of the house too many times over the course of the last few weeks, and wanted to catch up on a bit of time indoors. Oh, dear, Tel, you are getting to be a poor old thing: was it last season?s play-offs involving the Dingles that piled decades onto your chronological age overnight, perhaps?

A real pity, that, because Tel would have contributed greatly to the various topics pursued by all three hacks, this evening. John had managed to grab a fairly good spread of journalistic opinion for this one: Chris Lepkowski, of the Birmingham Evening Mail, Martin Swain of the Express And Star, and Steve Marshall, also from the E and S. Last but not least, there was a very 1980?s bubble-permed Andy Toft, former E and S man, now video gatherer for the E and S website, lurking with menace at the back of the room, accompanied by a video camera, complete with tripod and mike, in order to commit the issues affecting Albion supporters, and their thoughts regarding those issues, to both cyberspace and video formats.

It was a shame that the attendance for this one was relatively sparse, but as John did comment later, an awful lot of people had been at the game last night, and didn?t want to make a second journey to the place within the space of just over 24 hours. That I could readily understand, but had they gone the extra mile, they would have had a pretty enjoyable time batting the breeze with all those local journos.

So what topics were on the agenda, then? Given that some of what was said was of a confidential nature, I will have to be pretty careful what I say, but within the limits of those constraints, what I will say is that the discussion was ?lively?. Topics covered were pretty eclectic ones, one of the first being a query from the floor as to whether or not any of the panel had experienced hostility from any of Albion?s management or boardroom people.

By way of reply to that one, I think it was only Chris Lepkowski that reported significant problems in that sphere. His run-in was with Gary Megson, and for reasons he completely failed to understand, our former leader being on speaking terms one minute, then blanking him the next! Most odd. And, talking of ?odd?, here?s one for the books. Apparently, Martin Swain reckons he was the person responsible for getting Bobby Gould appointed manager at the Hawthorns!

It all came about when the then-Albion board, worried about falling into the drop-zone, unofficially sounded him out about Gould?s suitability, and Martin responded by putting together a written case as to why the club should stop messing about, and give Barmy Bobby the Albion nod ASAP! As Martin said, though, in many ways, Gould was an astute person, and could spot a promising player within minutes ? well, he did sign Bob Taylor, so perhaps we?d better just gloss over the coming of Winston White, Colin West and Gary Piggott! - but wasn?t really of the material of which football managers are made ? and yes, he did do odd things, at times, like invite supporters into dressing rooms, to tell players some home truths about their performances. This character defect of Bobby?s only really came to light after he?d fallen flat on his face at our place, Martin reckons.

We also heard some lovely anecdotes about life as a journo trying to pursue a story, no matter what. One prime example was the time one of the panel tried to speak to Ron Saunders, then head of Blues, at their Elmdon training ground. Apparently, the place just happened to have a sauna, and it was to this that our man was taken to conduct an interview with Saunders, who was dressed as for a sauna, only a couple of strategically-placed towels protecting his modesty. And that would have been that, had it not been for the fact the sauna was still going full-blast, and our hack cocooned in winter overcoat, jacket, shirt, tie ? the full monty, in other words! One way to lose weight quickly, I suppose.

Onto our Dingle chums, then, and various tales of Glenn Hoddle, Dave Jones, and Mick McCarthy, not to mention a strenuous denial of the popular perception on the part of Albion supporters that their newspaper (or whatever) came with an inbuilt bias towards Albion, purely and simply because of the geographical area in which their head office was based. As the E and S guys pointed out, when Albion reached the play-off final, last season, the journos covering Albion for that paper bust a gut trying to get stuff into print that would help set the scene, create an expectant atmosphere, for the thousands of Baggies planning to travel to Wembley for the game.

One surprise: these guys reckoned that far more material was written for publication in a special E and S covering that game than was in the edition covering the Dingles, and their successful appearance at Cardiff?s Millennium Stadium, some three or four seasons ago. (I loved the suggestion that came from the floor, just after those words were said ? well, from Dave Knott, in fact ? that the real reason for the disparity in sales was that ?Thay cor read!?)

Our scribbling chums also told us that after the final Wembley whistle, some E and S sellers had had to scarper pretty quickly, on account of some peeved Albion supporters, in what was clearly a knee-jerk response to a disappointing defeat, wanting to shoot the Wolverhampton-based messenger, rather take on board the message itself. And, talking about the Dingles, according to the panel, they seemed to take their four defeats out of last season?s five appearances when in competition against us, quite well, given the right circumstances, and a following ring.

When asked what particular news report had given him the most satisfaction compiling, Chris Lepkowski came up with a pretty quirky one. I wouldn?t have got it in a million years, had you asked me about it, but it would seem that Chris?s was The Battle Of Bramall Lane, where Neil Warnock had allegedly tried to convert a heavy defeat for United into an abandoned game instead. Well, the game sure was abandoned, and with less than ten minutes to go, if I remember right, but according to Chris, the scenes in the Press Box, with all the hacks suddenly realising they had a pretty tasty story to relate, was pretty spectacular, with the local radio lads really giving the old purple prose big licks.

And it?s the mention of local radio that provided our panel with opinions of an altogether different kind. According to them local radio requires a totally different, more confrontational, perhaps, approach. As we saw after the Stoke game, with them, it?s all about (in the words they use themselves) ?reaction to the action?. That was exemplified by Radio WM?s Daz Hale?s verbal near-demolition job on the visitors, after last night?s final whistle. Having only turned our car radio on several minutes after the game finished (we have quite a distance to walk, still, and I can?t shift as easily as I would like, these days), I was quite shocked to hear that gentleman castigate Stoke in no uncertain terms, his precise choice of words being of a somewhat pithy nature..

True, my own opinions weren?t all that far short of the ones Daz espoused that night, as it happened, but unlike me, he didn?t half stir up a hornets? nest afterwards. Given the nature of the beast, those Stokies with their radios tuned to the local station weren?t exactly shrinking violets, almost rupturing the presenter?s tympanic membrane with the sheer anger of their remarks. The best bit was when a lady with a very nice refined accent took WM to task regarding what she genuinely believed was clear anti-Stoke City bias. Forget ?Apocalypse Now? and the famous advice to: ?Never get out of the boat?: five or ten minutes enforced listening to what was practically an almost constant dynamo-whine of disgruntled Potters wanting to register a complaint about Daz, what you?d be looking to do by then, I reckon, is dive headlong from the studio window, in complete despair!

Add to all that an extremely forthright discussion on the recent bid by our chairman to buy up more shares ? I reckon this one?s set to run and run, which won?t half make the AGM a lively affair, this time round ? and the meeting closed with just about everyone present agreeing that the discussion had been a lively one indeed. There was also a pretty hilarious moment for me towards the end, when the lad in front of us, aged only around ten or eleven, I would think, managed to win an Albion shirt, as worn by Richard Chaplow, and signed by both Robert Koren and the donor, in the raffle.

No sooner had the dear child picked up his prize from the top table and returned with it, after having let Dave Knott, publisher of the Supporters Club website, do his thing with a digital camera first, said I to my other half: ?Just you wait, by this time tomorrow night, every single hair in his flaming head will have fallen out!?

Moving on, briefly, to some more issues arising from last night?s game, I was quite appalled to read via email today that some Albion supporters had booed the side at the conclusion of yesterday?s game with Stoke, with Craig Beattie getting the brunt of it. OK, the result fell somewhat short of what we would have ideally liked, and Beattie did screw up badly in front of goal, but was the fault totally that of our players? I seem to recall that Stoke?s brutish behaviour, coupled with that of a referee who genuinely didn?t know what he was doing, had a pretty large bearing upon the eventual result as well.

Oh ? and by the way, how many of you realized that the referee actually booked the WRONG Stoke player during the second half of our game? Eustace was the one who actually committed the offence that warranted the yellow card, but it was Lawrence that received it instead! Well, we Baggies sitting in the Halfords Lane Stand did try and tell the guy he was booking the wrong bloke, and, thanks to The Gornal Cat Strangler?s vocal efforts on his part, very loudly, too, but he still wouldn?t have it. No wonder Tony Pulis?s face was almost obliterated by a corner-to-corner grin, by the time the game finished.

Mind you, I also learned this evening that when young Ishmael Miller, clearly knackered by his efforts that night, lay full-stretch on the Hawthorns turf near the Brummie, come the final whistle, he was soundly applauded by those Albion supporters sat in that part of the ground. True, he did make that awful mullock just before the end, firing straight at their keeper rather than burying the ball right in the back of the net, but instead of giving him hell for that one (admittedly awful) mistake late on, our people chose to recognise his efforts over the full period of the game instead.

As for Stoke, and their appalling, brutalizing, time-wasting tactics, I?m given to understand that after the game, their gaffer, Tony Pulis, was saying that he thought they?d had some kind of raw deal over the course of the ninety minutes. If he genuinely believes that, if I were him, I?d be off in the direction of a psychologist as quick as my backside would let me, to get some kind of reality check. Sides are generally made in the image of their gaffers, and in the case of Stoke City, their gaffer?s image must surely rank with that of the criminally insane. He might love his players to bits, but it?s a dead cert most of the other Championship clubs don?t.

And here?s another thing. Just in case anyone out there?s still labouring under the misapprehension that Stoke simply reserve all their poison for their annual trip to The Hawthorns and nowhere else, might I point you in the direction of yet another radio station? According to Wilf Tibbetts, Supporters Club member, having set his tape to record one radio station?s response to the game while he was on his way home, when he got back, he rewound the tape, started listening to what he thought was that night?s phone-in, heard an endless procession of furious callers castigate City in no uncertain terms regarding their blatant time-wasting, attempts at diving when in the box, their thuggish behaviour towards our own people, their disgraceful intimidation of the ref ? only to discover, after a few minutes had gone, that the piece wasn?t that night?s at all, but recorded right after The Dingles had played their Potteries chums at Molineux!

And that?s about it for tonight, except to say that a little bird told us tonight ? NOT one of the hacks participating in tonight?s meeting, by the way ? that Kev Phillips won?t be fit in time for Saturday?s trip to Southampton. I genuinely hope my informant?s got it wrong, I really do, but knowing my source as I do, I?m inclined to think it?s on the level.

And finally?.. One. Congratulations, and well-deserved ones too, may I say, are in order for Mogga, on winning September?s Championship Manager Of The Month Award, pipping Watford?s Andy Boothroyd, Bristol City?s Gary Johnston, and Charlton?s Alan Pardew for the honour. What clinched it for our gaffer was managing to take 13 points out of a possible 15 last month, a feat that took us to within fairly close proximity to the top of the heap by September?s end.

Two?. This one goes out to John Homer on the principle that ?no matter what the seriousness of your problem, there?s always someone, somewhere, a lot worse off than you are?! Well, that?s what we told John in the lift taking us to the Pennington Suite before tonight?s meeting. Not that John was buying into that particular theory, given he was still pretty worked up about his missus?s cat, Zoltan, recently removing all the sealant from some newly-installed uPVC windows, as reported in this diary previously.

Seeing that John?s ?strangling fingers? were still twitching crazily at the mere thought of what the cat had done, in the interests of cat safety, my other half then attempted to pour oil (dairy cream?) on troubled feline waters by pointing out - a true story, this - that just a few seasons ago, we?d also suffered expensively because of the antisocial antics of one of our mogs. In retrospect, I?d even go as far as saying that compared with the criminal damage inflicted upon John?s place by their wayward feline, the foul deed ours perpetrated was of an order of magnitude far higher than that.

After all, it isn?t every day you find that your ginger tom has chosen to give vent to his injured feelings, following some slight or another, real or imagined, by urinating into what was a brand-new printer, more or less! The first we knew about it was because of the awful pong of cat-pee coming from the thing: the next was the fact the printer more or less gave up the ghost on the spot (cat wee, being chock full of lovely nitrogenous chemicals in solution, is just the stuff to short-circuit electronics, should you want to do it deliberately). The answer? Buy another printer, of course. As for my other half, more than ready to commit feline murder by then, I didn?t half have the devil of a time trying to keep him away from that bloody cat, noisome wee and all!

 - Glynis Wright

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