The Diary

06 October 2007: Saints Alive! The Baggies Are Coming To Get Us!

After much cringing in the face of some Neanderthal-standard tackling during Wednesday night?s Hawthorns blood-fest involving Stoke City, it won?t half be great to do battle with a side that actually play football that?s good to watch ? or try to ? once more. (I really do have to ask the question of those Stoke supporters, most of whom don?t seem to be aspiring ?Care In The Community? cases, just yet: how the hell can you put up with watching that sort of dross on a long-term basis? Taking out a season ticket on the back of that sort of turgid performance, year in, year out, must involve dollops of intestinal fortitude not seen in this country since the Blitz?.)

And with that, our thoughts rapidly turn to tomorrow, and the way our leader will probably call it. According to the E and S, we?ll be going 4-4-1-1for this one: their possible team (please note that word!) is: Kiely; Hoefkens, Barnett, Albrechtsen, Robinson; Gera, Koren, Greening, Brunt; Teixeira; Miller.

If this is the genuine line-up, then there will be no place for Beattie, and none for Kev Phillips, either. At least we?ll have a great engine room around Miller ? the likes of Gera, Tex, Greening, Brunt, Koren, and, possibly, Morrison, assuming our leader wants to pack it with bodies - all of whom will be detailed for ?ammunition supply? tomorrow afternoon, with a bitsy plopping in right behind the loan lad should circumstances and/or a suitable opportunity warrant it.

Strange, isn?t it? About Kev Phillips, injured during the fag-end of the QPR turkey-shoot, I mean. On the one hand Mogga is telling everyone who wants to listen that he probably won?t be fit enough to play at Saint Mary?s tomorrow, and on the other, that nice Chris Lepkowski of the Evening Mail is saying that he will go to the ball after all! Confusing, isn?t it? Well, one of them has got to be right, and given that Mogga doesn?t usually indulge in Megson-type mind-games ? it simply isn?t his style - I?m rather more inclined to give credence to what he has to say. (Mind you, Mogga has surprised me before now, so don?t rule anything out.) Unless our gaffer will be invoking the classical British compromise of having him on the bench, tomorrow, and only sticking him on as a last-ditch option.

And, talking of ?last-ditch options?, whither now for Craig Beattie, I wonder? Having had a real mare during the Stoke game, where his confidence, not exactly at its peak before the start anyway, withered away almost to nothing as the game progressed, and he missed several pretty decent chances to make a name for himself, it?s not getting any easier for him. As I pointed out yesterday, it didn?t help at all when some so-called ?supporters? started to get on his back, at the start of the second half.

If he could just put one away, then his cause would be advanced enormously, not to mention bolster his ailing street-cred among supporters, but, as we all know, once a striker starts digging an ever deepening furrow for himself ( a bit like driving your car into a very muddy ditch, and the tyres spinning like crazy, going nowhere fast, just ever deeper into the mire, every single time you hit the gas pedal and try to get out), it?s an absolute sod to restore a once-decent goalscoring reputation to its former glory. Even Albion legends like the King, or Bomber Brown went through the same nightmare, Brown especially during the Don Howe era, so it?s no respecter of reputations, by any means. So just give the guy a break, will you?

As far as Southampton are concerned, they have manpower problems of their own to contend with. The word on the street is that they?ll be sweating on whether or not Kelvin Davies and six-goal top scorer Grzegorz Rasiak can beat their various knocks by tomorrow, one ending up with a shoulder problem after falling awkwardly earlier in the week, and the other sustaining a knee injury at the same time. Apparently, the damage was done during their 5-1 defeat at Preston last Tuesday, but their gaffer is refusing to rule either or both out, until the very last minute. Both are due for fitness tests tomorrow morning, so that should clear the custard considerably, one way or another.

As for Bradley Wright-Phillips, Chris Makin, and Darren Powell, they are all definite non-starters, according to the Saint Mary?s mob. Other changes? Well, one Saints website seems to suggest they?ll be calling up Rudi Skacel, recently injured himself, now pronounced sound in both wind and limb by their medical people, tomorrow. This will mean them sacrificing left back Alexander Ostlund, with Stern John (remember him, Baggie peeps?) and Jason Euell standing by to lead their strikeforce.

Our gaffer being the careful planner he is, he took the considerable time and trouble to mount a bit of a spying mission at Deepdale last Tuesday, and is reported as saying that Southampton dominated the first half there, equalising with the last kick of the first half, after the home side had taken the lead. Sadly, he doesn?t explain what happened to cause their massive collapse during the second helping: wants to keep that one safely within the confines of our dressing-room, I would think.

What he does do, however, is lob fulsome praise in the direction of Saints gaffer George Burley, the guy who took The Tractor Boys to the Promised Land just a few seasons back. ?He has a great eye for a footballer,? commented Mogga, ?and I would suggest he?s just at the point where he?s putting the jigsaw back together.? Not altogether surprising he?s so generous with his rapturous laud and honour for Burley, as he was the guy who gave Mogga his first break as a coach, the then-Ipswich gaffer grabbing him as a player from Celtic, then converting him into a backroom boy on the job.

My recollections of past Albion-Saints clashes? Well, because of the distances involved, I haven?t travelled down there all that often, reserving the main part of my energies for Cup games. So it was I made the long trek down there in 1968, when we beat them 3-2 in a fourth round replay, in which Ossie got clobbered, ended up too concussed to carry on, and we had to make do with a stand-in keeper: no first-team standard custodial understudies lurking on the bench in those dim and distant days. Hell, back then, you could only bring on a sub if the player to be replaced was deemed sufficiently injured by the referee (who was rarely medically qualified, of course, but that?s the way it was, back then) to warrant the swap being made. And one was yer lot.

Back in 1976, when we made it as far as the sixth round of the competition, I journeyed down there for the replay in the craziest of circumstances. Some of the lads who used my mum?s pub (with a couple of my rellies) brought into service a builders van to travel to the game, and they asked me if I fancied going with them. As they were a huge laugh, fun guys to be with, I naturally said ?yes? ? and so it was that I ended up embarking upon one of the most surreal journeys I?ve ever done in my entire life.

It was all to do with the stuff they had stashed in the back of the van, a commercial jobbie more accustomed to lugging around bricks, and bags of cement, than football supporters. Not the usual paraphernalia associated with the building trade, this time, just a couple of tables and several chairs, all ?borrowed? from my mum?s pub! The chairs and tables were of cast iron, typical pub furniture, at that time, and, very thoughtfully, the lads had also taken the trouble to stock up with beer ? lots of it, in fact. No police checks for that sort of thing back then, either. So, there I was, playing dominoes with these guys in the back, a half-pint glass of amber nectar in my left hand, and hanging on like grim death (to both my ?halfpenny? and the dominoes!) every single time the van turned a corner, or overtook. Given such an unusual trip, I would have dearly liked to report that we triumphed over Saints, but it wasn?t to be. We got walloped by four clear goals, and Saints went on to win the competition.

Later still, when I started work in Bristol, thanks to a decent rail service between Temple Meads and Southampton, I did take the trouble to attend a few League clashes at their then-home, The Dell several times ? and every single time I went, I ended up getting the mother of all soakings in that awful ?prisoner of war cage? away enclosure of theirs. Did the Good Lord reserve a special rain cloud, just for me, once the word was out I was taking the trouble to go there?

Perhaps, although the time I went on New Year?s Day, around the year we got relegated, if I remember rightly, it did snow heavily in West Bromwich on the morning of departure (I was there for the festive season, for once), making me wonder whether or not they?d call it off at the other end. I distinctly remember Dave Holloway frantically phoning Saints to check the game was still on: no mobiles, back then, apart from the brick-thick monstrosities carried by so-called ?yuppies? at that time - their classic ?mating call? a decibel-shattering ?I?M ON THE TRAIN!....?- of course.

And not travelling all that distance in the sure expectation of material reward, either: I reckon that every single time we played them back in the eighties, we ended up losing, with either a one or two goal deficit to show for it. To be fair, our record has been a little better of late, but it?s still hardly anything to write home about. Typical of our luck, the very first season we were in the Prem, back in 2002, we lost 1-0 there, thanks to a dozy lino not spotting a Saints player clearly take the whole of the ball over the touchline for the throw: while our lot, fully expecting play to be pulled back, of course, slowed momentarily, their lad simply nipped in quick and put the ball in the back of the net before you could say ?Terry Paine?.

So, now for the 64,000-dollar question, then. How will we do, tomorrow? I?m typing this, happy in the expectation that we should get at least something from this one. As things stand, Saints occupy the lower reaches of the Championship, 17th, to be precise. Their home record? W1, D1, L2, F7, A10. Sure, they?ve popped a fair few in the old onion-bag, but on the other hand, their own netting seems about as leak-proof as the average government department. Hit them hard, and they should buckle nicely. Let?s hope I don?t have cause to regret those words, eh?

And Finally?? One. ?Any way the wind blows??? I probably shouldn?t thank Chris Saunders, the nice young Baggie who runs this site, for this ghastly, awful joke, but I will, in a roundabout sort of way. Suppose, he said, Ishmael Miller carries on scoring goals for the Baggies, in the barnstorming way he has, to date ? but, come the end of the season, and we?re safely promoted, Man City suddenly decide they want him back?

If that happens, so his argument goes, should we Baggies then form into one giant protest group, and tell Sven, and all who sail in him, as per the lyrics of a certain well-known Queen smash hit:

?Ish Miller, NO! We will not let him go! (Sign him up!)

Ish Miller, NO! We will not let him go! (Sign him up!)

Ish Miller - NO! We will not let him go!

Will not let him go!

Will not let him go!

Magnifico oh oh oh oh oh oh oh...?

Truly awful, as I said. Which is probably why the late Freddie Mercury then goes on to inform the listener: ?Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me?? And, with Chris having the sheer brass neck to come out in public with groan-making stuff like that, so he bloody well should: eternal damnation, in company with the common herd, is far too good for him!

Two. Loved the title of The Fart?s post on the Boing mailing-list tonight, viz: ?Mowbray on Venus?. Blimey, Mogga, that?s one hell of a distance to take our lads for a spot of special training, isn?t it?

 - Glynis Wright

Contact the Author

Diary Index