The Diary

28 October 2007: Hairy Canary Moments Galore As Our Brace Sees Norwich Completely Plucked

You know what? After today?s game, I?m now beginning to comprehend precisely why it was that whenever Marianne Faithful, Mick Jagger, and a certain chocolate-glucose bar were in close proximity to one another, an equally-certain knowing grin was invariably seen to crease the lips of the good lady in question.

But don?t worry, peeps; I haven?t taken to keeping my matchday stash in a place where even the West Midlands Police wouldn?t dare poke a prurient finger: it?s just that ever since John Homer and his good lady wife Jean took to bringing fun packs of Mars Bars to games, then handing one to me and my other half midway through the first half, we?ve gone from strength to strength at the Shrine. A bit like Sir Mick himself, after his rubber lips and bluesy vocals first rocketed the Stones to the top of the charts, back in the days when the current Zimmer-framed rockers could get banned from any TV show you care to mention by simply shaking their lank manes around, then snarling a bit for the benefit of the cameras.

Yep ? John and his calorie-laden sweetmeats can do no wrong as far as I?m concerned, so keep ?em coming, aer kid ? OK? And the same goes for the lads: keep those wins coming at home, get the away form sorted, and we should be home and dry come the merry month of May, confectionery secreted away in unusual places, or otherwise. But there were certain worrying aspects to today?s win, such as normally-reliable performers bogged down in the stinking morass of a right ?mare?, by their own admittedly-high standards. Jonathan Greening was one, and Paul Robinson another. And even the normally-steadfast Kiely seemed to catch the infection on one or two heart-stopping occasions during the ninety minutes. But more of that later: first, the prologue.

When we got to the Hawthorns Hotel around one this afternoon, one rather unusual sight greeted us: the aforementioned John Homer performing ?reception? duties on the front table by the entrance. Naturally, we expressed surprise at seeing him there, but John being John, he then asked us if we?d enjoyed Thursday?s soiree with Koren, Cesar and Beattie.

?Of course we did,? replied His Nibs in emollient tones, ?Yeah ? you handled it very well, John.?

?You know what,? said The Gornal Cat Strangler, ?The best line of the night was when I asked Koren what his favourite film was, and he said ?Gladiator? ? and when I asked him to ask Cesar the same thing, Koren said he was in it!?

But then wasn?t all. Our balding chum then suggested we watch the Charlton-QPR game on the big screen via the wall mirrors covering the perimeter of the place. Me, being the daft sort of person I am, couldn?t see his logic, so asked why.

?Well,? replied John, ?Mirrors reverse things, so when Charlton go one-nil up, you?ll see it in the mirror as one-nil down?.?

?John??.?

?Yeah, I know ? SHUT UP!?..?

Moving to a spare table with all the rapidity we could muster (just in case Mister Homer decided to inflict yet another aspect of his warped sense of humour upon we two, if truth were known!), I looked around, somewhat surprised that the place was three parts empty, still. Did that mean this afternoon?s gate was going to prove similarly lousy? Not that I had all that much time to ponder, really: one quick trip to powder my nose later, I emerged to find The Noise and young Bethany grappling mentally with our gouty doorkeeper. Must have been partaking of the culinary delights to be found in McDonalds, a short stroll down the Brummie Road from the pub.

My peace was well and truly shattered from that moment on: once they?d bled my tympanic membranes practically dry - those little bones inhabiting the middle ear had all fled in total panic no sooner they?d first clapped apprehensive eyes upon our Stokie chum ? yet another unwarranted intrusion banged and barged its way into my brain: one of those industrial heaters, placed in the room by the Hawthorns Hotel?s bar staff beforehand, and now emitting a piercing whine (think ?Stoke accent?, and you?ve got it!), the pitch of which was rapidly transmuting to ?stuck pig? with every teeth-gritting second that passed, and making proper conversation totally impossible, a state of affairs not exactly pleasing for The Noise, for obvious reasons. Thank God someone quickly excavated one of the bar people to sort it, and not just because of rising decibel-levels, either. Some had genuinely thought the thing to be on the verge of blowing up, the strong smell of gas emanating from the thing being a pretty reliable pointer, I?d say!

?Blimey,? said The Noise, as the alarums and excursions of the heater incident were compounded by the TV screen sound mysteriously springing to life, and at a decibel level comparable to that of the mortally stricken heater, ?First of all the heater nearly blows up, then we get nearly blown away by the bloody sound from the big screen!....? moaned our voluble chum.

Me? I?d spotted a little ?lightbulb? symbol, flashed onto the screen, alongside of which was the legend ?X1000H?. Clearly nothing to do with Murdoch?s lot, so what did it mean? ?Perhaps it?s a spare one?? suggested a more-than-helpful Noise, interrupting his conversation with my other half concerning mortgages, to give us the benefit of his innermost thoughts on the subject.

It was while I was quietly pondering upon the manifold mysteries of life, such as ?How many lightbulbs does it take to change a Dingle?? that I became aware that the bar had filled up considerably in the 20 minutes or so between sitting down and encountering Stoke?s principal Son Of Fun. Plus daughter and heir, of course. Time was getting on, so where was The Fart?

According to my other half, travelling to the game by barge, would you believe? Apparently, the chap that first mooted the idea (see diaries passim) had gone and turned it into reality, on-board bar and catering facilities and all. The Fart had opted for this mode of matchday travel himself. Er ? so we?d thought, because who should turn up at our table, at that precise moment? Yep ? guessed it in one, the one and only Crimean War veteran known to have genuinely amused Queen Victoria. After all the banter apropos the barge trip had died down, we discovered that when push finally came to shove, El Tel wouldn?t ? erm ? ?touch it with a bargepole??

But our chum had another surprise up his sleeve for all the assembled company there: he?s now moved into the heady realms of theatre critic-dom! It all came about because of his own Albion diary piece on ?The Stirrer? website: offered a couple of comp. tickets to watch shows and write a review for the aforementioned site, he?s now ?it?. He makes his ?first team debut? at a forthcoming performance of ?South Pacific?, a musical he?s seen many, many times before, so I would imagine he?s mostly looking to do a ?comparison job? on it.

It was while QPR were in the process of gaining ? and missing! ? a penalty in their game with Charlton that our second surprise of the day manifested itself. Back in the dim and distant days when the shadow of Gary Megson was long in the Land Of The Baggie we?d taken a close-season trip to Brisbane, and a meeting up with their SC Branch ? in fact, we?d stayed with one of the members, a lad called ?George? (sorry, amnesiac me can?t remember the surname, so apologies all round!), for a few days before journeying on to Sydney. Well, totally without any warning from the Brissie Baggies whatsoever, there was George himself, stood right in front of us: he?d recognised our faces from afar, apparently. Hell, talk about a ?low profile?: had we known he was coming, we could have prevailed upon John Homer to get the Supporters Club to pull out all the stops for the lad, but as we didn?t, we couldn?t.

While all that was going on, much groaning all round as QPR missed their 5th nailed-on sitter. ?You know what?s going to happen, don?t you?? muttered a pessimistic Noise. Blimey, how many chances did they want?

?That?s why they?re where they are?.? muttered a distinctly-frustrated ?Im Indoors, darkly. But, as the late George Formby would have opined, tinkly ukulele and all, ?It?s turned out nice again?.? At long last, the penny finally dropped with Rangers, ?plop? went the ball into the back of the old onion-bag, and suddenly high-flying Charlton found themselves chasing the game. Predictably, the entire bar completely erupted.

?That?ll brass Norwich off before they start,? predicted The Noise.

Time for fond reminisces with George ? well, maybe not so fond after all! ? surrounding Vicarage Road, that huge council allotment facility at the rear of the place, and the away-game ritual of having to walk completely round it to reach the away end. ?Yeah,? said ?Im Indoors, ?You see the game, and on your way out, you go through the allotment and pick up five pounds of spuds, a few carrots, a brace of onions, some parsnips, a nice cauliflower ? you might have lost the game, but that?s your tea sorted!?

Leaving the by-now packed Hawthorns bar, we then headed on out for our respective matchday berths. No sooner were we inside the place, when what Jeremy Peace might term my ?matchday experience? got off to a distinctly-dodgy start: leaning on the door of the Ladies prior to entry, someone inside chose that precise moment to tug on the door-handle themselves. Result? I shot into the place like a cork from a bottle! Very embarrassing, as the somewhat unbalanced nature of my entry suggested previous close propinquity to strong waters!

What really surprised me, though, was the quantity of the Norwich support, which filled almost the whole of their section in the Smethwick When you?re holding up the remainder of the division, currently manager-less, and can?t score to save your lives, there?s not much incentive built in to go trundling halfway across the country to watch your lot play the division?s top scorers, is there? Still, you have to do your bit in times of peril, I suppose. As for their side, they included Darren Huckerby, once such a complete pain in the ass whenever we played ?em, plus a certain Michael Spillane! Ooer. Trust the Gornal Cat Strangler to beat me to it by a short head in trotting out copious quantities of ?private investigator? jokes, all of which were far too torturous/awful to mention in a nice polite diary like this one!

Just one change to the side that beat Blackpool last Tuesday evening: Robert Koren in, with Tex relegated to the bench for this one, and Craig Beattie keeping his now virus-free bum warm on the bench for the Baggies. As for John Hartson, as I mentioned the other day, there was a gentleman?s agreement in force between both clubs not to play him in this one, which was a shame, as we reckoned we might have derived considerable savage amusement from watching his antics!

No sooner had the ref got things underway, it became abundantly clear that our finest had a mission in mind: giving the visitors unmitigated hell during those opening minutes. Two Albion efforts were charged down by Norwich within the opening five minutes, and Miller, brought down as he was about to pull the trigger from the 18-yard-line, certainly thought he?d been deliberately clattered, but the ref didn?t want to know. And, just minutes later, it was that man Miller again, this time letting fly across the face of goal, the ball whizzing past the angle of the crossbar, then right out of play. Promising, Albion!

Then, with only ten minutes elapsed, there was The Gornal Cat Strangler again, but this time plying us with the glucose-packed mini-treats I mentioned at the start of this piece. ?Helps you work, rest and play!? added our chum, aping the old-fashioned ITV advert (and thereby revealing his true age: not very wise with me around, mate!). While all that was going on, Albion were once more pressurising their relegation-haunted Canary chums something rotten: it was only the execution of the final ball into the box that was letting them down, but such was the increased amount of heat being brought to bear upon them, racking up yet another entry in the ?debit? side of their personal account for season 2007-08 could only be a matter of time.

Norwich were more cat than Canary by then, having already used up most of their nine lives in trying to stem what was rapidly developing into football?s equivalent of an arterial wound, so surely their luck couldn?t last much longer?

Come the 16th minute, or as near as dammit, it finally ran out. Bostian Cesar was the prime architect of their undoing, his enormous nut meeting a remarkably accurate (honest!) Greening corner, nodding the thing in the direction of Miller, lurking with distinct intent on the far post, perfectly poised to bang yet another nail into the Canary coffin ? and that?s precisely what he did, the coup de grace being delivered via a powerful header.

1-0, it was ? and, other players please note, that?s what happens when you attend Supporters Club midweek meets, folks. All that mental merging with your admirers of a mutual will to win, and all coming to fruition just a few days after we?d finally consigned poor, under-rated Blackpool to the eternal deep of the oceans.

Now we?d ?broken the ice?, so to speak, you would have thought that we?d go on to attempt inflicting a repeat dose of ?QPR syndrome? upon the opposition ? but it didn?t quite work out that way.

Far from it: as the half sauntered towards the 45-minute mark, you could see the old Nervous Nellies manifesting themselves among our finest once more, the mistakes, the misplaced passes, the ultimately-pernicious and mind-boggling ?easier to bang it into the net, so I?ll pass it to another guy instead!? scenario. ?A second goal would be nice,? I remarked to ?Im Indoors, as the visitors had the ball in dangerously close proximity to our goalmouth, yet again. All this, despite playing poor Norwich off the park, practically, with as neat a series of moves as you?re ever going to see this side of The Bescot Stadium, just minutes before.

As the half wobbled uncertainly towards its close, and the stewards had bravely waded in to extinguish the passion of a bloke whose only ?crime? seemed that of banging a drum with menace, by chucking him out (see end bit!), up rose a heartfelt chorus from the Smethwick of ?We want our drum back,?, then, shortly after that, a spirited rendering of ?If you all hate stewards, clap your hands?? Just before the whistle blew for the break, back came the distinctly-narked Smethwick, yet again, courtesy a more-than-lusty rendering of: ?Stand up, ?cause it p****s them off!...? I think a point was being hammered home amidst all that lot, folks!

The resumption of hostilities, some 15 minutes later, saw us make a pretty good start. Once more, Norwich were looking anything but rock-solid at the back, and it wasn?t long before Kev Phillips missed yet another half-decent chance, a slight pause before letting fly giving Norwich more than ample time to sort themselves out.

But it could have gone so pear-shaped courtesy a fourth-minute blitzkrieg from the visitors, during the course of which we made a complete and utter mullock of nullifying the Canary threat, in the more than ample shape of Huckerby. While we were debating the finer points of etiquette, after the ball was over, finally, seemed likely to follow ithe ball could so easily have ended up in the back of the net. No wonder the Bloke In Front Of Me was popping out kittens left, right, and centre, all his pent-up anxiety expressed via that by-now-horribly-familiar, on-the-spot, performance-appraisal of his, namely involving one word, and one word only, as commonly used in these here parts, i.e. ?RUBBISH!? A bit of a dirty subject, perhaps?

But even Chummy was finally shut up by what happened around the fourth minute of the second half, which saw us finally apply the killer blow, courtesy Kev Phillips, finally gaining his just reward for having run the opposition ragged during the first 45, but with sod-all to show for his trouble, in the end.

It came about when Miller, who was to go off with cramp later on in the proceedings, got the ball, then shifted like stink down the left. In went the cross, but instead of coming to nothing, as most had thus far, there was the aforementioned Phillips lurking with intent at the far post, and totally devoid of ?minders?. You didn?t have to ask him twice: one rocket of a header later, there was poor Norwich heading back towards the centre circle, the deficit doubled, and seemingly dead, dead, dead.

Howled the suddenly-happy BIFOM, amidst all the backslapping: ?Let?s ?ave a few more, Albion!? Now he?s getting greedy! But just one minute later, we could so easily have given Norwich even more grief, courtesy man-mountain Miller once more, a Norwich lad having to kick a sizzler of a header from him off the line to save their miserable skins from further punishment.

That was the signal for the opposition to come into it a little bit more, unfortunately. How come? I dunno! Ask me one on sport next time you see me going around my lawful business, but it very much seemed to me as though the killer blow, inflicted just minutes previously, had acted as something of a spur to Norwich?s hitherto-puny efforts. Norwich woke up, and instead of calmly dealing with the threat (which hardly amounted to much, even during the course of the mini-revival Norwich managed to stage), began pushing us even harder for a ?result?. Not easy when there?s loads of other creatures around still trying to perforate our proud defensive record, but it was more than enough for Norwich. It was also at that time that ?Im Indoors noticed a curious phenomenon concerning Huckerby: normally a complete and utter pest, he?d practically given up trying. On one occasion, after losing possession to a menace in blue and white stripes, he shrugged his shoulders very pointedly. I say that because when he did it, he wasn?t all that far from the Norwich bench.

Two things surprised me, after we?d scored the second of the brace. The first was the sheer number of times we?d broken clear of defensive minders, then gone what was in effect, one-on-one with the opposition ? but even with no attendant markers, and everything set fair to blast the bloody thing past the advancing keeper, we simply couldn?t do it! Miller, Phillips, they both found themselves in that position ? and still ended up blowing it in somewhat spectacular fashion.

We also seemed to be suffering from that well-known malady among the footballing fraternity, yet again ? playing poor opposition, and normally-reliable performers like Greening, say, or Robbo, making some pretty uncharacteristic errors. What Robbo, especially, thought he was doing by yet again, going walkabouts in their own half, then finding himself hopelessly adrift when we lost possession, and they surged up the field of play with renewed hope, I really cannot comprehend. It didn?t half leave our defence exposed, and I would hope that Mogga has either had a few well-chosen words with the main offenders, after the final whistle, or simply warned them to be at the Great Barr training ground at a certain time.

And then there was Kiely, who also seemed to have indulged to excess in the old suicide pills prior to taking to the park: well, I ask you, is it wise to test the collective nerves of the Brummie to their absolute destructive limit by belting away loose balls at the very last minute, and, all the while, with the opposition coming at you like a tank on aviation fuel? Don?t try that one at home, folks ? unless you feel unable to retain even the few brain cells that survived Nature?s cull just twelve months ago.

The second also concerned Mister Miller; just what is it that attacks a fit young man like that, and forces him to leave the park with cramp, comparatively early in the second half? I couldn?t believe it when he went down in the Smethwick end box, clutching his stricken calf muscle, then trying to solve the problem courtesy the bog-standard method employed by physios the world over, i.e. bending and flexing the foot to get those protesting muscle fibres going again. Had it been the last ten minutes or so, I might have understood ? but just midway through the half?

I suppose that in the end, they justified the means, but that doesn?t mean to say you have to give up worrying about how they went and did it. The last two homes have seen us triumph, but as per next weekend, it gets quite a lot harder. It?s off to Vicarage Road we go, and lovely table-topping Watford: whether or not we can actually cause an upset there is a totally different animal. If we can, then we stand a pretty good chance of being there in the mixer come the end of the current season. If not, we can still do it: one lost game does not a promotion run make. It just makes things difficult from the psychological viewpoint.

AND HERE?S ANOTHER FEW THINGS I NOTICED TODAY?..

One?. ?A drum, a drum, Macbeth doth come?..? Well, today, the Immortal Bard would have got it dead wrong: it wasn?t Macbeth that poured mob-handed into the Smethwick on the cusp of half-time this afternoon, but our own flaming stewards. Their target? The poor sod perched right at the back of our lot, whose only ?crime? to date seemed to be that of murder to the eardrums and music respectively courtesy a bloody great drum he was prone to banging during recent home games!

Now hang on a cotton-pickin? minute. Why was the ?heavy mob? suddenly getting orders to take out a lad who?d been allowed to bash those skins ad. lib. at practically every home game to date, last Tuesday evening included? What the hell was going on, and why, especially given the fact that Tuesday evening?s visitors now had a ?musician? in their ranks far more capable of inducing migraine attacks than ours ever could, but not ejected? What was the fundamental difference between the two that led to our lad getting the bum?s rush today, and not on Tuesday night? I really do despair, sometimes.

Two?.. Midway through the first half, and not too long after we?d scored our opener, a strange sight indeed swam into view. Two Norwich players, subs both, on the touchline, and seemingly engaged in the throes of what looked suspiciously like a ?farting competition? rapidly approaching the ?mine?s smellier than yours!? knockout stage. Well, how else can you describe a couple of blokes bending this way and that in a seemingly-desperate attempt to ? erm ? ?maximise the methane??

Given the fact that we have taken to playing the Queen number ?Don?t Stop Me Now? at the conclusion of every three-pointer, perhaps it might behove us even better, in future. to try giving yet another timeless Queen classic an airing, viz: ?Another One Bites The Dust??.??

 - Glynis Wright

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