The Diary

06 November 2007: Fireworks From Blackpool As They Try To Banjax Barnsley.

A bit of a night for surprises, this! Three, in fact: firstly, that the noise level this Bonfire Night has been considerably less than we?ve come to expect on previous occasions; secondly, the gutsy way the Tangerines responded to one disaster after another in their televised game at Barnsley; and thirdly, our chum Mandy?s splendid performance as shown on ?The Weakest Link? earlier tonight.

The first of these items seemed to come as a great relief to our three remaining resident felines who, although pretty long in the tooth by now, are still highly susceptible to having the peace and tranquillity of their normal existence in this household shattered irrevocably by pyrotechnical bangs and crashes of one sort or another. And I can?t blame them one bit: some of the buggers I?ve seen these past few years have looked far more at home on an Army firing range than on urban streets, so any reduction in the overall noise level, however small, would come as a bit of a bonus.

And so to the Barnsley-Blackpool game I mentioned in the preamble to my piece. Televised live on Sky, we only switched to see what was going on just after the start of the second half, by which time the home club had their noses in front ? just. Via a penalty, apparently. Not long after we joined the game, the visitors suffered yet another disaster, with one of their number being given explicit directions to the dressing-room and showers by the ref for a tackle on a Tyke that he deemed a second-yellow-card type infringement, so off the Blackpool lad trotted.

Then, not long after that, and by dint of making careful use of the increased amount of lebensraum provided by Blackpool going one man short, Barnsley smashed in their second. And that was that. Well, both commentators certainly seemed to think that way, and so did 90 per cent of the rest of the country viewing the game, presumably ? but we Baggies followers, having had recent Hawthorns experience of Blackpool at their most combative, knew better.

If anything, conceding that second goal seemed to goad Blackpool into even greater efforts to rectify the damage, and by doing so, possibly salvaging at least the single precious point from the wreckage. When you?re in their position, you take anything and everything that comes your way with profound gratitude. Although the Sky cameras didn?t dwell at any great length upon what was going on in both combatants? respective dugouts, I?m willing to bet anything you want to name that within a few seconds of The Tangerines unexpectedly (well, for Barnsley, it was!) shucking off their ?victim? roles, and going for their hosts? jugulars instead, the horrified look on the faces of the Tykes? managerial and coaching staff must have been something to truly behold.

All of it the same sort of thing we saw when they came to our place, of course: battling for every single loose ball, however unwinnable it might have seemed at first sight. Adopting a total ?in yer faces? stance, meaning that on those occasions when we did find ourselves in possession, we never really had the luxury of sufficient time in which to perform our trademark classy act with the ball.

Hesitate, even for a second, and more likely than not, undue procrastination would bring in its wake a duet or trio of tangerine shirts descending upon the tardy Baggie in similar fashion to a WW2 dive-bomber, and as equally destructive, too. By doing this, they achieved what they?d set out to do i.e. completely fragment our normal game, and much to our chagrin, it worked beautifully.

We?d taken the lead, courtesy Miller, early doors, but gutsy Blackpool, not knowing the meaning of the word ?defeat? and aided and abetted by some VERY noisy followers (who also made their percussive presence felt at tonight?s fixture, by the way), managed to grab an equaliser around the halfway mark of the first half. And that?s when their tactics began to really pay off, of course; try as we might, attack them as often as we could, and still we couldn?t find a winner.

Well, not until around ten from the end, when Morrison finally restored the natural order of things in the footballing Universe, and only then after much dissatisfaction being expressed by impatient home supporters at both ends of the ground. Even the final score ended up the same as tonight?s ? 2-1 to the home side, the main difference being that unlike our encounter with the relegation-haunted outfit, Blackpool managed to pull one of Barnsley?s two back, and damn near got their equaliser in the dying minutes, hence all the angst we saw going on in the home side?s technical area.

Blackpool?s problem is simple; try as they might, they can?t score goals to save their candyfloss-and-?kiss-me-quick?-hat lives. The ?kiss of death? to any Championship existence, really ? but, whatever you do, don?t write Blackpool off just yet. They surprised me at The Hawthorns last month, they surprised me tonight, so going by what we?ve already seen, it would be premature in the extreme to have that descending lift booked for their exclusive use come next May.

Before we turn our full attention to tomorrow?s fixture with Sheffield Wednesday, let?s take a look at the third item on tonight?s agenda, Mandy Hume of Sutton Coldfield Branch, and her much-delayed televised appearance on Anne Robinson?s ?Weakest Link? teatime quiz show. Pre-recorded yonks ago, it should have hit the nation?s TV sets about 6 weeks ago, but for reasons known best to themselves, the Beeb postponed the scheduled showing at the very last minute, hence tonight?s belated offering.

Most of you know the format by now. It?s a show where someone gets voted off by their peers at the conclusion of each round ? usually the duffer, although there are ample opportunities for sneaky stuff like pre-game tactical agreements among contestants (usually the males, sad to say) to gang up on, then kick off anyone who looks good and poses a credible threat ? while getting the chance to bank cash earned as they go along. The final amount of money in the pot (variable, and depends upon how much native cunning the participants have shown during previous rounds) goes to the last person standing. Chuck in some pretty catty comments courtesy Mine Host, who is famed for it (although this is all very much tongue in cheek, if truth were known), and that?s basically it.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Mandy was also carrying the torch for the honour and reputation of West Bromwich Albion Football Club, not to mention Sutton Branch SC, and its multitudinous followers, so I was hoping like stink she?d make a decent fist of it. When I?d spoken to her, not long after recording the thing, I was very much under the impression that she?d been kicked off well before the final head-to-head eliminator, so it came as a bit of a shock to discover she?d lasted right to the end, almost. Here?s what happened?.

The first round, and with every podium occupied, Mandy?s first question, about months beginning with the letter ?A? in the Gregorian calendar (that?s the one we use, in case you didn?t know) was answered with all due aplomb ? April and August. As some contestants ?dipped? on that round, our hero emerged as the strongest link. And that was when Anne Robinson decided to let poor Mandy have it with both barrels: an occupational hazard common to those working in local government, like wot Mandy does. (Her employers, Coventry Council, give her a very wide berth indeed on the Monday following a losing Baggies game ? so rumour has it!) Oh, well ? at least the bloke next to her also got stick for wearing his keys on his belt! ?Did you get locked out as a child?? sneered the dear lady host.

Mind you, what didn?t help was our chum?s initial facial expression: looked for all the world like a bunny rabbit caught in dazzling headlights when crossing the road by night, she did! But, as you?ll see, it most certainly wasn?t going to last. On to Round Two, then, where Mandy correctly answered one on what prefix was common to two US states, but dipped on one on pop music. As I?d never even heard of the artists concerned before, I wouldn?t have had a sodding clue either, but she did get back into winning ways again by successfully tangling with one on the name for a baby chicken ? a squab. Whoo-ee! ?1250 in the communal prize pot already, and cooking on gas!

In the next round, Mandy got bowled a right ?bouncer? in the form of the name of a disease affecting plants, Black Something Or Other, then came the obligatory Right Stinker: a maths one, which wasn?t, on the face of it, too difficult to work out, but as I found out myself, some 25 or so year ago, it ain?t so easy when you?re standing in front of those cameras yourself. The lovely Mrs. Robinson asked our heroine what 10,000 divided by 100 was ? and bugger me down dead, she got it right, which was more than some of the others chucked similar stinkers did.

By this time, they were down to six participants, so things were hotting up. Mandy played a blinder, whacking for six runs one about the singer of ?An Awful Lot Of Coffee In Brazil?, then another where she had to identify the official name for British people of West Indian origin. And yeah! Shirley Bassey did sing ?Hey Big Spender??. Wow, she?s really cooking on gas.

The next bit saw her do serious damage to a geographical question about the identity of a huge island near the Canadian coast ? Greenland, but passed on a boxing question, which I hadn?t the foggiest idea about, to be quite honest. And well done, that lady, for getting ?Utopia? as the name for an 18th century fictional country in a book. Being well into her stride by that stage, she was now looking a damned sight more relaxed about the whole thing than she had at the start ? but probably having kittens, at least mentally.

Round six, several eliminations down the line, and very few still alive to tell the tale. Thanks to our erudite chum, we now know that ?Parochial? relates to a parish, the smallest unit of local government, and that ?Suicide Is Painless? was the theme tune to ?M.A.S.H.?. Three dots in mathematics stand for ?therefore?, too, making that Mandy?s strongest round thus far.

Down to just three, now, and the whole thing getting somewhat sweaty as a result. At least Mandy seemed to have escaped the stitch-up type tactics mentioned previously, where other contestants collude to get a really bright contestant voted off, thereby increasing both their chances of grabbing the accumulated pot, and the winner generally paying the loser a cut of the moolah afterwards. Mandy dipped on a question about a rugby player who later specialised in acting, but then again, how many of you lot would have got it right, if faced with similar circumstances?

Never mind about that, though, the liver does break down toxic stuff in the bloodstream. So yah, sucks, boo to everybody. Some sterling work on the Chinese gooseberry followed, but the savvy lass couldn?t remember the full name of the bloke presenting ?The Cook Report?. Calcium being the mineral lacking in osteoporosis got her back on track once more, though. Our chum had really excelled herself, that round, with total recall of all things geographic, mathematical, culinary, and, last but not least, medical.

So, there we were. Mandy knocking out all the opposition and landing in the quiz show equivalent of Wembley, the ?penalty shoot-out? of five goes to each of the two remaining combatants. The problem was, that being an Albion supporter, and a keen one at that, would she fall victim to what is now universally acknowledged as our favourite football team?s ?Weakest Link?, the so-called ?Semper Te Fallant? factor? Heaven knows how many times I?ve seen it happen for real!

So, off we went, then. Five questions in total, and all correct, but with a similar score for the bloke opposing her! Blimey, this was going to ?sudden death?! A bit of a shame, that, as a grand total of ?2,900 was up for grabs, only one could win it, so things were pretty tense. One on the play ?Equus? came first, then another on heraldry, spot on. Fairy tales? No worries: must be something to do with the dear lady being an ardent Baggie! A nasty maths multiplication problem was next up for demolition: to be perfectly honest, it would have had me scratching my head furiously, had I been the poor sod on the wrong end of the camera, but Our Mandy then rounded off her five with a correct one about the 1963 Great Train Robbery.

All that would have made for a pretty peachy sort of ending, but it so happened that Mandy?s opponent was also pretty cute when it came to answering quiz questions under Anne Robinson-type pressure. Result? Another go, but under ?sudden death? conditions, this time, just like in football. And that was the first time I saw Mandy seriously stuff up an answer, to one looking for the word ?gravitas? by way of reply. Which meant, of course, that her opponent was the guy with the loot ? the runner-up got sod-all, which is a bit of a bind.

All that hard work, all that fiendish tactical stuff to fend off attempts by rivals to get her off, mounting a nerveless defence of her occupation in the face of some serious winding-up from la Robinson herself, only to fall at the final hurdle. Still, like I said before, it might look easy when viewed from the safety of one?s armchair, but you try sitting or standing under those hot lights, with several cameras trained upon you, recording your every personal foible, conscious or unconscious, and see where it gets you. I know, because I?ve done it, and that?s the reason why I?m going to give Mandy the mother of all hugs the very next time I see her.

And so to a very belated last item, then ? our Tuesday evening game with Wednesday. After all the excitement and emotion of Saturday?s wonderful away win, I really do hope that tomorrow night won?t prove to be a prime example of the well-known ?After The Lord Mayor?s Show? phenomenon, or, in ?Baggie-speak?, the ?Semper Te Fallant? factor (see above). It would cause infuriation beyond belief in this household, should that happen, believe you me. But we?re mostly long-termers reading this, so we?re all aware of the danger. As Mogga should be. We hope. Cross fingers. And rub our collective nuts for luck while we?re at it!

First indications from The Owls? camp are that they?ll have the midfield services of Irishman Glenn Whelan for this game. He missed the Plymouth clash through suspension, but that?s now finished, which means he?ll very likely be well and truly back in the New York groove come tomorrow night, but only on the bench apparently. Steve Watson and captain Michael Johnson may not be fully sound in wind and limb by tomorrow. With both of them trying like stink to get over knocks sustained over the weekend, they?ll need late fitness tests before a decision?s made, one way or another. Those few glitches apart, everything else should be as per normal for the visitors ? whatever passes for ?normal? up there, these days!

With our lot winning in fine style last Saturday, and the entire side positively fizzing with acute adrenalin overload as a result, only small fitness matters need to be fully resolved before tomorrow evening?s game. Our principal ?casualty? is James Morrison, who did awful things to his toe at Vicarage Road, and was taken off because of it. Latest info seems to suggest that the lad will be fit enough to play, though, the problem arising because the poor mite got stood on by someone, sometime during the second half. Accidental or deliberate? Haven?t got a clue, old bean. Still, our physio seems to think he?ll be OK, thank goodness: being such awkward sods to treat, the last thing we?d want for any of our lot at this stage of the game is a broken metatarsal (or three). There is a replacement lined up though, just in case, in the form of Chris Brunt.

On the face of it, after Saturday?s exertions, you?d think that this particular fixture would be a veritable stroll in the park for our favourite football club ? but don?t you believe it. Wednesday may be going down with all hands, all right, but I?ll wager they won?t make it very easy for any other club to inflict the final telling blow. This game could well see us struggle, and mainly because when desperate, outfits in Wednesday?s parlous position fight tooth and nail, in a massive last-ditch effort to stop the rot before it?s too late.

And with Watford due to travel to Carrow Road on Tuesday night, I guess there won?t be many shocks emanating from there. Norwich?s current Championship status is currently about as tenuous as that of Sheffield Wednesday, and given that The Hornets will have already been well stung as a result of our maddening weekend visit to their place, you can expect little mercy from them for Delia?s ailing Canaries. Perhaps she should diversify into concocting dishes consisting largely of stuff like deadly nightshade? Just the thing to include in matchday dressing-room sandwiches, I?ll wager.

Seriously, though, I reckon they?ll be in for the mother of all stonkings at the hands of snarling Watford. The only variable, I reckon, will be in how many they?ve actually contrived to let in, before the merciful release provided by the sounding of the final whistle by the referee plays free. Mind you, let us not also forget that Norwich now have a Secret Weapon, and They?re Gonna Use It! John Hartson is his name, and putting the wind up Ipswich seems to be his game, if the radio broadcast of their Sunday local derby was anything to go by.

It?s got to be one of those moments when I look at the former Celtic man, and quietly think to myself: ?Just for once in your life, any chance of actually doing the job you were flaming well put upon this earth to do, you reckon?? Either that, or inform the appropriate authorities that there has been a gross contravention of the Geneva Convention on Norwich?s part, insofar as no one informed the Red Cross they were equipped with an allegedly fully-operational John Hartson, before the muck and bullets first started firing in earnest.

The other fixture to watch out for tomorrow night, of course, will be the visit of play-off spot inhabitants Charlton to second-spot Bristol City (anyone out there remember former Baggie Scrumpy Whitehead, when he played for them, by the way?) who, being no mugs themselves, held us to a one-one draw when we made our cider-strewn way to their neck of the woods, not long after the start of the current season.

They?ve been the surprise packet of the 2007-08 campaign, really. Had anyone asked me before the shooting started who would be the front-runners, in no way, shape or form could I have ever predicted the steady onward march of the West Country side into what we now constantly regard as our own home territory. Mind you, I seriously doubt whether they?ll manage to stay the course; even so, it?s been a highly creditable opening few months for them.

Forecast for our close encounter with The Owls, tomorrow? Well, as I stuffed up my previous one so badly, I guess I?ll have to stick my neck out a tadge for this one. (Thinking about it further still, did ANYONE see us mauling Watford so savagely, and if so, how much did they make at the betting office as a result of such a startlingly sudden flash of insight on their part? You won WHAT? Well, don?t just stand there, rich boy, buy me a sodding drink!) Now, let me see?.. Oh, ratbags, I?ll go for a nice round 3-1 win, OK?

And Finally?.. In a magnificent bout of largesse that has already seen ex-Baggie Lloyd Dyer land a Division Two Player Of The Month Award, and Ishmael Miller beaten into runners-up spot for the Championship equivalent ? since when has a bloody Stokie (albeit a temporary one in this case) ever played football of a skilful and decent enough standard to warrant scooping that particular prize? Grrrr? - it would appear that our SUPPORTERS have also managed to earn plaudits, and from the sports pages of an erudite and highly respected broadsheet; in this particular case, ?The Guardian?.

How come? For our wonderfully barbed chant at Vicarage Road on Saturday, the one we let fly with just after the home side conceded their third, so, without further ado, here it is ? and what?s more, feel free to burst into song again whenever you feel like it! All together now (but not outside Ady Boothroyd?s house, please!)?. ?THREE-NIL TO THE FOOTBALL TEAM, THREE-NIL TO THE FOOTBALL TEAM, THREE NIL TO THE?. (ETC)??.?

 - Glynis Wright

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