The Diary

03 December 2007: An FA Cup Trip To Charlton Beckons.

So what do you think of the FA Cup draw, then? We watched it on the Beeb, right after taking in the televised Harrogate Railway-Mansfield bash, in which the visitors finished up the winners ? but they were certainly made to sweat in the end, when Harrogate pulled, first off, one back from the 2-0 cushion their adversaries had already built. The Stags then made it 3-1 late on, seemingly ?game over?, but Harrogate again scored ? this one was a real cracker: any League player would have been proud of that strike, never mind a mere part-timer ? which meant a nasty few minutes for the League outfit until the final whistle sounded.

Admittedly, they?re in the bottom half of League Two, are Mansfield, but Harrogate enjoy life swanning around a league that?s around the same standard as our very own West Midlands League ? that?s surely got to be a cue for a pained and pedantic Steve The Miser to put me in my place with a lecture on precisely what footballing ecological niche they actually occupy! ? so maybe Mansfield should have buried them in suitably emphatic manner.

You could certainly see they were all part-timers by the time the end of the tie hove into sight, and the rain, mud chronic weariness combining to make it awfully difficult to lift the ball off the ground, never mind run with the thing properly. Still, they gave it their best shot, and I?m sure that the prize money for getting that far - around 24K plus TV rights, I believe ? will come in very useful indeed.

But back to that Cup draw ? or should I say ?forward?? Whatever, but when the Beeb cut to the studio where the draw took place, our minds were focussed foremost on NOT getting any awkward ties, thank you very much. And the bit of hubby?s brain reserved for supporting the Bulls wanted a nice little money-spinner for his second love. As far as the first went, another go at beleaguered Premier League Derby County would have done nicely: we do have a little unfinished business there, I reckon. As for the other, I?m sure ?Im Indoors would have welcomed a home or away tie with Liverpool, Man U or The Arse as surely as the rosy glow of the breaking dawn in summer.

Just shows how wrong you can be, then, doesn?t it? As Mick Jagger pointed out in his 1960?s Rolling Stones classic: ?You Can?t Always Get What You Want?, that particular maxim?s never been so true as in football. Charlton, away, was what we got ? so goodbye any fevered dreams of putting The Rams firmly in their place, then. And the Bulls must have felt distinctly underwhelmed with what they ended up with: Tranny Rovers, away. Gee ? thanks a bundle.

One glaring anomaly that struck us, even as the balls were being paired up with partners, was the astonishing numbers of all-Championship pairings that were coming out of the tub. How many was it? Looking down the list I compiled as the draw was being made, I can see at least six in there.

True, it will guarantee an enhanced Championship presence in the fourth round, but the savage attrition rate encountered when that happens will serve to counteract any such advantage gained. Probably. What was surprising, though, this season, was the relatively few ?Gosh, that should be a real cracker, on the day?? type encounters that came out of the hat. Only Villa-Man U might be an interesting one, given Martin O?Neil?s recent efforts to drag ?Them?, kicking and screaming, into the Prem?s higher echelons.

Mind you, hasn?t Man U-Villa assumed the proportions of an annual event, over the course of recent seasons? The number of times that particular pairing has emerged from the hat would give mathematicians and insurance actuaries the raging willies, if they actually sat down and thought about it a bit. With that one, the laws governing chance seem not so much bent, as irreparably mangled. The other all-Prem ties I see there are Sunderland v Wigan, and West Ham v Man City. True, the second of those might turn out to be very tasty indeed, but I can?t see even a Keane-enhanced Mackems versus a Jewell-inspired Wigan firing the collective imagination.

Villa and Hereford aside, far as local interest goes, Wolves-Cambridge should stick to the script, I would think. ?Tis true that the famous university town?s football team currently live in the Outer Darkness of whatever it is they call the Conference these days, but they?re not exactly Chorley material, are they? And, as much as I would like it to happen, neither are the Dingles looking potential Cup banana-skin victims. yet another tedious one-nil should settle it. One thought, though. Is it because Dingles are intellectually incapable of coping with the addition of higher value numbers the real reason why they?re currently nicking games by just the odd goal, I wonder?

Blues? They go to Ice Station Huddersfield for a piece of their Third Round action, but I can?t see the home side pulling off an upset, really. There might be a few hypothermia cases among the St. Andrews persuasion?s followers, mind. Along with Oldham Athletic?s Boundary Park, Huddersfield?s ground is one of the coldest places known to either Man or Bluenose.

And while we?re on about Oldham, it was a Lee Hughes goal that propelled them to a place in the Third Round, and an early January encounter with middle-of-the-road Premier League outfit Everton. Had to laugh, watching him perform the ?dance? celebration routine that Albion supporters once knew so well, mind. Let?s just hope he can continue to keep out of trouble, and by doing so, further prove he?s fit for readmission to normal society. Walsall still have to get through their replay to reap the dubious rewards of a home clash with Millwall. Whether the potential ?clash? might turn out to be a literal one is somewhat open to debate, right now.

And so to the peripherals (ooer, missus!). Bloody Stoke? (Sorry, but in my little mind, those two words meld as inseparably as ?Laurel and Hardy?. Or ?Blair and Bush?, perhaps?) Their interest in the Cup should be a short-lived one, mind, for they travel to Newcastle. Big Sam Allardyce has enough trouble on his plate without his lot getting prematurely evicted from the competition by a load of uncouth Championship clog-dancers. Over the other side of that potty city, Port Vale have to see off Chasetown before they can travel to Cardiff. For my opinion of the place, just insert my previous comments regarding Millwall, but in reverse, if you see what I mean.

We now leave the potential joys or heartbreaks of Cup football to one side, to concentrate instead on yesterday?s trip to Palace, and the precious point gained (two lost, some might say, but who am I to argue?) there. I have also heard it said that it was the sheer number of gruelling road trips that finally did for us there ? Plymouth, then Palace, via a side-trip to a Devon hotel, straight after the Plymouth thing finished, then following an overnight stay there, up to London on the Friday ? and there might well be something in that. Our defence certainly fell asleep to let Palace in for that awful equaliser. Where was the sodding marking, for Heaven?s sake? Additionally, we did end up playing some very tough games over the preceding seven days or so, and that had to take its toll upon players, too.

The problem is, though, it?s not going to get much better over the course of the coming month. On Tuesday, we have Coventry coming to visit, then the following Saturday, a short trip to Leicester beckons. At least there?s no lengthy journeys involved there, which should help, but the considerable bugbear of acute fixture congestion will still be with us. Three more games in the space of just seven days, yesterday?s included, isn?t at all funny. After Leicester, things do return to one-game-a-week normality, but then we go right into the make-or-break Christmas fixture list, which means Bristol City at home on Boxing day, then Scunthorpe, also at home, just three days later. The following Tuesday, New Year?s Day, an East Anglia marathon trip to Ipswich beckons. One way or another, we?ll certainly have a much clearer picture regarding our chances of going up, once that little lot?s well and truly out of the way.

But rather than worry about what?s to come, let?s now look at the positives from yesterday ? and even the most depressive of Baggies followers have to concede there were some to be seen. Filipe Teixeira?s sparkling form in the opening minutes of our game, for example, tearing the Palace defence to shreds, then setting up Gera to supply a ?killer ball? to Koren, whose effort only just went wide of the post. You really had to be there to truly appreciate the stellar quality of what he was producing out there on that pitch during those opening minutes.

Cesar also had a good game, but our big problem is the fact he?s amassed no less than five bookings already, so will be suspended for the Leicester thrash, as I understand it. I don?t suppose Mogga will be too thrilled by his current disciplinary record, but as referees do have something of an irritating tendency to book people for relatively trivial reasons, these days, it?s a contagion all successful sides contract from time to time. Yellow-carded for not being sufficiently photogenic, or having a particularly ghastly taste in formal neckwear? Probably!

It was also noticeable, at least to me, that as the game wore on, so did Zoltan Gera?s enthusiasm for the encounter wane considerably. By the end, it was remarkably easy to forget he was on the pitch, even. That I can only put down to Palace players giving him a bit of a rough time out there: the malevolent Neil Warnock influence is becoming more and more apparent with each successive game Palace play.

As for the equalising goal, the awful marking apart, yet again, our chronic inability to successfully defend a set-piece was yet another contributory factor in our reluctant sharing of the points with Palace, and birthday boy Warnock. (Funny him having a birthday, mind: I?d always laboured under the strong belief he?d actually been spawned somewhere particularly unpleasant!) There are few significant chinks in our defensive armour to worry about these days, relatively speaking, but our shortcomings in that sphere have to be addressed, somehow ? and soon, in my opinion.

Secondary to that is the problem I touched upon in my matchday piece; a seeming inability to stay calm and focussed in the face of unpleasant intimidation tactics on the part of the opposition. I may be looking at this one through the goggle-eyes of raw emotion and savage Albion bias, of course, but as I see it, it?s something that needs to be addressed as a matter of real urgency if we sincerely want to get out of this division, come May. From my viewpoint, the message we currently send out to any opposing side fancying their chances, is that kicking us up into the air a few times, early on, will reap handsome dividends in terms of points nicked, come the end.

What would help enormously, on both counts, is an indisputable leader out there, someone able to motivate and inspire, through sheer force of personality; a real Derek McInnes-type character, if you like. Or, if you?re of considerably older bent, a Graham Williams, or John Wile ?defend-alike?. I don?t really want to detract from the good, honest work that Jonathan Greening undoubtedly does as team captain, but try as he might ? and he does, to be fair ? I can never perceive him to be the sort to go snarling at underachieving team-mates, with head completely swathed in horribly bloodstained bandages, constantly trying to motivate them sufficiently enough to put in one last goalscoring ?heave?, to carry the day for the Baggies. As former Albion gaffer Denis Smith once so memorably remarked to a packed Supporters? Club meeting: ?Genuine leaders are like rocking-horse s**t, these days?.

It?s a bit like a spinster reaching her late forties, and, despairing of ever finding a life-partner, frantically scouring the unlikeliest of places for a chance to meet ?Mister Right?. Let?s hope the footballing equivalent of Cupid?s arrow strikes Mogga good and hard once the transfer window reopens, next January. Either that, or one of the current lot undergoes a conversion of truly Damascene proportions, finally ?sees the light?, all of a sudden.

And so, onto other things. Like what my hubby got up to after he?d dropped me off at the ground, early yesterday morning, for example. Well, he didn?t exactly let the grass grow under his feet; before you could say ?Tony Mowbray?, he was off to look at two potential properties, one quite near my big sister?s ancestral pile, right on the top bit of the Charlemont Farm Estate, the other in the Great Barr area. Sadly, neither of these ticked many of our mutual boxes, so back to the drawing board it was.

But never mind. After checking those two out, it was back to the Hawthorns, yet again, for a little spending spree in the Club Shop, Christmas prezzies, family, for the use of. Well, that was the main objective of the visit, but my beloved also got himself well carried away by the sheer abundance of stock in the place. Result? The purchase, for himself, of one of those huge coats our leader usually wears, when in the dugout.

And, what?s more, hubby then went and wore it at Edgar Street later that day. The female steward supervising the entrance we normally use couldn?t quite believe what she was seeing, apparently! And neither could any of the regulars in that stand. Mind you, even I had to do a quick double-take, when Simon pointed his new purchase out to me later that evening, when we were taking The Fart home. Wow ? you too can look like Mogga!

I had thought that on his return from the Hereford tie, my other half might have indulged further in a huge piece of fillet steak I?d purchased from the Bluenose Butcher, just 24 hours previously, but apparently not. Mind you, that just might have been down to the fact that just 24 hours previously, he just couldn?t resist a bit of a juvenile-type culinary challenge I set him just a few months back. His mission, should he want to accept it, of course, was to eat a hefty chunk of steak, liberally covered with great glutinous swathes of wasabi.

Wasabi? To properly explain this one, I have to fill you in on a few other gastronomic details as well. The thing is, you see, that ?Im Indoors has an existing strong penchant for roast beef Sunday lunches absolutely slathered in horseradish sauce ? and it brings water to my eyes just watching him consume his relish with ? erm ? such ?relish?. Mainly on account of the fact that the stuff is absolutely lethal to most people?s taste-buds, not to mention constitutions, it has to be said, so a little normally goes a very long way indeed.

A big mistake, that, my telling him about the Japanese culinary equivalent, the aforementioned wasabi paste, one night. It?s horseradish, Jim, but not as we know it. On a Richter scale of dietary intestinal turmoil, while a decently-hot horseradish scores around the ?five-to-six mark?, wasabi will bring you to an unbelievably-volcanic ?eight or nine?. And that I do know, primarily because I?ve had agonising personal experience of the stuff in the dim and distant past.

Anyway, the result was that my other half just happened to relay my comments about the stuff to work colleagues ? and, lo and behold, the very next day, one of them duly supplied him with a large tube of the stuff, to sample at his leisure. Now wasn?t that nice of them? All I had to do was provide the steak, which I did with great pleasure, not to mention considerable scientific curiosity as to what would be the end result of my little experiment!

Not that ?Im Indoors agreed on Friday night, mind. I watched, with inquisitive eyes, as my beloved proceeded to slather the stuff onto his newly-grilled steak, in about the same quantities he would the more conventional British variety ? then sat there, just waiting for the inevitable internal explosion. And I certainly wasn?t short-changed: just like most steam-generating relishes and spices, once in the mouth, wasabi operates on a bit of a ?time-delay fuse?. Only more so, in this case: one minute my beloved was chomping happily on his meat, the next he was rocketing to meet the ceiling above, great jets of steam emerging from both ears supplying the necessary propulsion, and eyes streaming more tears than Gazza following an England World Cup semi-final defeat, should you desire a football-related link.

Oh ? and yet another by-product was the almost-total loss of speech that resulted, temporarily! Hey, perhaps I should repeat the same trick with The Noise sometime? So now you know why he didn?t go for the steak/wasabi combo again, in my absence. And somehow, I don?t think he?ll ever be slapping wasabi on his beef in such liberal quantities, ever again!

And Finally?. One. Ah, there?s nothing like a swift punning session from me to get my other half groaning in agonised tones! It all started during the Harrogate-Mansfield Cup game, when a lad called Jelleyman potted Mansfield?s opener. ?Im Indoors, who just loves footballers with unusual names, commented: ?With a name like that, he just had to get his name on the score-sheet, didn?t he??

Me? ?Er ? perhaps he ?broke the mould? when Mansfield took him on as a pro?? Then: ?I wonder whether he?ll get his ?just desserts?, later on in the game? ---?

Hubby (wearily interjecting, as a result of overlong acquaintanceship with my frequent torturous, excruciatingly-painful, puns!): ?Oh, behave?..?

 - Glynis Wright

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