The Diary

22 December 2007: Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Visit This Website.....!

As the writer Mark Twain once remarked: ?Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated?. And that, my leetle Baggie mates, is precisely how things stand with me, at present. It all started with a stinking cough the night before the Charlton game, one that became so bad I had no option but to watch the whole thing on the box. That was bad enough, but it was closely followed by a week spent more or less indoors, bar attendance at Dudley Road Hospital and our local quack?s surgery, that is.

The hospital gig was pre-booked: what wasn?t was the local one. Yes, said the dear lady doing the biz with the stethoscope, I had a nasty chest condition, and prescribed antibiotics sufficient in quantity to make me rattle a fair bit. That was all fine and dandy, but later that day, I had another phone call from the same surgery, desiring my attendance once more, as: ?they?ve found something on the chest X-ray you had?.?

Now I don?t know about you lot, but at my age, when someone says in terms as blunt as that: i.e. ?there?s something wrong, etc?.? with an X-ray, a distinct feeling of ?Oh, s**t?? descends like a bloody great curtain across your very soul. Being a non-smoker, and knowing at least something about what sort of conditions could be detected by this means, the only sort of news I could envisage coming from there was of the ?totally bad ? don?t start making any long-term plans?? variety, so the next few hours were spent somewhat apprehensively by the both of us ? and that?s putting it mildly.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I turned up to see another GP the following day ? and it turned out that the chest infection that had lain me so low before had been such a nasty little bugger, it had actually shown up on the X ray (which had actually been done for something quite different), and taken a few days before I?d actually fallen ill. The upshot is I?ve got to have a repeat done in the new year, and have a camera bunged down my ?clack?, also in the new year. Great. Happy Hogmanay to you, too. I wonder whether they?ll show my ?good? side? Perhaps I should offer Sky Sports the viewing rights? Fill yer boots, gents, I am open to reasonable offers, and all that jazz?.

Because of the circumstances, tonight?s offering is a truncated one, so here goes. Back to the football, I mean. As I said, I watched the Charlton thrash on the box, angrily berating our defence (big mistake: I nearly coughed up my entire bowel contents as a direct result of putting my ?anger gear? into fourth so precipitously!) for letting in their first, but before long, rejoicing greatly at the heading skills of Zoltan Gera. Not once, but twice. And there was the Bednar beauty to enjoy, too. And, as the ball plopped into the back of the net for the second time, was there a little bit of the old Astle about those headers?

Just like The King in days of yore, although of much slighter build than Jeff, Zoltan has the same incredible ability to quite legally rise head and shoulders above defenders ? and what really got the years peeling away before my eyes was seeing a triumphant Zoltan twice thrusting his arms aloft in celebration, right in front of the Brummie, and in precisely the same way The King used to all those years ago. Is it just that the passage of the years has made me a bigger old softy than I was previously? Or was it simply a case of that rotten chest bug doing all the talking? Oh, soddit - I?ll leave that one for you to work out.

Having missed seeing us go top of the heap ?in the flesh?, so to speak, has renewed my bloody-minded determination not to dip out on tomorrow?s short trip up the M6 to the Britannia Stadium, home of bloodyStoke. No ? that?s not a typo: ?BloodyStoke? they have been to our club for longer than I care to remember (the last time I remember a win on their turf was back in 1982), and ?BloodyStoke?, one word, that?s how they will be etched on my brain for all eternity. Since the time of the Falklands conflict, it doesn?t need me to point out precisely how frustrating these encounters have become for us all. Even under certifiable attack-maniac Ossie Ardiles, we couldn?t get their fortress to crumple about them, and the current situation isn?t going to be much better, I fear.

Mean and nasty they were under Lou Macari, and mean and nasty they are still, under their current Head Thug, Tony Pulis. We saw how frustrating they could be at The Hawthorns, earlier in the season, so my hope is for a vast improvement on previous performances. A much stronger set of match officials would also be much appreciated by Baggie people this time round: the three idiots who officiated at our place were a complete and utter joke, to be perfectly honest.

So who do we have lined up tomorrow, then? Mike Halsey, apparently: he is a Premier League whistler, so it is to be hoped that the standard of reffing will improve accordingly. No crap of any description taken, please, Mr. H. Linos? M. McDonough and D. Richardson, with the fourth official named as M. Haywood. Quick consultation with my other half (who is currently reading in bed) reveals no real refereeing crime perpetrated upon us by any of these, to the best of our combined knowledge and belief. Knowing our luck in these matters, that will probably constitute an open invitation for all four to descend upon us like a ton of bricks tomorrow, but at least we now know the nature of the beast beforehand.

I reckon Carl Hoefkens?s advice on the club website to: ?pack your thermals? to be about the best I?ve ever seen coming from a professional footballer. Stoke being his previous club, he ought to know better than most. His further pearl of wisdom, to the effect that: ?You need to be mentally prepared??.it?s going to be very hard, and they will be going for it?? I consider to be a complete and utter mastery of understatement. A huge chunk of something was lost in translation there, I reckon. ?Rip off all the sticky-out bits, then chuck what?s left into the home crowd?? is probably about as near to the truth as I can go in a piece like this.

Sorry ? but as far as I?m concerned, EVERYTHING about Stoke City is ugly. Ugly place, ugly crowd, ugly football, and what?s more, just like serial domestic violence offenders, they?re so lacking in insight, they still fail to see what?s happening right at the end of their clay-plastered noses. Hell, even the local council couldn?t get its act in gear back in Victorian times, hence the famous Arnold Bennett novels all about what was then termed ?The Five Towns?. Back in those days, most town councils of suitable size, all in one area, did the decent thing, merged, and became pukka cities. Not bloodyStoke, not on your nelly, well not until much later ? being the perverse sort of sods they are, they had to be different.

If ever they do manage to get promotion this season ? I estimate the current odds against that being roughly those of a meteor strike hitting Molineux slam-dunk on the John Ireland Stand, but as we all know, stranger things have happened in football ? then I swear I?ll spend the next 24 hours bashing my head against the nearest brick wall. It?s football, Jim ? but not as we know it?.

What would be favourite tomorrow? An Albion side capable of dishing out a bit by way of reply themselves ? but I do have my doubts as to whether we still have that type of player on our books, any more. In lieu of that, then, what do we have lining up on the centre-circle, come three in the afternoon? The first thing about tomorrow is my expression of absolute horror at seeing the possibility of Dean Kiely returning to the fray for this one. Mogga ? are you REALLY sure that?s wise? Have any sort of weakness about you, even something as niggly as a minor fracture, and The Potties will go for it every single time. Perhaps he might compromise, and stick Deano on the bench, leaving the current incumbent to carry on as before.

Whatever happens in the custodial department, at least we will have some of our ?walking wounded? back in harness for this one, tomorrow. Yippee! That means old friends like Clem (good to see you back, mate); Alby; Ish Miller; Super Kev (who is already back in harness, as Charlton discovered to their disgust, last week) and James Morrison (can I come and finish my Crimbo shopping in you after the game, please?). The aforementioned Mister Hoefkens will also be in fine fettle for this one, which is as things should be, given he?s an ex-Pottie himself, and wanting like stink to give a good account of himself in front of their own crowd. Just don?t forget one small thing, Carl ? we?re the ones who play in the blue and white stripes, OK?

As far as bloodyStoke are concerned, Pulis will have a little dilemma on his hands. Does he give defender Stephen Wright, who sustained a head injury at Watford two weeks ago, the nod, or stick with replacement Andy Wilkinson? As their only other injury problem is Dominic Matteo (foot) and Salif Diao not yet match fit, the above apart, it looks very much as though the rest of their line-up will be a case of ?as you were?. Or should that read: ?Carry On Kicking??

Chief nuisance Ricardo Fuller (only Megson could turn down the chance of signing a bloke who?d rattled in goals for fun at reserve team level, whilst spending three or so weeks on trial with us), has eight to his credit thus far, this term. Not a lot, by our exacting standards, but veritable manna from Heaven as far as they?re concerned. Last week?s brace from him versus Blackpool extended their unbeaten run to six on the bounce: victory for them tomorrow would see bloodyStoke creep to within a point of our own tally, and dangerously near those coveted promotion slots for comfort.

Ridiculous, isn?t it? Now I know why all those old colonels used to get so snotty about pimply-nosed little lads wearing old army uniforms and decorations, back in the Swinging Sixties ? it?s the very principle, rankles something awful, doesn?t it? See the Potteries persuasion move to the Prem, and the whole fabric of the football world instantaneously goes to complete rack and ruin!

AND FINALLY?? IT?S NOT JUST CHRISTMAS, FOLKS ? IT?S ?MILLERWATCH? TIME!

On this occasion you can all have a good guffaw at where our favourite ?man in black? will next be demonstrating to the paying public his truly awesome ability to exercise proper control over games, no matter how contentious they might be, not to mention refereeing skills that would surely even have the great Collini himself worshipping at the feet of the True Master, were he to be an invited guest in the directors? box. Yep ? the lad?s at Molineux, tomorrow. Only as fourth official, sadly, but knowing what we do about the full scope of the influence he can exert over games, it would be a bleak old Saturday indeed, were he not even able to rate just a few lines in the local papers! (Go on, mate, ruin their day ? after all, you DO owe us a ?biggie?!.....)

TWO?. The everyday workings of justice are not a normal feature of these pieces, but I just had to take note of the fact that the person who stabbed Ronnie Wallwork (now with Huddersfield Town), finally got five and a half years inside for his pains. To be perfectly frank, he should thank his lucky stars he?s not doing life: the injuries to Wallwork all missed vital organs on their way in and out, something that was seemingly more luck than judgment on the past of his assailant.

When you come to consider the anatomy and physiology of the abdomen alone (a massive great artery running downwards, for starters, and, just like the Nat West, with branches everywhere: veins galore, plus a few other incidentals like a stomach, liver, spleen, not to mention miles and miles of gut, all of it contaminated with food and lovely bacteria), and the whole mass of things that could have gone wrong, had the entry of the knife blade been a touch further to the left, or a fraction further to the right, then the perpetrator is to be considered a lucky lad indeed.

 - Glynis Wright

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