The Diary

19 January 2008: It's Cardiff City Tomorrow - But Pity Former Baggie Ricky!

After the smidgeon of light relief afforded by our midweek FA Cup adventures, it?s a swift return to the more mundane ?bump-and-grind? of Championship action for us tomorrow afternoon. With Cardiff City providing the opposition, and all those supporters of theirs in tow ? whose normal matchday behaviour is universally-acknowledged by police forces as saint-like, of course - I can?t think of a better recipe for bringing us all back to earth with an almighty ?bump?.

At least that?s what I was telling my two sisters when we all met up at my stepmother?s place earlier tonight! (My big sis has developed a really unusual standard operating procedure for dealing with all the suspense attached to sudden-death football, by the way: for details, see the end of this piece!) But, fourth round or otherwise, my other sis won?t be around these here parts: she?s off to Tenerife yet again, lucky sod, so if you?re a Baggie-loving expat over there, and reading this, be warned. The Wrath Of Josie, shortly to land at a runway near YOU! AARGH!

But the most hilarious aspect of tonight?s visit concerned the doings of a certain family who live quite near my stepmother?s place. (Being all-too well aware of the laws of libel, I won?t be offering further identification!) To say they?re all a bit short of a full shilling is a bit like saying the Atlantic Ocean has a lot of water in it. Well, I ask you: what else can you say about people who stick drying clothes on hedges in their back garden (which habitually bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to a scrap yard anyway), and the dilapidated state of whose front room makes locals liken it to the devastation seen in Hiroshima after the dropping of the Bomb?

And it doesn?t end there: apparently, Pater likes nothing more than to watch the football sitting in an armchair, can of lager in hand ? that was the way he spent the last World Cup, for example. Which might not sound so unusual at first sight, but when I also add the fact that this chap was to be found, lock, stock, lager-stash, armchair and TV set, plonked on his own FRONT LAWN, and the time around ten in the morning, it?s then you really begin to suspect that the normal laws of psychology and psychiatry collapse in a gibbering heap when applied to this lot.

There?s much more I could relate, mostly to do with stomach-churning notions of personal hygiene, so I won?t go any further lest it puts you off your next meal, but suffice it to say that everyone in the locality seems to know this charming lot ? you can?t blame poverty, either, as thanks to a windfall a few years back, they all found themselves in possession of not a little gash loot to stash away - by one nickname only. Now can you guess what it is, children? That?s right, they?re ?The Dingles? ? what else?

But back to tomorrow?s Cardiff caper. The word on the street is that City will now be without the bench-based services of Steve McLean, having seen him depart for the sybaritic delights of South Devon, and Plymouth Argyle today. A lad called Darcy Blake ? who deserves just about everything coming to him with a daft name like that - will be taking his place in their squad, apparently. And whatever happens in tomorrow?s game, Robbie Fowler won?t be taking part in it: he went to the US recently expecting to undergo minor hip surgery only, but then found out the injury was more serious than had originally been suspected, so he?ll be on crutches for about the next two months, and probably won?t be taking any further part in what?s left of this season, either. Oh, whoops.

Other long-term absentees for The Bluebirds will be Baggies old boy Scimeca, and his dodgy groin (ooer, Missus), Sinclair (knee), with ankle trouble for the lad Feeney. As for the rest, scuttlebutt suggests that they?ll stick with Michael Oakes between the sticks, and leave Blackburn loanee stopper Peter Enckleman on the bench busily extracting splinters from his bum, no doubt. Otherwise, it?s a case of: ?As you were?.

But there?s a bit more to the Ricky Scimeca thing than first meets the eye. Today I was quite shocked to learn that the fundamental reason for his recent absence from the Cardiff side was a nasty dose of MRSA he caught when receiving surgery for a groin injury. Apparently, everything looked OK at the time of his discharge, but not long after that, he began to get more pain in the region: not surprisingly, Scimeca was pretty worried. And so were the club: back the lad went for further tests, and that?s when everyone found out that the former Albion lad had acquired a little bit more than he?d originally bargained for as a result of that first hospital stay!

MRSA ? or, to give the condition its proper title, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus ? can be a sod to shift. More seriously, as we?re all well aware from recent publicity given the condition, it can quite easily be life-threatening. The bug can happily live on healthy people?s skin for yonks, giving no bother whatsoever, until that person becomes debilitated, or undergoes surgery - and that\s just the situation these bugs really adore. It only needs a tiny cut to let the little swines in. Or the unlucky sod concerned gets it through being in close contact with someone else harbouring the infection on their skin.

Into a pocket of the recently-exposed wound they jump, those microscopic bacterial horrors: having done that, they then spend the remainder of their time there making mad passionate love, and, from that, loads of bacterial babies, which all results in an absolute lulu of an infection. And as the condition is effectively resistant to most commonly-used first-line antibiotics ? having had recent experience of such things myself, in my own small way, I can readily empathise with Ricky?s plight - medics treating it can find themselves cast right back to the time before that nice Mr. Fleming accidentally left his famous bacterial place to moulder on a lab window-sill. Not exactly a barrel of laughs, that, if most accounts of pre-antibiotic-era medicine and surgery are to be believed.

Our former player said that by the time the medics finally managed to get the infection under control, he?d lost a fair bit of weight, and was really finding even simple everyday activities tiring. My verdict? He?s a really lucky lad, and the superb fitness necessary to play at that level must have played a considerable part in his subsequent recovery. A fair few aren?t as fortunate; it?s not entirely unknown for amputations, or worse, to supervene.

As far as our lot are concerned, it goes like this. Tomorrow will be a bit of an ?Old Boys Reunion? for our very own James Morrison, when he faces Jimmy-Floyd Hassleblaink, a team-mate when both lads were at Middlesbrough. Apparently, they were really good ?proper? mates, back then ? I get distinct vibes of a ?master and apprentice? type relationship - and still are, although I?m pretty certain that any remaining sentiment will temporarily dissipate for the hour and a half it will take to see this one out.

After all the alarums and excursions of Tuesday night, this could well be one of those times we?re glad to have a rudimentary squad rotation system in operation. Those who were pulled off prematurely on Tuesday night will probably start. Bednar looked absolutely knackered after the game, so I would imagine he?ll go on the bench, and Kev Phillips, rested versus The Addicks, will certainly make a welcome return to the action, along with Ish Miller.

One quick aside: it?s a real concern of mine that young Ish might be believing his own hype, right now. As I see it, during the course of recent games ? Tuesday was no exception! - he?s been showing a worrying Joe Kamara-like tendency to try and hog the goal-scoring limelight, the end result being that when he does dwell upon the ball in that exasperating fashion, and in clear sight of goal, he often fails to register the fact that other team-mates might be far more handily placed than he to put the thing away. It?s at times like those I could quite cheerfully strangle the guy! The only absentee through injury, long-termers excepted, of course, is yer man Beattie, who has a torn thigh muscle: suspended Paul Robinson won?t be coming out to play either, but he does have a note from his mum, so that?s all right, then.

Our last meeting in the League Cup was one I?m sure Mogga will want to banish from his memory pretty quickly. Getting stonked 4-2 at home is never a pleasant experience, is it? But that was a knock-out tournament, of course: as we?ve seen so many times already, what applies to sudden-death football doesn?t necessarily apply when it come to the small-change of League competition.

We are all delightfully well aware of the fact that we currently enjoy pole position, with a truly astounding goal difference of plus 27, a half-ton reached in terms of League points amassed, and a two-point cushion between ourselves and Bristol City, firmly plonked on the rung below. Cardiff? They occupy eighth place, wedged neatly between Ipswich on forty points, and Plymouth on thirty eight. As far as both sides? last five games (all competitions) are concerned, Albion?s record is WDLWW.

Cardiff? Their WWWWD tally might look pretty impressive at first sight, but when you realise that one of those wins was against Chasetown in the Cup, it does put things in a slightly different light. Even so, 13 from a possible 15 in their last five League games isn?t to be sniffed at. Last season, we took four points from them, a 1-0 win at our place, and a 1-1 draw from theirs. Prior to that, our last meeting was in season 2003-04, when we won 2-1 at The Shrine, and drew at Ninian Park.

Those pesky Dingles? Funny thing, that?. I really searched and searched those top six places for a confirmed sighting of our local rivals and bosom pals, but nary a trace could I find! I?ve even sent Skippy The Bush Kangaroo out looking for them. What?s that you say, Skippy? Wolves are stuck in TWELFTH PLACE, not fallen down the nearest mine-shaft? Best place for ?em, I say, Blue! No, not twelfth place, Skippy, the bloody mineshaft!

Now for the moment you?ve all been waiting for ? news of tomorrow?s refereeing appointment. A gentleman called K. Friend, no less ? and, if my memory serves me well, the last time we had him for a game, he turned out to be no friend of ours whatsoever! MILLERWATCH?.. It?s Colchester United v Hull that?s drawn the short straw this week, folks. Followers of that ancient Roman garrison?s side (and those making the long, long trip from Humberside, of course), you have been warned!

AND FINALLY?. ONE. The wheels of urban transport grind on in most bizarre circumstances, sometimes?. What with extra time, penalties, and, for all I know, the correct alignment of the major planets in their heavenly firmament conspiring to detain us all at The Shrine, Tuesday evening made a pretty elongated time of it for most Baggie-watchers. But trust our old chum Norm Bartlam to go one better in that respect, and with the help of the local light railway infrastructure, too.

It all started right after the drama of the penalty shoot-out, when the Brum-bound lad bombed out of the ground like a bat out of hell, hotfooting it down to the nearby Metro station where, upon seeing a stationary tram awaiting his pleasure, so to speak, he dived straight on board, then settled down onto his chosen seat with a contented little sigh of relief. No mean feat, that, as getting away from the ground on the Metro can sometimes be a real pain in the fundament.

So all was well, then. But not for long, sadly. Off the vehicle trundled, in the direction of Brum, as per normal, but when it got to Handsworth, it came to a totally-unrequited juddering halt. The problem? Having opened to let out passengers on command without complaint, one of the carriage doors threw a hissy fit, stamped its tempestuous electronic foot hard, then adamantly refused to close up again. Which was a bit of a nuisance, to say the least, because the vehicle couldn?t go anywhere until said door was properly secured.

Several minutes of ?humming? and ?hawing? later, not to mention the application of basic Angle-Saxon in some pretty unusual ways, all of them seemingly linked to sexual practices both natural and unnatural, the clearly-exasperated driver then hit upon the perfect hi-tech solution to his dilemma. And when I say ?hit?, I?m not joking, either: Norm tells me his answer consisted of grabbing a bloody great crowbar from somewhere ? are such items really standard-issue equipment in Metro cabs these days, I wonder? ? then giving the errant door such an almighty ?whack? with the thing, the subsequent reverberations must surely have registered on seismological monitoring equipment back in nearby Birmingham University.

Talk about the old Black Country adage of ?Use a bigger cowin? ?ommer on it, mate?..? About as subtle and scientific as a half-end brick violently applied to the temples, really, but it sure as hell worked. According to Norm, the real proof of the pudding lay in the fact that for the remainder of the journey, the behaviour of those doors was exemplary. Didn?t dare do otherwise, cowed into complete submission, I suspect!

TWO?.. Rules For Armchair Supporters When Listening To A Penalty Shootout On Local Radio, Number 345892?.. Many thanks to my big sister Wendy for the input. Before either side commences taking their kick, turn up radio to full-volume. Then, having done that, stick fingers in both ears, close both eyes, while adopting a posture not too dissimilar from that of so many ostriches bunging their collective heads in a pile of sand. Only remove all the aforementioned impedimenta to communication when the look on your other half?s face indicates that the Baggies have actually got something right for a change!

 - Glynis Wright

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