The Diary

09 February 2008: "We Will Follow The Albion, On To Penury"?

?We will follow the Albion, out through Terminal Three (And T5!)???

The ?alternative lyrics? above, set to the tune of what always has been a very familiar (and popular) Hawthorns chant, are not mine. Bar the bit in brackets, mind. True ownership (and blame, if you want it that way!) belongs at the feet of a chap called Kev Buckley, one of the Northern Baggies Mafia we met after last Saturday?s hypertension-inducing tryst with ambitious Burnley. Kev?s wonderful sense of humour, invariably smack on target, dry, distinctly tongue-in-cheek, at times, but never, ever dull, always finds a willing recipient in this column.

Kev?s point? That?s precisely what we might well be singing in unison, in but a few grab-ass, snatch-penny seasons from now ? and he ain?t very amused by the thought, either. And neither am I. Just in case you?ve been spending the last 24 hours stuck incommunicado in a nuclear bunker or something, the latest scoop is this: the Prem?s Big Idea, as expounded by their Chief Prophet On Earth, Chief Executive Peter Scudamore today, and ? yes, you guessed it! - with the views of the common or garden supporter counting for absolute zilch, again, consists of this.

Simple concepts first, then: come the 2011-12 campaign, the number of Premier League games played per season will increase by precisely one. The real whammy, though, comes with the proposed venues for said games: scattered all around the four corners of the globe, but with two Prem clubs providing the entertainment at each chosen venue, as opposed to a straightforward mid-season friendly between the British side and that country?s top club equivalent. The way things are looking, the second week in January looks the one that might well be left blank in order to accommodate the increasingly-voracious appetite of football?s answer to the Mighty Moloch, ancient Carthage?s all-consuming deity of choice.

Although these games will count towards the final Prem points total, the top clubs will be ?seeded? in the draw for who actually plays who, above and beyond normal close-season fixture planning exercises. Assuming we do achieve escape velocity come the end of the current campaign, in a couple of year?s time, that might mean us travelling to Hong Kong, say, to do battle with Liverpool there, or to Sydney to mix it with Spurs. That would mean a total of two draws, of course: one to establish who our opponents would be, and yet another for the venue.

It won?t come as any surprise whatsoever, either, to learn that ever since the Prem fired this particular press conference Exocet at an unsuspecting public, just about everywhere you care to look, genuine football supporters have been going absolutely ballistic about what the Greed League propose for its members.

Search all you like through this little lot, but you won?t find anywhere anything that will be of any benefit whatsoever to the average fan in the street. Unless you happen to be a Baggie domiciled in one of the proposed host towns and cities, of course. Or a moneybags member of the betting fraternity: given an undoubted passion for gambling in the Far East, especially, it won?t be too long before one or another of their syndicates gets their collective teeth into a ripe-for-slaughter cash-cow like this, legally or otherwise.

Now we?ve established precisely what the Prem intend to do, and their rose-tinted vision of how it will be for their member clubs, should the above proposals be implemented, let me now introduce you all to yet another relevant concept, one culled from biology, this time round.

Hands up all those who have come across the term ?Parasitic Relationship?, as per its classic scientific definition, on their travels? Coo! That?s right, ?An organism that lives in or on and takes its nourishment from another organism?. As simple as that, yet one with such profound implications for our domestic game. And yes ? a fair number of parasitic organisms, the most inefficient of the entire lot, it has to be said, end up killing their benefactors, eventually.

And that, my friends, is precisely what we?re looking at. A parasitic relationship, pure and simple, with one element in particular gaining hugely, but the other completely losing out, and, if really unlucky, ending up pushing up the daisies. It?s all about money, end of. Nobody save the bean counters, the financial leeches currently sucking the lifeblood right out of the beautiful game, will benefit. Peter Scudamore did pay lip-service toward ordinary supporters being ?consulted? beforehand, of course, but when it comes down to practicalities, Joe Baggie will be told, in no uncertain terms, that as far as this one goes, he/she might as well whistle ?Dixie?, for all they care.

As long as all those scrummy TV rights, filled executive boxes, corporate hospitality places, betting revenues, not to mention pitch-side advertising money, come clattering in on command to swell the fiscal pig-swill still further, the collective weight of any thoughts and opinions we might have on the matter will count for somewhat less than the zit erupting right on the very tip of an adolescent nose. A minor irritant, in other words, and an easily-expendable one, at that.

By this stage, you might well be wondering what sort of stance the FA might take in all this, but if you?re looking for any kind of support for the man-in-the-street from them, then forget it. My understanding is that they?ve already come out with ?qualified approval? for these proposals: yet another instance where the game?s more pusillanimous legislators have caved in to pressure brought to bear by an organisation completely dominated at top level by the moneybags outfits. Just like they did over the schism in the ranks caused by the original breakaway of the top six Division One clubs to found the Prem, back in the early 90?s.

And if you currently take some degree of succour from the (seemingly reasonable, but utterly na?ve, once you?ve taken sufficient trouble to ponder a little bit more upon the subject-matter) assumption that FIFA will bother to take no more than a cursory look at the plans, before completely knocking them on the head as being contrary to the original spirit of the game, forget that one as well.

Nothing?s been said either way, as yet, but given that the world?s foremost legislative body will be dealing primarily with clubs already in thrall to Rupert Murdoch?s Sky TV empire, which is global and therefore has money to burn, not to mention sundry other ?vested interests? likely to figure in the equation, I don?t now expect them to put in place any major obstacles. What Rupert Murdoch and his chums want, they get. Period. At that sort of level, there exists certain ways and means of moulding the game?s legislative machinery to favour your own ends, most of which are better left to rot in the stinking Bastille of your collective imaginations, of course.

Back in the thirties, and with war looking increasingly likely, the phrase current among the already-nervous ?chattering classes? was: ?The bomber will always get through??.. In other words, you can spend what the hell you want to on civil defence, but in practical terms, even your best efforts in that direction will be found badly wanting, when the bombs finally start to rain down in heaps.

Fast forward, now, to the 21st century, and with control of the puppet-strings already flitting with remarkable fluidity between those greedy clubs desperately wanting the dosh, and an international body with some remaining vestige of moral principles hanging on in there like grim death, the very same principle applies. FIFA will appear to fight a gallant rearguard action, of course, possibly through the courts, but by the time it does, the issue will have already been settled beyond any possible shadow of doubt, courtesy of a few knowing nods and winks in the right direction.

And once that happens, the Prem will no longer operate upon the fundamental principle of supporters of clubs watching games at familiar home and away venues only, and nowhere else. Even the most exotic of locations for such league games will lack the vital spark necessary for creating the right ambience: respective home and away crowds, each fired with a passion truly awesome to contemplate.

Loads of people in the Far East profess to support Man United, Liverpool and the like, of course, but how many of these so-called ?supporters? would actually see it as their bounden duty to not only talk the talk during games, but chant the chants? And how many police forces from the more ? erm ? ?controlling? countries would allow them sufficient freedom to do so?

Oh ? and another thing. At the moment, the master-plan is to play just one Prem fixture only upon foreign soil, but how soon would it be before someone decided to move the metaphorical goalposts yet again? Ten seasons? Five? Just the one? And with two, three, four, even, games altered to suit? Or, worst case scenario, the entire concept completely franchised out? This really does have ?thin end of the wedge job? written all over it.

Football is about following your own side?s fortunes in your own domestic league competition, not something based upon a completely artificial construct! Leave out the raw passion generated by people who consider following their local side the ideal antidote to all the stresses and strains inherent in holding down a shit-awful job, and the death-knell of the game we all know and love will have, in effect, well and truly tolled for everyone.

Returning to other matters, then, what else have we been up to, this week? Well, first off, I finally picked up my new pills from the chemists. They belong to a group of drugs called ?proton pump inhibitors?. What do they do? Completely block the production of stomach acid, that?s what. They do this by inhibiting (shutting down) a system in the stomach known as the ?proton pump?.

Just in case you were wondering, the full name for this particular miracle of molecular and pharmaceutical chemistry is 'hydrogen-potassium adenosine triphosphate enzyme system', a mouthful indigestible enough to cause stomach problems in its own right, I shouldn?t wonder, but the bottom line is what I said earlier. It kills the acid, and stops the heavy-duty gastric grief associated with it, every mealtime. Who needs common or garden Milk Of Magnesia, I say?

Mind you, when I first became acquainted with the correct term for this class of drugs, it didn?t half get my imagination going. Visualise, if you will, the chaotic scene on the bridge of the starship ?Enterprise?, right after a Klingon phaser beam has landed somewhere amidships: everything looking very much as though a trainload of drunken Dingles has gone through the place like the proverbial dose of salts. Smashed fittings, ruined navigational and scientific instruments, and sundry panicked crew-members adopting various combat postures not recommended in the Starfleet Drill Manual.

Staggering to his feet, the bruised and bleeding Captain Kirk surveys the damage done to his pride and joy, and grim resolution settles over his features: the sods who did this are going to pay big-time, make no mistake. His radio communications are still intact, just about, so he contacts Scotty, stuck in the Engine Room, as per usual.

?Scotty ? the Klingons have buggered the bridge, and driven Lieutenant Sulu mad enough to want to have it off with Lieutenant Chekov, but most of the rest is OK. Apart from Lieutenant Chekov, that is ? he?s still trying to get over the shock. What I want you to do is this. Turn the ship slowly 360 degrees, so we?re facing them and we can bring the heavy stuff to bear. Slowly, mind, so they don?t rumble we?re still operational. When I give the word, disengage the Proton Pump Inhibitor completely, then let ?em have every single photon torpedo left in the tubes, right in the boiler-room, yeah??

?Er, Captain?. I dinnae know how to tell you this, laddie, but if I disengage the Proton Pump Inhibitor, that will activate all the dilithium crystals in the Warp Drive reactor to destruction. I can give you what you want, but I cannae hold her, Jim! She?ll blow, laddie!?

?I don?t get this, Scottie. Didn?t you take the Enterprise for its ten-thousand-light-year service the other week? I thought the Proton Pump Inhibitor was working just fine, back then??

Scotty: ?Aye, laddie, and so I did. Ever hear of back-street Deep Space Repair Facilities, and service rip-offs that dinnae show up until you?re in the very next Solar System, and trillions of miles from anywhere? That?s the last bloody time I ever flash Starfleet?s plastic there, Cap?n ? which will probably be the case, the minute I try to get the Warp Drive to do what you want!?

Ah, the power of the human mind to turn a boring bit of pharmacy to a completely different end! Oh, well ? I had fun with it, even if you lot didn?t see the joke. And, talking about ?jokes?, since the very last time I penned these thoughts, another two potential buyers have come to look around our place, but nary an offer have we received. We do have another two coming tomorrow, while we?re having fun and games in South Yorkshire: fingers crossed, something much more positive will come to pass this time round.

And that, my little chums, brings me neatly to Barnsley, The Universe And Everything. The very fact that the very last time Albion registered a win on their territory was way back in 1947, just a year before the National Health Service was unleashed upon a war-weary British public, and India and Pakistan finally gained their independence, suggests that there is something of a jinx pervading League encounters in that part of the world. Why, even our present monarch was still single. Surely, after all that time without a win, even the most malevolent of evil spirits will finally relent, and give us something to smile about, on the return trip back down the M1?

The Tykes? It doesn't look as though star performer Simon Davey has any new injury problems. They are without Tininho, the defender we loaned them, ineligible to play against his parent club. They will have checked on Jamal Campbell-Ryce's knee injury, but what the outcome was, I know not. Anderson De Silva and Dennis Souza were struggling with knocks during the week, but considered opinion is that both will come through, and be fit to play. Tony Warner will continue in goal, apparently. They?re not exactly brimming with confidence, mind, their followers. They describe recent form as ?dreadful?. Dare I assume we might be in with a chance, for once?

As far as our lot are concerned, Ish Miller and Koren apart, we don?t have too many pressing injury problems, so should manage to field a strong side. The only doubts I envisage are concerning those players who have had to play for international sides. That?s Cesar (Slovenia); Hoefkens (Dutch Antiles); not forgetting new boy Kim (South Korea). Gera (Hungary), and Brunt (Northern Ireland) were also involved midweek, but will probably feature.

A win, after all this time? At least it won?t be for the want of trying. We four former Dick Eds will be going to this one. That means The Noise, too: prospective passengers on our vehicle, be warned, your eardrums will never be the same! Ever! This fixture is the one designated by Albion as a freebie, as far as transport costs are concerned. Given we appear to have completely cleaned them out of tickets, the sheer weight of numbers involved alone should conspire to ?blow? the ball into the back of the net. If nothing else, the number of coaches involved should be a sight for sore South Yorkshire eyes, so what about a bucking of the trend, then, this time round, Baggies? Please? Pretty please?

The referee? Gawd, it?s The Noise?s mate, Tony Bates! Like the curate?s egg, that bloke: ?good in parts?. I wonder if he was ever known as ?Master Bates?, during his misspent youth? If so, yet another case of nominative determinism kicking in to make him a League Referee. And now for the bit that will haunt some Baggies until the day they finally quit this mortal coil. Just where is our old mucker Mister Miller ruining a perfectly normal game, this weekend? Talk about ?it takes one to know one?: he?s been appointed fourth official at the Dingles-Stoke clash! Yes, his powers to stuff up in that role will be strictly limited, I know, but any chance of him putting the mockers on our Potteries chums for us?

And Finally?.. One?. Much weeping in the world of football, this weekend, as John Hartson bade a tearful ?adieu? to the beautiful game. He?s finally hung up his boots, dontcha know. "I have been fighting my weight for 12 years,? confessed ?yer man?, just the other day, continuing, ?I can't have a burger without putting on half a stone." Er, yes ? we had noticed a bit, John, but this little snippet does beg one other important question. Given the reported almighty struggle to control both his weight and fitness, whatever happened to good old-fashioned willpower, whenever he found himself passing a McDonalds outlet? Other pros seem to manage (or at least restrict their consumption to an amount that wouldn?t show on the scales), so why not him?

Two?. And while we?re in the business of tearful farewells, the announcement?s been finally made the club are calling ?Time? on the Halfords Lane Stand. It won?t be demolished, just completely gutted, then rebuilt internally, with some alteration to the seating as well, but for me, it will represent the end of an era. It was 25 years ago that I moved from what was then the Rainbow to that side of the ground, my decision prompted by several games in which the yob element seemed to gain the upper hand in the Rainbow. The League Cup clash with Millwall, when their lot actually climbed into the Rainbow, then proceeded to cause all manner of mayhem, was the cotton-pickin? end, for me.

Should we have to move, my main regret will be not meeting up with the likes of John and Jean Homer at home games any more. The Bloke In Front Of Me will also be conspicuous by his absence. Heaven forfend, but I might have to latch on to yet another bunch of Hawthorns eccentrics! This blog might well end up assuming a completely different ambience, Premier League or otherwise!

Three?.. Shergar?s only gone and moved to Hereford United, on loan, so our loss will be the ambitious cider-slurpers? collective gain. Boo-hoo! The reason why both Jean Homer and I are so distraught at the news? It?s because of the fact that as Shergar will be putting in the effort for another club, any strikes gained will not count for the purposes of the joint wager we still have with John: that if he does score for us, John will have to strip naked and run the whole length of Lower Gornal?s main drag!

 - Glynis Wright

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