The Diary

23 February 2008: Mogga Preaches Transfer Gospel According To Luke

Oh, dear. And there was naive old me thinking there?s nothing worse in life than a Dingle: tonight, I?ve been proven well wrong, because, believe you me, there is something out there to top it. And it?s right in our midst, just like the influenza virus. Let?s hear it, then, for the massive outbreak of DEPRESSED Dingles I heard on our car radio while en route between our place and my stepmother?s, tonight. And boy, are they truly disheartened: if Radio WM was anything to go by, they?re probably arranging the noose in the optimum position for instantaneous dispatch, right at this very minute.

I know ? one shouldn?t mock the afflicted, but with Dingles, it?s a temptation far too good to miss, isn?t it? Time after time, I heard a plethora of evening-time callers utter those immortal words: ?McCarthy? He ay no good, ay ?ee? ?Ee?s gorra goo, Franksy, ?an quick?.? Either that, or: ?We bay scorin? enuff goals, am we? That bloody Kyle?s useless, and nobody else bay scoorin? either. We cor mek the top two, and the way things am gooin? on, we woe mek the play-offs, neither?..? Whatever next, I wondered. ?Woe, woe and thrice cowin? woe?.??

All music to my ears, this, but as far as local A and E units are concerned, if they?ve got any sense at all, they?ll be on red alert over the course of the next 48 hours. But please remember, you guys at Radio WM, etc. ? for goodness sake, whatever your original intentions, DON?T play any Leonard Cohen stuff on air. To do that would, in effect, be giving those Dingles particularly affected by said malady a handy perch upon which to step before, metaphorically speaking ? erm ? stepping into the noose!

You think I?m joking? Clearly, you?ve never really plumbed the true depths of this guy?s professional dejection. Let me put it this way, exposure to just a few of his ?choicer? tracks makes even The Dead March In Saul sound like ?Pinky And Perky Sing The Beatles?. Time for the Samaritans to set up a super-size outreach at The Custard Bowl, methinks? Just don?t ask me to help out, that?s all. Unless it?s to helpfully hand out a few nice thick pieces of rope, that is.

Mind you, things haven?t been all that good for us over the course of the last seven days. Nothing to do with our favourite football club, mind, or our rivals just up the road, come to think about it. Our problem? Trying to flog our bloody ancestral pile, that?s what. This week, we should have had two potential buyers visit, but one cried off because they were ill, and the other ? well, I?m not quite sure what happened there, but suffice it to say we?re still here, in the housing market?s equivalent of Limbo. Or Purgatory, if you want to take your divine punishment strictly Catholic-style. We did get a ?sort of? offer from one prospective buyer, but then we were told that the people owning the place we wanted to move to weren?t prepared to display a modicum more flexibility regarding our offer. As their place has been on the market for absolute yonks, now, I reckon they?re being far too picky, given the current state of the housing market ? but sod it, what the hell do I know?

Anyway, the upshot of all this is having to inspect three more potential properties tomorrow morning: it won?t take too much mental effort on your part to realise these represent Plans B, C and D respectively. But absolutely everything?s predicated upon successfully flogging our own place, of course. Oh, well ? fingers (and a good deal more!) crossed. Perhaps Cinders will go to the ball after all, in the not-too-distant future.

The other significant event of the week just gone was, of course, the quarter-final draw, which saw both us and Bristol Rovers coming out of the hat in tandem, us being the ?away? side. My personal opinion? Could have been better, but on the other hand, we could have just as easily ended up paired with either Man United or Chelsea ? and that would have killed any residual interest in further advancement stone dead, of course.

Mind you, neither of us covered ourselves in glory trying to listen to it. ?Im Indoors blames Radio WM, for cocking up the feed to FA HQ, with the result that listeners only got to hear a small part of the business at hand. Until corrected, my other half genuinely thought we?d drawn Barnsley at home! And I didn?t do much better, either, having somehow got it into my thick head that the draw was at 1.30 pm, and not some five or ten minutes earlier! As luck would have it, we?ve been to The Memorial Ground, Rovers? post-Eastville and Twerton Park incarnation, several times since they moved. To cut a long story short, the hasty shift to their latest home was the culmination of a deadly-effective campaign on the part of the ?Nimby? persuasion in that area. When Rovers lost their Eastville hang-out (it?s now a supermarket, so don?t bother trying to get in via the away turnstiles, on the day: not unless you?ve promised to bring Mum back a half-pound of roast ham from their deli, that is), they led something of a nomadic existence while various pressure-groups wrangled with the football club and the local authority.

First of all, a move to nearby Mangotsfield (they have a Western League side, the proposed site for the new ground) was mooted ? until the locals started screeching with rage, that was. Blown out of that one, they then tried for a new-build site near Bristol Parkway Station ? and, guess what? Yup, the Nimby persuasion struck again. Same deal for a proposed move to a site near Yate, to the east of the city, so, more out of desperation than anything, in the late 1980?s, they then struck a deal with Bath City FC, who play at Twerton Park. As far as ?May 1991 And All That? is concerned, the rest is history.

I?ll be saying a lot more about the manifold delights of their current abode nearer the time, but as far as I?m concerned, the real ordeal?s to come. Tickets go on sale next Monday morning, so I?m going to have to be there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to get in the queue. Time, once more, to employ the services of my trusty stool, which saw so much use when we were out and about flogging GD?s, pre-match.

To be perfectly honest, this will be the first time I?ve had occasion to use it since we packed in producing the fanzine, but use it I have to, if only to stop my back yammering at me something awful later in the day. Bet you anything you like, though, that when I finally do get there, The Fart will have beaten me to it by a matter of hours! There you go - all those boring hours and hours standing in a freezing trench on the Western Front, waiting for Fritz to show atop theirs, did have its uses, after all.

But all that?s a good three days away: more important by far is the pressing question of how we?re going to fare tomorrow afternoon. Having already ceded our place at the top of the heap, and not being in the automatic promotion positions any longer, it?s high time we made up on lost ground, isn?t it?

The loan signing of Luke Moore from the seal sanctuary a couple of miles up the road will give us an additional range of options up front, of course, but despite what Midlands Today were intimating tonight, I?d doubt very much if we were to see him chucked in at the deep end tomorrow ? unless Mogga knows a little bit more about the current state of Kev Phillips?s gammy knee than we do. And even then, there are others with far more pressing claims for selection, of course.

A quick word about tomorrow?s match referee. No, it?s not the elegant, lovely and talentless Mister Miller ? Leyton Orient followers have that dubious pleasure in their game versus visitors Notts Forest, you?ll be relieved to hear - but someone who might conceivably prove much, much worse. His name is Steve Tanner, he emanates from Somerset, and his principal claim to fame is a notable (and notorious?) generosity concerning the issuance of red and yellow cards to errant players. The first time we?ve had him this season, so this could well end in tears for someone!

He?s taken charge of some 25 fixtures thus far this term, and to date, Tanner has shown an unbelievable 78 yellow cards and one red card over the course of the whole lot - the solitary red being shown in a 2-2 draw between Plymouth Argyle and Stoke City. That?s a very rough average of some three a game. Apparently, one game where he showed no less than SIX yellows in one go involved tomorrow?s opponents, Hull City, in their encounter versus QPR at Loftus Road. Not a ?first?, either: he?s done similar on at least two other occasions this season! Oh, dear. Paul Robinson, be afraid. VERY afraid!

One good aspect of tomorrow?s game will be having something like a full-strength squad to choose from, for once. Both Koren and Greening will be back in there, pitching, but not Clem. He?s going in the opposite direction, to Hull, on loan, so won?t be in the frame for this one. Not that I think he would have been anyway, but at least he?ll be getting games with the alternative fisherfolk of Humberside, something we can?t really offer him, right now.

The real burning question lies in the possibility Mogga might change things in order to accommodate twin returnees Koren and Greening. As this would mean committing that most cardinal of footballing sins ? changing a winning side ? I would assume the pros and cons of doing so will weigh quite heavily on his mind before finally committing himself, one way or the other. As for the striker dilemma, I can only assume he?ll stick with the normal Phillips/Bednar combo, with Ish Miller on the bench, as he was at Coventry. With or without Seals loanee Moore?

As we have lots more strikers than we can shake a stick at, right now, it might be better if we just give him ample time to get settled in before we progress down that particular route. Mind you, as the promotion race will be hotting up considerably over the course of the next few weeks, there will certainly be injuries to first-choice performers, which will give our blubbery friend more than ample time to get to know us at first hand.

Hull City? Their Aussie winger and main man, Richard Garcia, has been Down Under on what Hull call ?compassionate grounds? these last three or so games, but is now back: Tigers followers reckon their side has suffered considerably from his absence. His understudy, Ryan France, has done his level best, apparently, but is universally acknowledged as not being a patch on what Garcia has to offer in the same position.

Interestingly enough, Garcia?s very last goal for the Tigers was against us, when we whupped ?em 3-1 in front of the TV cameras. But will Hull?s gaffer, Phil Brown go with the flow and pick him? The plane journey is a bit of a killer, jet lag being what it is, so much will depend upon when he finally made it back to Blighty. Their alternative danger-man will be Frazier Campbell, currently on loan from Man United. The lad?s potted the black no less than eight times for Hull this season, doing so for the last two on the bounce.

Also back from the treatment room is Andy Dawson, now recovered from a hamstring problem, apparently. One familiar figure who isn?t likely to be taking their partner for this particular ?excuse me waltz? is the delightfully-named Dean Windass: he has a nasty knee injury, and is described as a ?major doubt?. A phrase you could profitably use to describe most kinds of situations involving that particular gentleman, I suppose, but not this particular one, it would seem. Unless there?s a recovery of truly Biblical proportions on the cards, I suppose.

It?s interesting ? and somewhat comforting - to note that of all the sides currently pushing to escape the gravitational pull of the Championship, Hull City supporters strongly fancy our lot to win that league outright. 63.1% of ?em feel that way, apparently, with some 17.2% plumping for Watford to do the same thing, instead. Stoke? Top of the heap they may be, right now, but only 10% of Tigers aficionados believe they?ll go up. If their verdict could be considered in any way predictive, I?d take it straightaway, but being the cynical pragmatist I am, I?d dearly like to know who their supplier is: clearly, there?s some dead good gear on offer in those there parts!

And Finally?. One. It?s got to be Sod?s Law at its malevolent worst, hasn?t it? There I was, all ready to check out Shergar?s current phenomenal form on loan with Hereford United, earlier this week ? he?s stuck no less than six away for the cider-slurpers since his recent move there, just in case you weren?t already aware ? and with them down to play Wrexham, a side really on their uppers in that division, at the very least, a continuation of his wonderful scoring streak for The Bulls looked very much on the cards. (And there was I slotted in for a write-up of that game, from our uniquely Baggies point of view, for the benefit of their Bulls News website, but it ain?t going to happen, now, is it?)

Trust my awful luck: just hours before the kick-off, the dratted game got called off, didn?t it? Jack Frost sure played a blinder that particular Tuesday afternoon: not a single sodding game in that division went ahead! Even the Dingles had to cry off, because of an alleged undersoil heating failure. Non-payment of electric bill, more like, knowing that lot: the dead giveaway must have been when their meter reading showed that despite using their floodlights at full-blast these last few games, they?d somehow contrived to consume only about as much juice as a lock-up garage in Low Hill. Oh well ? I guess I?ll just have to place that one on ?hold? until the very next chance I get which, depending upon further Cup involvement etc., might mean a bit of a wait before I finally get to put fraying finger to much-mauled keyboard on Hereford?s behalf.

Two. Bristol City versus Crystal Palace, last Monday night. Anyone else watch that game, and Palace?s jammy draw courtesy the very last-gasp goal they banged in, after the home side had looked nigh-on impregnable after scoring first, and somehow contriving to miss a penalty? But that wasn?t the thing that really intrigued me. What did was Palace head honcho Neil Warnock ? or, more to the point, the fact that whenever the Sky cameras zoomed in close and personal, he always seemed to maintain a curl to his top lip strongly suggestive of having recently encountered a particularly bad smell.

There was a truly horrible fascination surrounding the whole thing, as far as I was concerned, believe you me ? or is it just that I?m easily amused, these days? Oh ? suit yerselves?. As there was nobody else within ?blaming range?, so to speak, the conclusion was obvious. If I were you, Mister Warnock, I?d do something about my diet ? and preferably before you render your entire non-playing and coaching staff comatose! (FORTHCOMING STAR ATTRACTION? CLASH OF THE PETOMANIC TITANS! WEST BROMIWCH EVACUATED AS BROOKSIE TAKES ON WARNOCK IN THRILLING BUT MALODOROUS SPHINCTER-TO-SPHINCTER TOUCHLINE SHOWDOWN!)

Three?. Oops! My brother-in-law has always been a martyr to what?s popularly known as ?presenteeism?. To put not to fine a point upon it, he?s an unreconstructed workaholic, to the continual fury of my middle sister, and much given to attending his place of daily toil at very unsocial hours indeed, and at the merest drop of a phone call from management, too. But always in strenuous denial of that very same fact ? until his somewhat Freudian slip, just the other week.

Apparently, as per usual, both my sis and he set sail for my stepmother?s house, as is normal on a Friday night ? but instead of going straight over the lights, as per the normal road, he made to turn left instead. My sister, quite puzzled by this somewhat drastic change of route, promptly asked him, in her own inimitable style, just what the blankety-blank hell he thought he was doing. The reply, when forthcoming was a somewhat sheepish one: he?d been very much on ?automatic pilot? and following what was his daily route to his place of work!

Oh whoops. As eminent QC?s galore would undoubtedly say, at that point, ?The Prosecution rests its case, M?Lud.? My brother-in-law has since told me that my peeved sister, never having undergone pupillage at The Inns Of Court herself, but opting to study at The University Of Life instead, preferred to put her comments rather more colourfully than that!

 - Glynis Wright

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