The Diary

13 March 2008: Warnock's Eagles Poop On Our Wembley Party

GLYNISNOTE: Apologies, once more, about the late appearance of my usual piece. Nothing to do with how knackered I was, this time ? just that we?re currently experiencing a whole lot of problems with some anti-virus software we installed recently. It?s currently interfering with access to the internet, which means, in its turn, I can?t get my stuff onto the Boing site for love nor money. Again, apologies: we are trying to clear up the problem but it may take several days, so if you don?t see my usual stuff on this site after we?ve played a first-team game, in all probability, that?s what?s happened.

You just knew it would happen, didn?t you? Of all the sides in all the world that we had to come up against, and just three days after our Memorial Ground FA Cup triumph, it just had to be irritating little s**t Neil Warnock?s Palace raining on our parade, didn?t it?

I really do loathe that man with every single particle of my being: having journeyed on one particular flight of footballing fancy this morning, when I did, my musings instantaneously turned to the recent two-parter shown on TV about Doctor Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University astrophysics whiz-kid who has, over the years, come up with some pretty bizarre theories about how the Universe (and, by further extension of thought, sundry football-related issues) works.

According to Hawking, out there in the infinity of space, different kinds of Universe besides our own exist, and in a similar infinity of dimensions, too. If that?s right, then somewhere, there must be a Universe where the combined thought-power of supporters of every Championship club in the land has willed Warnock to shrivel into an insignificant heap of desiccated protoplasm. And it?s actually worked. I?m holding on to that delicious thought right now, purely and simply because it?s giving me such an awful lot of sadistic pleasure to do so! Any other Baggie out there fancy petitioning our government to make Hawking a knight of the realm?

But back to the business in hand. What with the plethora of chances we had go begging, yesterday evening, any other side would have caved in with minimal fuss and good grace after all that pressure, but thanks to some pretty dogged defending from his minions, and not a little ? erm ? ?robust? play chucked in as well, the best we could manage, in the end, was to surgically extract a solitary point from them.

A real shame, that, as there was so much to admire on those rare occasions when the Poisoned Dwarf?s first eleven weren?t indulging in the crafty whacking of opponents on the blind side of both referee and assistants, of course. Ish Miller? Cup hat-tricks clearly suit him: tonight?s performance showed him in a completely different light to that normally on display for our collective delectation.

Doing all the things that should come au naturelle for a bloke of his physique, will do for starters: holding up the ball well when in possession, laying it off to colleagues as and when the situation made it necessary (one of his prime past faults, in my opinion, has been his relative unwillingness, when in the box, to pass to colleagues better situated to knock one past the keeper. Enormously frustrating for better-placed colleagues, of course, not to mention spectators).

Other new-found delights? Using his enormous body strength to completely banjax any Palace attempts to dispossess him, given that some of Palace?s antics weren?t entirely legal (charitable view), and others seemingly more at home in a horror movie (honest opinion). Not for the first time was I reminded of Cyrille Regis, especially on those occasions, mostly in the first half, when he took the opportunity of powering through the Palace defence as if it simply wasn?t there, then letting fly when within clear striking distance of the target.

A little more luck in the box, and a following wind, and I reckon we?d have done far better than we actually did on the night. He?s young, is Ish Miller, he?s still learning the game in general, and the striker?s wily arts in particular ? and thanks to a combination of our tremendous Cup run, and the hat-trick he grabbed at Rovers with such alacrity, he?s finally managed to amass a goodly dollop of confidence about his bulky person as well. I can only see him improve greatly in confidence, which would represent a bit of a blow to promotion rivals, at the very least.

It was also a good night, too, for Zoltan Gera, our tame Hungarian ?Duracell Battery Ad Imitator?. Or, put another way, for the whole of the time he was on that park this evening, he never stopped working, not once. I dread to think precisely where he keeps that battery of his! His no-nonsense command of any given situation when in possession is truly awesome, and distribution ditto, but his delightfully entertaining playing style could so easily end up completely surplus to requirements in the day-to-day bump-and-grind of Championship football, of course.

His build is amazingly deceptive to the eye: to look at him, you might quickly classify the lad as needing a massive intake of food, and the sooner the better, too. And to leave him out in a strong gale might prove disastrous, too. ?Elfin-like?, is how I?ve termed his physique in the past. Some of the things he did with the ball last night drew delighted gasps aplenty from Brummie and Smethwick End alike. About the only thing he didn?t do with the ball was get it to sing opera in front of the Brummie! Or is that to be just one aspect of the many good things Zoltan?s remarkable talents promise for the future?

?WEM-BER-LEE, WEM-BER-LEE, AND WE ALL DOZED OFF ONCE WE GOT TO WEM-BER-LEE?..!? Well, that?s what I reckon will happen when we get to play Pompey, in but a very short time. The good news? Our game will be on a Saturday, so no more ?twilight shift? football. The bad news? Just this: never in my entire life have I come across anything so ridiculous. A 12.15 kick-off, which will, in effect, mean everyone having to leave West Bromwich at some ridiculously early hour, those able to afford overnight accommodation (and sufficient time off work to get down there on the day before) in the capital excepted. And, London being what it is, a grubby, dreadfully over-priced rip-off, hotel accommodation, even the stuff that?s laughably described as ?budget?, won?t come very cheap, will it?

And my view was pretty much the consensus of opinion in the Hawthorns Hotel prior to last night?s game, too. If ever there was a case of the needs of the average supporter being completely ignored or, worse still, being treated with utter contempt, then this little stunt certainly has it all. We could only assume that the early kick-off time was ordained so as not to let our game interfere with other televised stuff going out on the same day. Premier League stuff, in other words. A pox on Rupert Murdoch, and all his devilish works, I say!

No prizes for guessing who?d taken up residence at one of the tables ages before we walked in: yup, the Lewis clan, complete with Carly, honouring us with her presence after a couple of absences, recently. Plus, of course, little sister Bethany, with The Noise still as sick as a pig through not being able to make the Bristol Rovers 6th Round tie.

But the lad did ply us with gifts, no sooner we?d plonked bums firmly onto seats. Some sales leaflets, as requested, displaying a tasteful selection of Wedgwoods? china dinner services. Mmmmm ? very up-market: much too good for Stoke On Trent, I fancy. And as the lad kept telling me ad nauseam, he could get a 40% staff discount on the stuff for us? providing we didn?t flog it off on the cheap. No, Martin, should we purchase some of your firm?s wares, I promise faithfully NOT to donate the stuff to the first market trader I encounter in West Bromwich! Honest. Scout?s Honour, with lots of dibbing and dobbing chucked in for good measure, too. Woggle-hopping, too? Now that would REALLY be pushing my luck!.

What with the early kick-off and everything, and given the sheer chaos that prevailed at the ground the last time we journeyed to Wembley, then the club might well be secretly relieved that another transport provider is currently advertising its virtues by means of ?flyers? placed at strategic spots quite close to The Shrine itself. Correct me if I?m wrong, of course, but are this other lot proposing to charge 17 quid or thereabouts for their trouble? Could be they?ll take one hell of a lot of pressure off our own travel organisers on the day ? but don?t expect someone at the club to actually admit it!

I have to say that sitting in between both Fart and Noise, pre-match, wasn?t the most cheerful of experiences I?ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. Both of them were worrying something awful about what manner of horrors Colin might have in store for our finest, once that whistle blew. I had to agree that to lose would take a considerable shine of Sunday?s achievement, but did they both have to make like undertakers at the Crem to get their point over?

Still, one thing cheered up our little Stokie pal considerably. The pleasant thought that, although they didn?t know it, and probably never would, The Noise?s employers, Wedgwood, would be financing his Wembley ticket for him! It?s all down to a windfall he wasn?t expecting, the result of having to work in another department on a temporary basis for a few weeks.

The Noise has since discovered that this particular department is one of the few in that factory that pays its operatives slightly more than those employed elsewhere, so off to the manager?s office he toddled ? they?re never very quick off the mark when it comes to informing their staff of changes to the terms and conditions of their employment advantageous to them - the lad would have worked on in blissful ignorance, had not an informed colleague tipped him the wink, just a few days ago!

Then the subject-matter of our various conversations became quite eclectic in content: to my left was Carly, telling me all about the chemistry test she?d just taken ? and ending with a straight A for all her efforts, and deservedly so, too ? while, to my right, The Fart was chewing the cud with The Noise over some obscure tactical point or other. What made their antics so remarkable, not to mention hilarious, were the ?teaching aids? they were using: a Coke tin (empty), and a glass containing the fizzy stuff (full). I suppose you might care to describe the one ?player? as being ?full of fizz? and the other ?a bit immobile, carrying far more weight around than he really should, but would probably lose it in the end??

Add to that little lot the one I had with the very same Stokie about whales and dolphins, with a little added stuff about octopuses and squids chucked in for good measure, and I can confidently assert that when you enter The Hawthorns Hotel, and buttonhole our table, a better class of discussion is guaranteed for all! And then ? what kangaroo minds we lot have, sometimes! ? came consensus that we always get Pompey in crucial games.

The evidence for the prosecution? 1994, the last day of that sweaty season, at Fratton Park, when a solitary Ashcroft effort kept us up, for starters. Then, in season 2004-05, on the final day yet again, a victory over the Hampshire side was needed to keep us up with the big boys (not to mention several other results at the expense of fellow-strugglers playing elsewhere needed as well!).

Amazingly (some of what subsequently happened came about because of the sheer incompetence, not to mention nervousness, of our drop-zone companions: not that we were complaining, mind!) not only did we win that day, all the other results elsewhere dropped right for us too, making us the first Premiership club ever to survive the drop, having been bottom at Christmas.

Pompey (helped along considerably by the delicious thought that victory for us would probably also condemn hated local rivals Southampton to the Outer Darkness of the Football League) contrived to lose a very tense game indeed: after a minute or so of agonised waiting, after the final whistle had gone, we then heard that every single result had also gone in our favour, instantaneously making us the Prem?s resident Great Escape experts. Amazing scenes at the Smethwick, too, as the Pompey mob saluted us heartily for kicking the detested Saints out of the top flight.

Two occasions when we desperately needed to win, then, and Pompey came up trumps both times. Or, more to the point, we did. And now we face a third Ordeal By Fratton Park People. Can we register a ?hat trick? of vital wins over them and all their works? Mind you, something in my water also tells me The Nautical Ones won?t be anywhere near as generous as they were on those two previous occasions, come the day of the semi!

And so, off to the ground we all toddled, with a short pit-stop in Anoraks Corner taken as well. It?s now been decided that Steve The Miser is going to be in charge of sorting out our Wembley ticketing requirements: true to form, he?s now looking to bring in various other Baggie ?waifs and strays? so as to up our ?block booking? to the 20 max, and by doing that, spread the cost of having the tickets sent Registered Post more thinly across the board. That?s my boy! As I said to Colin Mackenzie, another anorak lurking in the shadows there: ?If he?d had a better start in life, he?d have been Prime Minister?.?

Even before we?d taken our seats, it was quite evident that tonight?s gate was going to fall considerably short of maximum capacity. How could we tell? Easy: when the ground is completely full, as happened when we played the likes of Man United or The Arse, in the Prem, you cannot shift in the concourse below the Halfords Lane Stand for the sheer numbers of people wanting to sort out drinks, betting, toilet requirements (there being a considerable ?aroma? emanating from the gents by the time the final whistle goes, I won?t be too sorry to see that particular aspect of the Halfords disappear for good), and the purchase of various items of foodstuff. Tonight, it was the work of but a moment to shift from one end of the stand to the other. Good news if you suffer from claustrophobia, but very bad if you?re an Albion director and want to make a bit of extra moolah on the night!

And, once we?d emerged into the open air again, it seemed that Palace supporters galore had decided to give this one a miss also. Not very surprising, really: a midweek game, meaning an early afternoon start, then around the severely-thrombosed M25 and up the (ditto: road works ad nauseam) M1 to our place. Not the most popular of destinations for a Sarf Londoner, is our place, so I can?t say all those empty seats came as much of a surprise, really.

What did, though, was the strange creature keeping Baggie Bird company, as both perambulated around the pitch. Cylindrical, with a white ?top end?, complete with grey ?thatch?, and a brown ?bottom end?. Ah, mystery solved! The chap was supposed to be a CIGARETTE! Of course he was; don?t tell me you?ve never, ever seen a gasper that size in someone?s capacious gob before!

Just before all the action got underway, I had an intriguing conversation with Jean Homer, who?d been nattering to a couple of people who, it turned out, had attended the very same school as her, and as they did so, the memories of old times had flowed free and easy. ?Yeah,? I commented, really dead-pan, ?Borstal sure was hell, wasn?t it!?

Time for both sides to make their presence felt, then. But, strangely enough, no welcome for our people of the Nuremberg Rally proportions I?d expected. Were our followers now feeling a tad too nervous for all that sort of thing? It sure looked like it: in fact, the atmosphere in the entire ground seemed somewhat muted, if anything. Must have been the shock of landing up in the semi-finals, or something.

And so, on to the team news. Just two changes for us, from the Rovers win, then: starting were Kev Phillips and Zoltan Gera, which left Roman Bednar and James Morrison parking their bums on the bench. As for Palace, Colin had chucked into the fray a young lad, just seventeen years of age, Victor Moses, whose presence was to have a considerable bearing on the game, later on.

Right from the very first contact of foot with ball, you could see that Colin had some sort of Cunning Plan up his sleeve to contain us. During those opening minutes, it seemed to consist of his players running at us, trying just about everything they knew to get the ball to change hands, and not being too fussy as to how they achieved that aim, either. And it didn?t take long for Warnock to go off like a bottle of fizzy pop left out in the summer sun for far too long: about 40 seconds, I would say.

Watching him explode on the touchline, I was very much put in mind of a quotation from Shakespeare?s Macbeth: ??It is but a tale told by an idiot: full of the sound and the fury, signifying nothing?? Whichever Baggie came up with the ?Colin? epithet, they?d hit the mark brilliantly. The Halfords Lane lot, not being used to having their peaceful matchday slumbers disturbed by a Gatling gob with clear psychopathic tendencies, quickly objected, and very vociferously, too!

During those fraught initial minutes, where both sides had played at 90 miles per hour, our goal had been in a state of almost constant siege. Now we all knew what Colin?s master-plan had been, to chuck everything but the kitchen sink at us, in the (reasonable) expectation that we?d cave in, and concede cheaply early on: we do have ?previous? in that respect. That we didn?t speaks volumes about the great forward strides we?d made in that area.

Our first decent chance came with just over seven minutes registered on the old clock. And it came courtesy some pretty scintillating football, too, with both Gera and Phillips indulging in some delightful intricate ball work before Our Kev let fly with an absolute monster. The fact it didn?t hit the target was pretty hard cheddar on Kev?s part. Then, it was Miller?s turn to give Colin a few more grey hairs than he?d originally bargained for. Sunday night?s game seems to have made him a much more thoughtful and interested specimen than before, and all the more dangerous because of it.

Then it was Gera?s turn to have a go, unsuccessfully, as it happened, but when Kev Phillips had another crack at it, midway through the half, so narrow was the margin between success and failure, loads of people in the Smethwick, genuinely thinking he?d scored, rose to their feet in universal acclaim. How cruelly deceptive side-netting can be at times?.

Meanwhile, Palace?s dogged resistance meant it was becoming painfully obvious to our finest that unlike last Sunday, this wasn?t about to be their finest hour. And neither was it to be Colin?s, either: some of the tackling out there, really wild and woolly, by now, was shaping up to what was potentially, at least, a short-cut to a lengthy ban for cruder exponents of that black art.

Most of the crowd were thoroughly scandalised by what was going on, and who could blame them? Had Colin been telepathic, I guess his ears would have well and truly burned by that stage. After one particularly nasty effort went flying in, almost a broken bone job, a really incensed Jean Homer stood up, then bawled to the idiot lino who?d watched everything, but did sod-all about it: ?I?ll set my cat on you???

Me: (Sorry, but I couldn?t resist it!) ?Humph! MY cat?s bigger than YOUR cat!....?

Then, two thirds of the way through the half, after nearly conceding ourselves, we managed to break the deadlock. Robbo was the creator of Kev?s masterpiece, very obligingly donating a ball that fractured the Palace defence completely, tore it into shreds, in fact. Accepting Robbo?s gift with considerable grace, Kev, who had evaded his jailers for once, spun, then let fly.

Result? One absolutely brilliant goal, several thousand delighted followers in the Smethwick, and what seemed like the entire ground indulging in one almighty ?Boing? afterwards! Oh, and lest I forget, that same goal saw Kev reach the magic ?200? figure for us, at long last. It also made John Homer a very happy lad: prior to that, he?d been exercising his lungs by giving both referee and lino some well-meant (but much needed, according to John!) ?advice?!

But, just before the break, we ended up losing the one player I thought capable of really putting Colin?s lot to the sword, ball-crosser par excellence Chris Brunt. Morrison came on to replace him, after a few minutes, but that was hardly just recompense for losing someone of Chris?s immense talents. Mind you, his replacement should have doubled our lead just before the break, by managing to evade the homicidal attentions of the Palace defence before finally letting fly. A shame that the effort, a really feeble one, ended with their keeper simply gathering the ball with consummate ease.

And so to the second half. Poor Morrison. It just wasn?t his night. After coming on as sub, he?d been crocked as well, and towards the end of the first half, which brought his participation in tonight?s frolics to a juddering half after only around ten minutes in serious action! That meant the sub getting subbed, if you see what I mean, with Korean Baggie Do Heon Kim getting a run out in his place. But being a Warnock side, Palace weren?t about to give up that easily. By now, they were calling the shots to a large extent; the writing on the wall came around the 50th minute, when they were given what amounted to a free header, the ball having evaded our rearguard completely in the meantime. Luckily the lad who tried to do the damage, one Clint Hill (sounds like a local landmark near Ludlow, doesn?t it?), headed narrowly wide, leaving Kiely?s goal pristine once more. But it wasn?t going to last.

The Palace equaliser came some five or so minutes later, and once again, some bloody awful marking was to prove our downfall. (Come on, Mogga, it isn?t exactly rocket science!) One more mass charge on our goal, one almighty scramble to be on the other end of the expected cross, one knockdown to teenager Moses, so bereft of jailers, you really had to wonder whether or not there was a personal freshness issue involved as well. But, pongy or not, the lad got his equaliser - and was to leave the field not long after that because of injury. Or had Colin simply advised him as to where sufficient supplies of spray-on deodorant could be found, then told him to get on with it?

Looking at it from the Albion viewpoint, and with hindsight, that was the precise moment we seemed to lose the impetus that had carried over from Sunday night. Colin?s mob dug in tenaciously, and, under orders, stuck everyone they could behind the ball, thereby making penetration of their rock-solid rearguard a near-impossibility.

To try and counter this, Mogga then decided to give Luke Moore a go, but at the expense of Zoltan Gera, a move which completely baffled me, quite frankly. If anyone was going to carefully construct a way round the Palace defensive fortress, then the intelligent Gera simply had to be yer man. Precisely what an ex-Premier League lad, with comparatively little first team experience from Villa under his belt, and almost none amassed at our level, could contribute to the proceedings, I was at a complete loss to say.

But with about ten left on the clock, we suddenly managed to regain some ?second wind?. Palace keeper Speroni became the hero of the hour ? well, for them, at any rate ? as wave after wave of Baggie incursions piled into his domain with all the regularity of Blackpool Beach counterparts. He only just managed to parry one Miller long-range stonker, immediately after that, rescuing the ball from further Baggie insult courtesy new arrival Moore, eagerly poised to scoop up whatever crumbs Ish had left behind.

And, as for Kim, my goodness ? even within just a few minutes of him taking to the field of play, you could sure see why Mogga had made him a Baggie, but the best bit he saved until later. In one memorable incident, not long after entry of Moore into the fray, he grabbed the ball well inside our half, then took it all the way into theirs ? well, powered it there, actually, Palace people pinging off his body left, right and centre ? and only letting rip when well within hailing distance of the Palace goal. A real screamer it was, too. Bloody hell, if THAT was what he could do when not quite au fait with our system, what were the extent of his capabilities once he WAS?

More frustration still, when a Robbo cross found Luke Moore, but he could only head well over the bar. Then Kim was in action again, turning provider for Miller to let fly from just inside the edge of the box. Then yet another attempt from the maestro himself, Kev Phillips, the effort not only coming from long-range, but taking one hell of a deflection as well, meaning the distinctly-put-upon Speroni had to shift pretty quickly to prevent late disaster befalling his side. Well, at least it made the sod think a bit!

Even as late as the moment the fourth official proffered the board ? three minutes added-on time, which sounded about right to me ? Albion were still frantically plugging away at Palace, but it just wasn?t to be. By the judicious use of means both fair and foul to do so, Palace got their point, while we dropped two of ours. Disappointing? You could say that, and what with Stoke winning the other night, it only makes the onerous task of trying to play catch-up all the more difficult for us.

Other thoughts? Jared Hodgkiss continues to build upon the excellent start he enjoyed at Bristol, although he did have his work cut out trying to cope with the sundry wiles of Palace last night. But, whether good or bad, no experience is ever wasted. He?ll learn enormously from this, and go on to become a much better player as a result.

Kiely? I could flaming strangle him, sometimes. Can?t someone make him spend several hours at our training ground practicing his kicking, and nothing else? But looking in other directions, you really do have to admire the way Kev carries on churning out the goals. With all the time in the game he?s had, and at first team level, as well, you can only marvel as to the extent of his fitness. In short, his body IS a temple, but not in any great need of the Church Restoration Fund for a while!

Funny, isn?t it? Back in the sixties, the number of players physically able to continue playing in the top flight after hitting, say, thirty, were very few indeed ? and those who did usually goalkeepers. Stanley Matthews aside, outfield players qualifying for ?granddad status? were an astronomical phenomenon. These days, a top flight career ? or as near as dammit ? come the venerable age of forty, seems to be the Holy Grail for an awful lot of players.

All to do with better knowledge of what goes on in the human body, coupled with massive advances in nutrition science, I suppose. And a distinct lack of footballers taking a ?liquid lunch? before games, something that was quite common back in the days of Jeff Astle and Co. Not Jeff himself, I hasten to add, but among quite a number of his contemporaries with other clubs.

It?s now looking bad for Chris Brunt, currently one of our most influential players. Pulled off close to half-time last night through hamstring injury, he?s now been ruled out of Saturday?s encounter with Leicester. Of all the players we could lose for that one, it just had to be HIM, didn?t it?

Morrison? The news is a little more hopeful, there: according to the club website, he?s twisted his ankle (bloody painful, that), but may be OK for Saturday, still. Even Mogga said that having one player injured, subbed, only to see the sub having to come off as well, mucked up the fluency of our play considerably. I?ll bet Colin was having a bit of a snigger when no-one was looking.

At least there?s not too much damage been done to our promotion push: a point gained (three would have been much better, of course, but we shouldn?t be too greedy, given the circumstances), so we?re still very much in touch with the top two, and with a game in hand on Watford, and two on both Stoke and Bristol City to play with as well. That?s assuming we win them, of course: to make definitive predictions at this stage would simply be courting trouble, wouldn?t it?

Back tomorrow night with a look at our next game ? providing our PC decides to behave itself, of course!

And Finally?.. One. Well done, John Homer, always ready to rise to the occasion. Early in last night?s second half: ?Oi, ref! ?Ee was so offside, ?Ee was in Rolfe Street!?.? And another gem from the same source, after he?d been rendered completely incensed by the extent of Palace?s somewhat ?robust? approach towards playing us:

(Scene-setter: A series of nasty tackles from Palace on our players, increasing in severity with each one made, the referee doing rock-all to put a stop to it, and those travel rugs and vacuum flasks in our stand being waved around with rapidly increasing red-mist fury every single time it happened ? which was quite a lot!)

John: ?We take no prisoners in the Halfords, mate?.!?

Two?. (This one comes from Jean Homer, who on becoming so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Sunday?s win, ended up having an acute attack of the Mrs. Malaprops in her local newsagents?, recently!)

To (long-suffering?) newsagent: ?Can I have a Lucky Dick for Wednesday, please??

So did the nice gentleman give you one, Jean? That?s what I want to know!

 - Glynis Wright

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