The Diary

31 March 2008: Bednar Saves Our Bacon On Saturday: 'Im Indoors Impersonates King Canute On Sunday!

Sorry for not ?producing? last night, but it?s certainly been a drama every minute in our soon-to-be-ex-ancestral pile. But of that, more in a minute. Right now, I?m still trying to recover from all the teeth-grinding angst our finest inflicted upon us before smashing-and-grabbing what surely has to be the ultimate in ?squeaky bum-time?, last-gasp three-pointers.

Yes, seeing no less than seven goals in the space of just 90 minutes is the slam-dunk ?bang for your buck? stuff of which non-Premiership legends are truly made, but many more like THAT, and you?ll have the local A and E Department complaining like buggery we?re sending them way too many cardiac cases. Slews their stats something rotten, which means they miss out on targets, a matter of much more seeming importance to hospital administrators these days than mere morbidity and mortality rates.

That win sure did come at a propitious time: it leaves us 2 points behind Hull, the real dark horses of this term?s Promotion Handicap, and three behind second-placed Stoke ? but with no less than two games in hand on them, a victory at Ninian Park next Tuesday could see us sitting very prettily indeed, not to mention having us go into our semi-final in a much more euphoric state of mind than we would have done had Colchester, and not we Baggie people, gained the day this weekend.

Bristol City?s brace versus Norwich ensured they march on at the very top of the heap. I bet the few optimists in their ranks with brass neck enough to place a tenner or so, pre-season, on the West Country club actually making it to the Greed League are walloping the old zoider fit to bust, right now. With great cries of ?Loadsamoney!? puncturing the still of the inner city night something awful, right now. Stoke? Hull? We have the advantage, remember, of games in hand.

Conclusion? It?s still there, the ultimate in wet dreams. Provided, of course, we can somehow address the real reason for our alarming dip in form, post-Christmas: our infuriating inability to defend set-pieces properly. It will not have escaped your collective attention that two of the Colchester goals came from set-pieces. And it didn?t help either to have a normally-reliable keeper seemingly rooted to the spot for one, and flapping at a punch, causing the ball to shoot high into the air ? then come down again perfectly, to fall just right for their lad to bang it in as sweet as a nut.

It?s not exactly Relativity theory, is it? Other, less entertaining, outfits manage it, and very well indeed. Just look at bloody Stoke. And, with less than seven days to go to the semi-finals, now, I can?t see there being sufficient time for Mogga to finally teach our Erring Ones the foolishness of their ways. Unless he attaches electrodes to testicles, than zaps offenders with a 240V jolt from the mains supply, every single time they displease him. Seriously, though, commit similar cock-ups next Saturday, and Harry Redknapp?s Pompey side will not only tear us to shreds, but chew us up completely, then spit out all the crunchy bits for the staff to clean up afterwards.

But all that?s to come, of course. First things first, then ? a complete record of what happened in the Wright household over the course of the last 48 hours ? and the reason for my absence last night. It all started yesterday morning, when we commenced packing operations in earnest. Because of the very short notice, the big sticking-point had been obtaining a pump with which to drain our water bed.

The people who supplied the bed to us couldn?t send anyone on the day ? notice too short, as I?d said ? but what they?d offered to do was give us the loan of one. So what happened? First thing yesterday morning they rang to say that the bloke who?d hired it previously hadn?t brought the dratted thing back! However they did assure us they?d ring once the thing was available. Well, an hour or so later, they did ring; trouble was, with time getting on, should we take their offer, and bring the thing back, knowing that we had to return it by two o?clock at the latest, or should we hang on to the thing for the afternoon, then race over to their place after the game? The deadline was 5.30 ?Blimey, talk about ?Mission Impossible?!

In the end, we plumped for the first option ? but by the time His Nibs got the pump back to our place, it was already 11 o?clock. This was going to be a close-run thing ? and don?t forget, we also wanted to make the game, as well! Thank God The Fart and his missus Dot had volunteered to help us pack, because we simply couldn?t have made this happen without their kind assistance.

Mind you, I really had to giggle when I finally came out of our ?office?: snaking in front of me, from right to left, was a bloody great length of plastic hose, and turning my head to face the bathroom door, there was The Fart ? or, to be more precise, his legs peeping somewhat coyly from behind the half-open door, and Very Strange Gurgliug Noises Indeed emanating from that direction. For a fleeting moment, the famous scene from ?Airplane? zipped though my brain, the one where Leslie Neilsen is on hands and knees, and doing strange things to the ?autopilot? ? a blow up doll. How the hell I kept my face straight when I went into that bathroom, I really don?t know.

Meanwhile, at the other end, was ?Im Indoors, who was not having a nice time of it at all. Time for The Great Battle Of The Water Bed, then ? and yet another wondrously-suggestive tableau to behold! Once more, involving a piece of plastic hose, and strange sucking noises emanating from it, and with His Nibs holding one end of it, and in very close proximity indeed! And then there was three ? me! Blimey, talk about a Den Of Iniquity - Cynthia Payne?s got nothing on our place! One of those precious moments when I?d have given a king?s ransom for accessibility to a camera. Then flogged the pictures to The News Of The Screws afterwards.

Amazingly enough, between the three of us, we managed to get the job done and dusted by one pm, after which it was one almighty rush (with El Tel in tow: Dot had made her own way home) to take the pump back, then make the 30 or so minutes trip to The Hawthorns, getting there around half-one. Amazingly enough, when we looked, more in hope than expectation, we actually found our normal parking spot still free! Had the opposition been anyone but Colchester, I reckon the situation would have been very different indeed. But who am I to argue?

Not long after that, we met up with the rest of the gang, and in the usual place. And boy ? did we need a breather after secreting all that adrenalin, then running around like blue-assed flies to return the wretched pump to its rightful owner in time. There was The Noise, with Carly and Bethany in tow, as per usual. And did our garrulous chum have a tale to tell. Apparently, just the other day, he?d been late for work, due to a traffic hold-up. But not just ANY common-or-garden snarl-up, oh dearie me no. Someone had deliberately jumped off one of the many bridges spanning the road our mouthy mucker has to travel to reach his place of daily labour. Made a right old mess on the tarmac surface, too. The bloke, I mean, not The Noise.

The best bit was the fact that The Loquacious One was still so highly indignant that the jumper had made him so late. Time to stir the pot good and proper, then?. ?Tell you what, Mart, why not start an Appointments Book and stick it up there on the bridge where people can see it? Someone comes along, wanting to top themselves, they stick their name against the appropriate slot in the book. Then, all you have to do is check the thing at regular intervals. At least you?d get a bit of warning!? Something told me that really wasn?t the sort of conversation he was looking for!

Oh, well, one does try. Not long after that, it was time to pile into the ground ? but first, a visit for all of us to Anorak?s Corner, where Steve The Miser awaited our arival. He was the bearer of our Wembley tickets, having had the things sent to his house on our behalf. At least El Tel?s rapidly-increasing anxieties about getting those precious bits of paper in time had been quelled, finally.

By now, the rain had intensified, and the mercury was dropping as fast as Northern Rock shares had, just a few calendar months ago. After visiting the ?facilities? I purchased a hot chocolate drink ? only to find, when I got to our seats, that hubby had done precisely the same thing! Which now left me with TWO drinks to shovel down before the start, one chocolate and one Bovril! It was while I was downing the chocolate that Jean, John Homer?s missus and owner of Zoltan, her notorious cat, arrived on the scene.

Apparently, just before we?d got there, poor old Vic Stirrup, one of our oldest ?proper? supporters, now well into his eighties, had fallen over and hit his head, which meant the poor sod having to go to the first aid post for treatment. Mind you, his nut must be of pretty stout construction: once he?d been patched up, he returned to his seat as if nothing had happened. What, miss a home game because of a possible serious injury? No way, Jose. Good on you, Vic ? and I hope your head?s OK now.

Well, Vic?s head might have survived the ordeal unscathed, but our defence certainly didn?t. No, they weren?t bashed on the head, but after what subsequently happened, we certainly harboured deep suspicions of that actually being the case. Team news? Two changes from the last time, Bednar and Brunt getting the nod over Miller and Pele, who both sat it out on the bench. I must say that I found the news Brunt was back absolutely brilliant: a better crosser of the ball at this level, I?ve yet to see. Very welcome indeed also was Clem, recalled from Hull City so recently: no sooner was his name announced as one of the subs, a deal of genuinely warm applause broke out around the ground, and rightly so, say I. Also welcome was James Morrison, now recovered from his ankle injury, and given a slot on the bench also.

Well, everything started with good intentions ? no sooner had the show gone on the road, we were giving the visitors something to remember us by, in the form of a defensive clanger of calamitous proportions: the predatory Brunt then hoovered up the loose ball just inside the edge of the box, then really let fly. Sadly, that effort went over, but had it gone in, it might have radically changed the ultimate course of the game so much, the question of a last-minute rescue mission might never have arisen at all.

Just a few minutes into the game, and Colchester had their first casualty in the playing ranks, the lad Baldwin. His replacement? Chap by the name of Virgo, would you believe? And I reckon that this was the moment cold common sense did a runner from our ranks, too. With around 12 minutes gone, we?d had the lion?s share of the play, so were looking pretty good to win this one in a walk ? but what was to happen next shook us all completely rigid. Even the Bloke In Front Of Me was stunned into complete silence, a phenomenon of almost astronomic rarity, as far as we were concerned.

Remember what I said about defending set-pieces - or NOT, as was the case this time? This latest in an ever-increasing series of defensive gaffes came from a corner: clearly, someone hadn?t been communicating properly, because once the ball came over, Coyle was given sufficient space to bang the ball over the line from close range ? and all with Kiely rooted to the spot as if planted there by some particularly short-sighted member of the Percy Thrower persuasion. It was just like twisting some volume control right back to zero: one minute there was the roar of the crowd giving it big licks, the next, stunned silence, plain and simple.

And even worse was to come. Just a minute or so later, the visitors went and did it again. Not from a set-piece, this time, but open play. I?m afraid Dean Kiely might well have to hold his hands up for this one. Ifill was the villain of the piece insofar as it was the deadly accuracy of his cross that caused our custodian to exhibit behaviour more in keeping with that of a squaddie trying to get rid of a hand grenade with the safety pin pulled. One ineffectual flap from our keeper, and the ball went soaring high into the air ? but still it remained within the bounds of our own box. Mother Gravity reclaimed it just as swiftly, of course, but only to put it straight into the path of Colchester?s Ellito, who must have thought it was his birthday again. From a range of about six yards, it was pretty hard not to score- and that?s precisely what he did. Having seen both goals go in at their end, and perceiving, rightly or wrongly, that the blame for what had happened most certainly lay in his direction, for a while after that, every single time the poor sod ended up in possession of the ball, he was ?serenaded? with an absolute torrent of boos and cat-calls, most of which came from the Brummie.

After experiencing those twin hammer-blows, we did regain some confidence, eventually, to the extent that Kev Phillips actually hit the post ? it was a perfect indicator of the way our luck was running that when it did so, the ball dropped to the ground, but at such a peculiar angle, it bounced right onto their stranded keeper?s back, then away for a corner. Nine times out of ten, that ball would have crossed the line from that bounce, no messing ? but this is Albion, remember!

And on the opposing side was relegation-bound Colchester, remember? But try as we might, we just couldn?t break them down. Frustrating, or what? It?s at times like these that a game screams out something awful for a hero ? and who better to assume that role but Kev Phillips, who certainly didn?t make any mistake this time! Kev?s face-saving strike came with the right-flanked assistance of Hoefkens, whose ball fell just nicely for our man to swoop in from the far post as quick as you like, and with about the length of a 74 bus between him and the nearest opposing defender. Better, Albion, much better.

The equaliser came with around five minutes to go to the break. And what a beauty of an equaliser it was, too, with the recently-wounded soldier letting fly from the edge of the box, and the hapless Gerken getting himself into a right old pickle trying to stop it going in. But go in it well and truly did: suddenly, the place was a-jumpin? again, and now it was the visitors? turn to look worried. Certainly Philips could have added yet another one to the ?body count? for the current season, his effort only coming at the end of some delightful ?pass-and-move? stuff on the part of our finest. Never mind, though: at least some face had been saved, at least for the moment.

When both sides emerged from their half-time potations, the board indicated a subbing. Ours, in fact, and theirs. On came Clem, for Cesar, and for the visitors, Kem Izzet replaced main-man Ellito. And once more, we went at Colchester hell for leather in the vague hope of hitting them hard enough to perforate their defence again. Clem was about the closest, his ?edge of the box? jobbie giving our long-suffering groundsman no option but to make a mental note about doing running repairs to our sorely-tested woodwork after the final whistle. Then, not long after that, it was Robbo?s turn to miss catastrophically. But let?s not be too hard on the lad; earlier in the game still, the poor sod went and split his head open: mopping-up operations quickly commenced, and quite near where we sit, too. Such is the generosity of the blood supply to that region of the body, the actual amount is invariably nowhere near half as bad as it looked before. Head almost completely buried by all those dressings and bandages, by then, our hero quickly regained his composure, something we were exceedingly grateful for at the time.

Once more, we bombarded the Colchester defence; high balls, low balls, middlin? to diddlin? ones, they all gave the U?s aerial grief, and setting up chances for us a couple of times, too. First of, the normally-dependable Bednar contrived to miss from close-in: a striking cock up of Kanu proportions, it really was. After that, Gerken showed he knew his onions, denying Bednar with a truly magnificent stop. Just what did we have to do to get that bloody winner?

At least their gaffer, Geraint Williams, wasn?t saying all that much by that time. He?d let rip at the fourth official one time too many, so got ?sent off? for his pains! Well, sent to sit a few rows further back, actually, because of refurbishment work putting the VIP area out of bounds to everyone, lippy managers included.

And, talking of ? erm ? talkers, spare a few piteous thoughts for the BIFOM: once rendered completely mute of malice, all we could get out of him by that point in the game were somewhat inarticulate growls. Of agony? Despair? God knows. Oh, well, it DID make a change. As did the complete absence from the scene of another trainee-Jonah, the chap who sits to the other side of our chums, the one I tend to call ?The Walking Lump Of Misery?. You thought the BIFOM was bad? Believe you me, compared to the other guy, every single moment of a game represents naught but sweetness and love in his angst-ravaged head!

Up until this point in the game, Colchester had been content to fight like grim death in the hope of salvaging the point. Was it for that reason Mogga decided to change it by removing Hoefkens in order to get Miller onto the pitch and strutting his stuff? That gave us, in theory, at least, one hell of a strikeforce, enough to blitz most defences, in fact. But with typical Albion perversity, the subbing only seemed to make things go disastrously wrong again. You don?t need to be Einstein to work out what went amiss to give the visitors a lead, and with what must have been their only clear-cut chance of the half, just to add insult to injury.

Yup ? a set-piece again, giving the U?s the simplest of tasks in prodding the ball across the line from very close range indeed. You might also want to ask another obvious question, too: where the bloody hell were the sodding markers when the ball came over? It wasn?t too surprising that once again, you could have heard a pin drop in that ground. Typical Albion: defensive form about as capricious as the intensity of the wind that was swirling rain in just about every direction it could. Yuk.

Once more, Colchester, so determined to make those three precious points theirs this time, pushed just about everyone they could behind the ball in order to achieve their aim. And, with the clock ticking relentlessly downwards all the time, the pressure was upon us, all the way. People were leaving in droves, now, and most of ?em muttering darkly about the capacity of our favourite football club to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In fact I?d resigned myself to seeing our promotion hopes crumble to dust, so when the fourth official held up the board displaying the figure ?4? on it, I simply did the ?yeah, yeah? thing.

Big mistake. That was the moment Chris Brunt put us well and truly back in the running, courtesy his superb pass enabling Morrison to let fly with an absolute scorcher that gave poor Gerken one hell of a (pickle?) jar as it ?whooshed? past his head. ?Ok, I?ll have the point,? thought I. But the best was yet to come?.

Just a couple of minutes later, another Brunt cross set up that man Bednar very nicely indeed, the latter nutting home the winner in very fine style indeed. Blimey, you should have seen the rugs and vacuum flasks go up in the air when the ball crossed the line! As for this column, all I could come up with was: ?You jammy b******s!....? And not just the once: it got the treatment at least five times, if my recollection is correct.

As for the scorer, such was his delight at grabbing the winner, he celebrated by taking off his shirt in front of the Brummie. Not a wise thing to do: these days, you can kick someone to Kingdom Come, and earn only a finger-wagging from the man in charge. Take off your shirt, however, and it?s a yellow card every time. Yes, I know, it?s come from the top, but you really would think they?d got far more pressing issues to cogitate upon these days, wouldn?t you? Oh, and another thought. Serves all those silly sods who left well before the 90 minutes were up jolly well right, I say!

All there was left to do after that was play out the remaining couple of minutes, which we managed to do without too much in the way of accompanying angst. Poor Colchester. They?d given it their best shot, but it wasn?t enough. They?d probably consigned themselves to the lower division with that defeat, but as far as we were concerned, the late winner had perked up our own prospects no end. It?s a funny old game, football, isn?t it?

As I said on Friday, I?ll be ?off the air? until after we move to our new place, come the 1st of April. (All right, don?t all shout out at once!?.) All being well, I hope to be back in action come Friday night, and nicely in time to do a bit of Wembley scene-setting. Fingers crossed, then!

And Finally?.. One. APOLOGY CORNER?.. This one?s for Sauce. I somehow cocked up the date of Albion?s reserve Cup Final versus Morecambe when the lad phoned me with the details, so this is the corrected version. Coaches depart on the 21st of April, not the 25th, as previously stated. As ever, Sauce will oblige with further details, should you need them: ring 0779 0396316 and he?ll be all ears, I promise!

Two. Now for the rest of our ?domestic disaster drama?. That very same evening, my back started to play up something rotten again. I can only assume that the trigger factor had been my providing assistance to shift dismantled pieces of wardrobe downstairs that very same morning. Not very heavy at all: it was the awkward shape of the things that proved troublesome. No help for it, then, but to pop my painkillers. And THAT, dear reader, was sufficient to send me to sleep from around nine in the evening to about five in the morning, on our sofa, still, and surrounded by indignant moggies!

The next morning was like something out of a comedy show. Let me set the scene: take one dishwasher, one hubby with both a spanner and the resolve to disconnect it from the water supply, and me, reading Sunday papers next door. There I was, happily digesting one of our match reports, when, suddenly, there came an agonized wail of ?BOSS! BOSS! QUICK!....?

Well, my beloved wasn?t about to make nice remarks about the weather, of that I was certain, so I dashed as fast as my legs would take me, instead. And found my other half hanging on like grim death to said inlet, from which was gushing a steady stream of water. And the kitchen resembling a miniature boating lake as well.

Now for the best bit??.. ?Im Indoors thought the problem lay in the inability of the dishwasher to drain down, so in order to get things going faster, he took the washer off completely. Big mistake. The sourse of the flow wasn?t the dishwasher, as thought, but the flaming mains supply instead. And that, dear reader, was why I suddenly found myself stretched right over said appliance, and trying like buggery to stretch the offending bit of tubing as far as the sink, while my other half frantically searched in the cupboard beneath for the stopcock. Which he couldn?t find.

And, worse still, Nature chose that very moment to inform the lad that he needed to go to the toilet. To do a dump. And not ?later?, but NOW. And when I say ?now? I really do mean ?now?. And yes, I did feel a right prune adopting the tasteful pose dictated to me by the sheer perversity of the cold water supply, and the rate at which the stuff was gushing from that mortally-insulted bit of tubing. As for the state of the kitchen floor, once we?d finally brought everything under control, let?s just say that Noah would have found the arrangement quite congenial for both him and his massive menagerie!

Three?.. I can?t possibly sign off without recording a thundering big ?thank you? to The Fart and his missus Dot. What we would have done without their help on Saturday morning, I really don?t know. Not only did they provide valuable assistance through the aforementioned water bed crisis (and numerous smaller ones, too!), but they also helped clear various parts of our house, then pack the various bits and bobs into boxes. And shift our enormous collection of books into boxes as well. Once more, genuinely sincere gratitude to the pair of you goes out via this column. You were great, guys, you really were.

 - Glynis Wright

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