The Diary

07 May 2008: Spoilsports Albion Say No To Civic Reception. Just One Question: WHY?

Greetings once more. Having spent the better part of three days mentally cruising at 35,000 feet, I guess now?s a good time as any to commence rapid descent to ground-level once more. And in this, I was ably assisted by our very own football club, who have in their wisdom decided that there WON?T be a civic reception and open-topped bus tour of the borough after all! Let me repeat that ? the knock-back came NOT from the council, but from Albion themselves!

Tonight, on TV, I saw bloody Stoke City preparing for their own Civic Reception and bus drive through the Potteries, and shocking feelings of envy pulsed right through my entire circulatory system, right there and then. It?s bad enough to see them consistently get the better of us in the normal course of League business, without them flaunting their newly-won status on local TV stations, by holding what roughly approximated to a Nuremburg Rally right outside their own Town Hall!

I don?t quite know how you lot out there regard Albion?s strange refusal to participate, but speaking as a veteran supporter of well over 40 years standing (my customary ?thousand-yard-stare? is the dead giveaway, folks!) quite honestly, I now harbour quite a strong feeling of having been cheated of my birthright. And feeling quite sad about it, too.

Sure, I know it?s been a long, hard season, and with a fair number of our players being of foreign extraction, they now regard family as their main close-season priority, but would it have hurt that much for them to delay their scattering to the four corners of the globe for just a piffling 24 or 48 hours? After all, our marathon 88-year wait for any League title whatsoever was considerably longer than that for the merest glimpse of Halley?s Comet, orbital period a comparatively piddling 76 years, next scheduled reappearance, 2061!

Remember this: these days, such a function is pretty much the only way we footsloggers can collectively say ?thank you? to Tony Mowbray and his troops for a quite amazing ending to such an enthralling, entertaining season. Ever since our first elevation to the Prem, some six seasons ago, contacting the dead via the use of a talented medium suddenly became a much more viable proposition than that of trying to access our own players, whose public appearances quickly became strictly rationed, and either policed by Albion?s own PR people, or under the strict control of a Supporters Club who, quite understandably, didn?t want to rock the boat, be it by asking players awkward questions themselves, or permitting others to do so from the floor.

Had our elevation been ?done and dusted? several weeks before the end of term, I would have understood completely; human nature being what it is, you?d rightly assume that ?stir-crazy? players and their families would have patronised the premises of upmarket travel agents in stampeding hordes long before now.

But, think on a minute. It was only about ten days ago that it finally dawned upon us all that promotion was, more or less, a done deal; ?twas that nerve-tingling Southampton home draw that represented the crucial ?one last heave?, leaving our nearest rivals saddled with the almost impossible task of digging up 12 goals from somewhere to nick our place. The title, amazing as it was, simply represented ?the cherry atop the icing on the cake?. I cannot believe for one minute that our players, in their entirety, managed to completely finalise their family close-season holiday arrangements in the space of just over seven days: sorry, but as far as this column is concerned, it simply beggars belief! So what?s the REAL reason, Albion? Or is that yet another issue where the truth will only emerge after the passage of several months/years?

But onto other matters. In my previous post, I speculated upon the probability of my old chum Nigel Johnson managing to blag a QPR ticket from somewhere around their ground, his own, purchased for the home end, having been previously ?sussed? by Rangers people cross-checking with Albion?s database. You?ll also remember my final comment apropos the lad having a surplus of brass neck to manage it, one way or another.

Much to my surprise, today, I received an email from the lad himself. Apparently, despite his name turning up on Rangers? ?Verboten? list, he still managed to get in - and with the original ticket, too! How come? The lad told me that when he went in, he had to show his ticket to a steward armed with the aforementioned list of ?undesirables? ? but astonishingly, they left things as they were, so Nige was able to watch the game after all, without let or hindrance, albeit from the home end.

Apparently, his biggest problem during the game and subsequent presentation was keeping his mouth shut. Quite a formidable one, at that: on a ?bad day?, Nige?s conversational efforts can surpass even those of The Noise, in the ?chronic verbosity? stakes. How the hell he kept control of his emotions when our players finally lifted the trophy, he still can?t understand, even now!

After all the jollifications had concluded, Nige then made his way back to the Springbok pub, where he met up with Cliff Crancher, the chap to whom he?d donated a second ticket in that end, both staying to watch Man City-Liverpool together. So deliriously happy was Cliff at being able to witness our triumph in the flesh, courtesy that donated ticket, it was a very cheap time in that pub for Our Nige, apparently!

Once our man had fully restored blood-alcohol levels to their pre-match values, and despite becoming distinctly unbalanced by that time, he then set out for the Wetherspoon pub situated in Shepherds Bush Green, where a mate of his awaited his presence. It was while he was there that he came across ? erm ? ?someone with Albion connections?, shall we say? Apparently, Rangers hadn?t been completely stupid about the ticketing wheeze perpetrated by our more desperate kinsfolk. What they?d done was have contingency plans ready for housing around 200 of our people in possession of ?naughty? tickets, in a pre-designated area, should that prove necessary.

After a somewhat bibulous interlude, Nige then decided it was high time he returned to the bosom of his wife and family. Making it to Marylebone Station in good time for the last train to Banbury, even at that late hour, he found it populated with Baggies. But there was something much, much better just around the corner. Quite literally, in fact! Before departure, three Dingles turned up, fresh from the train just arrived from Brum! Needless to say, within a matter of microseconds, the Baggie gloat-rate soared astronomically! Sounded like the end of a perfect day, to me!

A few more words, now, about another reply I received from a Baggie wanting to enlighten me further on an Albion-related issue mentioned recently in this piece. Remember how I maintained, in one of my more recent offerings, that back in 1954, Wolves had effectively robbed us of a League and Cup double, by employing skullduggery considerably out of keeping with the prevalent sporting attitudes of that time?

This evening saw the arrival of a piece from Stuart and Liz Russell, in which they sought to challenge the accepted belief of many Baggies of that era, i.e. they were well and truly stitched up or, to use the modern equivalent of the stock phrase of the mid-fifties, ?swizzled out of it?.

So what do they have to say about such vile accusations? They maintain it?s simply not true about the Wolves' situation in 1954. Certainly, the Baggies had two men - Allen and Nicholls - at Hampden Park, but Wolves also had Wright and Mullen - and possibly one other - playing for England that day, so ?conspiracy theories don't hold water, I'm afraid?. Furthermore, they both maintain that we lost the league primarily because we became too preoccupied with the FA Cup.

The evidence for the prosecution? After winning our quarter-final, we then went on to triumph in just two of our last nine League games, scoring 6 goals and conceding 21. That included a 5-0 defeat at Chelsea, and a 6-1 at Villa Park - where we were 5-1 down at half-time, in one of the most depressing afternoons of the writer?s life, and where ?some specimen of half-life called Joe Tyrell scored four against us - and was never heard of again?!

Stuart and Liz say they lived that season more than any other in their entire Albion-supporting history, but still maintain that while we played some of the best football they?d ever seen: ?In the final analysis we weren't a great team - no side that capitulates so completely towards the end of a campaign, where there's still everything to play for, deserves the adjective "great", and certainly not one that loses a "must-win" game 6-1 to a Villa side, for whom the adjective "mediocre" would have been a compliment.? But they still assert that the 1954 side did have the two best players they?d seen at the Hawthorns - Ray Barlow and Ronnie Allen - well ahead of their great successor pairs, Astle and Hope, Robson and Regis.

Having been brought up as a Baggie with accusations of 1950?s sharp practice, courtesy what we now call the Dingles, still ringing in my ears, and even though some 54 years have elapsed since the issue was a ?live? one, their alleged skullduggery that season is still a piece of controversy quite capable of raising the hackles of veteran supporters sky-high, even now. And it?s still taken as an article of faith that those England selectors who were Dingles, deliberately engineered their choices, thereby ensuring that thanks to players having to appear for extra games at international level that season, we were effectively rendered incapable of grabbing the League title, as well as the FA Cup. Any thoughts from the floor? Further comments, especially from Baggies who were around at the time, most welcome indeed.

And Finally?.. I had hoped to do one last column of the season, concerning a certain open-topped bus tour and Civic Reception in Oldbury Town Hall, but for obvious reasons, that won?t be happening any more. What I would like to say, though, is a massive ?thank you? to all those nice Baggie people who provided me with sufficient input to keep things bubbling nicely, so to speak, throughout the season. And another big ?thank you? to all those Albionites who said such nice things about my column over the course of the season just gone. It?s really nice to know that someone who?s NOT a manufacturer of cat food loves you!

It?s been a long nine months, and with a hellish number of hard knocks to endure, too, but we triumphed in the end, didn?t we? I salute every single one of you, and greatly look forward to renewing our mutual acquaintanceship in the Premier League. I?m getting a distinct feeling in my water that with Mogga?s far more sensitive - not to mention sensible - man-management input, this time round, we?ll make a far better fist of it than we ever did under the two previous Premier League managerial incumbents. We live in interesting times indeed.

As for this column, ?Im Indoors and myself are both scooting off to La Belle France at the end of the month, so I can ?ruin the French language? that little bit more, if only to completely spite the dragon of a teacher that once told my fortune in such depressing terms. Just before I was due to take my (failed) GCE in the subject as well.

The teacher is now long gone, but having since travelled extensively to parts of the world where French is the ?official? language spoken, and having made myself perfectly understood every single time, I sure as hell know who?s had the last laugh!)

Additionally, having just knocked off the previous one in just two months flat, I?m just about to start yet another OU course, one about cardiac and circulatory disease, and all the numerous side-issues serious illness of that nature chucks up. So, all in all, it?s going to be a pretty busy close-seasonal break for yours truly. Can?t wait to pen my inaugural piece of a new Baggie era, coming to a football ground near you around three months from now. For the moment, then - Bye y?all!

 - Glynis Wright

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