The Diary

09 February 2004: Broken Bones, Blades, And Black Footballers

Hello, my leetle Baggie-peeps. Time for yet another Sunday evening?s discourse on Saturday?s game and related subjects, I suppose. A day of rest for most of us, maybe, but almost certainly not so for our finest, who were probably made to bitterly regret their rapid acquisition of non-combatant status at Deepdale yesterday. By the way, while we?re on the subject, I?ve now learned a little more about the injury that forced Preston to have their ex-Man city defender Dickson Etuhu stretchered off so soon after the start. As I?d suspected, he?s broken his leg, in this case, his fibula. That?s the one at the back of the shinbone, just in case you treated biology lessons in much the same manner as I treated needlework classes when at school, i.e. total mystification. Interesting, though; that would suggest someone either clobbered him from behind, or got him sideways on, it?s a relatively thin structure when compared to the tibia, and doesn?t take too kindly to knocks, but, to be fair, I didn?t see any skulduggery at the time, and no-one started to get uppity afterwards (normal practice when a player suffers serious injury as a result of thuggish opposition tactics), so I guess my initial surmise the whole thing was an accident, pure and simple, was correct.

Still, when you look at Sheffield United?s woes, as Albert Einstein was wont to say (when he wasn?t inventing nuclear physics, that was), ?it?s all relative?. Blimey, their followers, who have a reputation of being about as stable as an upturned pyramid, even at the best of times, must be really steaming right now. That?s three on the bounce they?ve lost, to date, and they won?t be participating in next Saturday?s ?excuse me? in the First Division Ball for the simple reason they?re hosting Colchester United in FA Cup Round 5 instead, so that?ll give then a game in hand, but if they?re still occupied in a cup run when they do come to play catch-up, and they blow it (or even if they aren?t and they still do, if you get my drift), it might just turn as pear-shaped for them as it did last time round.

As we?re scheduled to play them the week after that (Warnock?s lot, that is, not the East Anglians!), it could go a couple of ways. If Colchester manage to wipe the smile off their rotten little faces by getting a replay, or better, then we might see the Bramall Lane backlash. Ouch. Should The Blades progress, on the other hand, we?ll either get the chance to make hay while the sun shines courtesy ?After The Lord Mayor?s Show Syndrome?, or we?ll get nuked. Interesting, though, that when they lost to Palace yesterday, they fell victim to the visitors getting the ball on the flanks, then steaming off in the direction of goal like an express train with the brakes buggered; try as they might ? knowing Warnock as we do from past experience, no doubt the ?stoppers? did include methods of dubious legality in their ?repertoire?? their efforts had about as much effect on Palace as trying to stop Niagara falling.

Having heard all that earlier today, my immediate thought was, ?Lloyd Dyer?! He was made for that sort of thing, and, should we need his presence to keep out the ravening Blades hordes at any time, his previous experience as a full-back should suit us no end. Will we have the guts to play him from the ?off? and throw caution to the winds by doing so, I wonder? We?ve already seen this season ? Wigan, away, springs to mind - what can happen when you pay the opposition a back-handed compliment by putting out a side seemingly intent on grabbing a single point only; Albion, please note.

Palace, who now have an incredible away record ? W8 D2 L6 = 26 points, compared to our W7 D4 L4 = 25 points - are rapidly acquiring a deserved reputation as the outfit most likely to sneak into the play-offs without anyone really noticing they?ve gone and done it; as I?ve said before, every season, there?s always one surprise packet that finds itself in the top six come the end of term. Incidentally, returning to the subject of the Blades once more ? sorry, kangaroo mind, must be all that time spent in Oz! - I?ve now learned that our favourite football club have asked United for around 2,000 more tickets; if we do manage to flog that lot in addition to the ones we?ve had already, it?ll mean both the upper and lower tiers in that away end will contain oodles of Baggies on the day of our lovers? tryst. Let?s hope our finest truly appreciate this, and don?t let us down in similar fashion to yesterday?s distinctly-underwhelming Deepdale performance.

So, what else have we been up to today, then? Apart from snarling at the Sunday newspapers ? and giggling mightily at the accounts of The Dingles getting turned over by the Arse, to every cloud there is a ray of sunshine! ? we spent most of this afternoon at Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Not normally my bag, this haunting of places where conspicuous consumption goes on in heaps, but we?d been given gift vouchers for Chrimble, the pair of us, and today seemed a good sort of time to cash ?em in. ?Im Indoors went for some very expensive ?mens? fragrance? he?s partial to ? blimey, for what it cost, you would have thought it was heavy water he was taking home, not a nice pong ? and I went in for a couple of books (yes, more to go in our bookcases!) I spotted in Waterstones.

After we?d made our purchases, we decided to go to Giordano?s, an Italian caf? in the centre of the place, for a bite to eat, and while I was waiting for ?Im Indoors to return with the goods, I happened to notice a nearby display; what caught my eye were the images of what were clearly footballers dotted around the text. Did I point this out to my other half when he came back? Come on; is the Pope a Catholic? Naturally, when we?d finished noshing, we decided to investigate further, and what we found proved thought-provoking, to say the least. The whole thing, lock stock and barrel, was dedicated to black footballers; not just the present crowd, but to those who?d paved the way in years gone by, and naturally, our football club ? Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson, but no Laurie Cunningham, curiously enough - featured prominently.

While we were there, another name caught my eye, and it was that of Walter Tull. He, too, was a black footballer, but there was far more than that about his life, which was absolutely fascinating, and richly deserves a further airing in this piece. Sent with his brother to a Bethnal Green orphanage at the age of 10 (his parents came to Britain from Barbados in 1876; both his mother and father died a few years later), Walter later served an apprenticeship as a printer, and played for the then Clapton Orient in his spare time. In 1908, he signed for Spurs, but he wasn?t this country?s first black pro, that honour went to Darlo and Preston North End keeper Arthur Wharton. He was, however, the first black outfield player, and because of the novelty-value, and because of his undoubted skill in the inside-left (attacking midfield!) position, he attracted considerable media attention at the time.

Everything was going well for the bloke, then, in 1909, while playing against Bristol City, he was racially abused by supporters in what The Football Star called ?language lower than Billingsgate?. This must have really upset him, because he only made three first-team appearances the following season. The season after that, he was sold to Northampton Town. There, he played 110 first team games for The Cobblers, mostly at wing-half (defensive midfield!). In 1914, he was on the point of signing for Glasgow Rangers, when an assassin?s bullet at Sarajevo intervened. Walter then enlisted in the 17th (First Footballers? Battalion) of the Middlesex Regiment, and served alongside many other pros signed up for the duration. His leadership qualities must have been outstanding even then, because by 1916, he was a sergeant. Don?t forget, he was black, and his comrades were white. At the time, there was a reluctance to put blacks in positions of responsibility; the authorities, fearing white solders would refuse to obey orders coming from a black NCO, considered it bad for discipline. Certainly, he must have distinguished himself in battle pretty quickly: as I understand it, he took part in the first battle of The Somme, which was no picnic, around 25,000 British troops died on the opening day of that campaign alone.

Towards the end of 1916, he was invalided home with trench fever, and, incredibly, then sent to Scotland to train as an officer, which was something totally unprecedented in the Army at that time. Indeed, the 1914 Manual Of Military Law specifically prohibited ?Negroes? from exercising ?actual command? as officers, so his leadership qualities must have stuck out like a sore thumb for his officers to even consider recommending him in the first place. Remember, though, this was late 1916, the country was haemorrhaging fit young men something rotten, suitable candidates for commissions were extremely thin on the ground, and, black or not, someone of Tull?s calibre would have been lapped up like gravy. Presumably, some crusty old colonels in the War Office must have blanched at what the selection board had done ? as I said, it simply wasn?t done in those days ? but more enlightened sections of the army had realised by that time it needed good leaders, no matter what their class or background.

Once gazetted as a second lieutenant, Tull was sent to the Italian front (they were on our side in that one!) to serve in the Middlesex Regiment once more. It wasn?t long before he was mentioned in despatches (one step short of an actual ?gong?) for his ?gallantry and coolness? during the Battle of Piave. In 1918, his regiment returned to France, where they fought in the second Battle Of The Somme. The end of the war was near, but sadly, on March 25th of that year, he went ?over the top? once more, and was killed in no-man?s land near a village called Favreuil. The remarkable thing was, once his men realised their lieutenant had ?gone west?, to use the popular expression of the time, several of them tried to bring in his body, and some of them were wounded by German machine-gun fire in doing so. A better testament to his exceptional leadership skills you couldn?t wish for. One of his peers in the Mess later wrote, ?An officer and a gentleman, every inch of the way.? His colonel certainly thought highly of him, ?How popular he was throughout the battalion,? he wrote to Walter?s brother, Edward, ?He was brave and conscientious. The battalion have lost a faithful officer, and I have lost a personal friend.?

In 1998, Northampton Town opened a Memorial Garden in Walter?s name; it lies next to the Sixfield Community Stadium, should anyone want to look it up before taking in a game there. I?m sure you won?t mind me taking up so much column space with this story; it?s just that I felt it deserved a wider airing among our supporters.

And finally?. Still waters certainly run deep, and all that jazz! Yesterday, I mentioned The Fart starring in a Pathe Newsreel in the late fifties; what I didn?t tell you was the background to that story, which Mr. Wills most unwisely revealed to me today by email! As I said previously, the film star in question, one Martine Carroll, visited the Cinephone Cinema in the late 50?s, but what El Tel ?forgot? to say was that when it first opened, this particular picture palace had an unenviable reputation as a haunt of the ?dirty mac brigade?! According to our venerable co-editor, Martine was born in 1922, and died in 1967. Christened under the family name of Maryse Mourer, she ? erm ? ?starred? in 'The Beach' (1954), 'Nana' (1955), 'Action of the Tiger' (1957), 'Ten Seconds to Hell' (1959), 'Le Cave Se Rebiffe' (1956), and 'Hell is empty (1966). Ooh la la, draw your own conclusions from the titles ? and stop it this instance, it?ll make you go blind, do you hear!

 - Glynis Wright

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