The Diary

16 February 2004: The Fart Achieves Journalistic Greatness!

Hi, once more. Today, I begin by saluting Terry Wills, aka The Fart, who can now boast being a contributor to The Observer?s sagacious sports supplement. Don?t believe me? Just get a copy and see for yourself. No, actually, what happened was, one of their hacks rang our tame old codger last night to grab an ?informed opinion? on yesterday?s game from him; they do have a dinky little vox-pop section in those pages dedicated to the Nationwide, and what they do post-match is contact ?well-known? supporters (no, the word ?notorious? never once entered my brain, so there!) and get their snap-summary of events, which they then reproduce. The result was, there was Terry?s name on the hallowed pages of the Observer this morning, and that?s more than either of us Dick Eds have ever achieved. Must have got Tel all nostalgic for the time the posh bloke from the Times interviewed him in the trenches ? the Crimean ones, that was. Note well, fellow Baggies, when purchasing your Dick from The Fart at Bramall Lane next Saturday, you will be in the presence of literary greatness (and probably an OAP?s bus pass, if he?s gone and mislaid the sodding thing yet again!).

While we?re on the subject of newspapers, I was particularly puzzled by The Sunday Times hack?s reference to our side being largely unchanged since last time round. Blimey, he couldn?t have done his research all that deeply, then; a quick glance in the programme would have told the guy that of the side we put out yesterday, only Clem, Big Dave, AJ, Koumas, and Hughsie were regular first stringers last term. All the others ? Haas, Kinsella, Gaardsoe, Robinson, The Horse ? were picked up either during the summer break, or earlier this season. Murph was on our books last term, of course, but because of Houlty?s blinding form between the sticks, he hardly got a look-in, poor lad, and wouldn?t have done so for this encounter had Houlty not gone and done painful things to his lumbar regions last week. As for Lloyd Dyer, the Wigan League Cup game apart, he never got a look-in either. Oh, one other thought about young Lloyd. His recent breakthrough into the first team was particularly fortuitous; had he not done so, it?s a pretty safe bet he would have ended up in Hereford?s ranks either by now, or come the end of the current campaign. At least, that?s what Bulls (and ex-Baggies) coach Richard O?Kelly intimated to us at the recent Kiddy branch meeting.

Continuing on the journalistic front, it was awfully nice of Cardiff gaffer Lennie Lawrence to tip us for an eventual top spot finish on the Teamtalk website. Blimey, it?s a good job he didn?t see us at Deepdale, then; it can be safely said that one thing we most certainly didn?t look like there were league champions in-waiting. I?ve also been trolling around on the Cardiff unofficial site, well, their message board, actually, and there are a fair number of posts from Baggies displeased by their followers? Neanderthal antics of yesterday. ?Sorry to any normal Cardiff fans,? said one particularly annoyed Albion supporter, ?But I will be pressing for a reduction in your ticket allocation in future. You are the worst away fans seen at the Hawthorns in twenty years. How dare you cause so much trouble, your working class scummy National Front-like attitude is a throwback to the 1970s. No wonder no one likes you. Bad smell, bad taste, you?re not welcome.? Summed the whole thing up quite admirably, I thought.

There was also mention made of an incident that occurred on the M5 traffic island shortly before kick-off, when a coachload of Cardiff supporters disembarked there, and were met by a bunch of so-called Albion supporters seemingly hell-bent on slaughter. Call me naive or whatever, but I find it very difficult to believe there were groups of Baggies waiting there on the (very remote) off-chance some of the opposition followers were going to abandon their transport at that precise spot. Sounds a tad pre-arranged to me. There were also several Baggie visitors to the site rubbing some Welsh noses into the ground on account of the payback Hughsie gave ?em for the constant vicious chanting they indulged in concerning Lee?s recent off-field problems, and, of course, the bother they caused in the Smethwick. As I said to ?Im Indoors shortly after Hughsie had put the ball into the back of the net, ?That?ll teach the buggers not to fart in church!?

So what else have we been up to today? As my other half had oodles of fanzine stuff to sort out this Sabbath, we didn?t travel all that far in search of culinary excellence; normally, we shift ourselves into the Worcestershire countryside to do that, but on this occasion we elected to sample the nearer delights of The Garden House on Hagley Road instead. Yes, I know, the name does suggest the presence of a Chinese eatery there, but nothing could be further from the truth. It?s a pukka English pub, gets its name from the enormous garden at the rear of the premises, but is very strong on the gastronomic front. A shame, then, that their till computers went totally ?up the Sewanee? the precise moment we walked into the place, and the flustered staff ? shock! horror! ? then had to resort to good old-fashioned pen and paper, and, much worse, a calculator, or the archaic practice of having to do lots of sums in their heads to take the food and drinks orders correctly, and calculate change etc.

According to what my other half told me when he returned with our pre-prandial drinkipoos, some of the counter staff seemed to be undergoing something of a mental meltdown at the mere thought of having to use their brains for once, which I found rather amusing, having served behind a bar myself long before the mighty microprocessor was even thought of. Which brings me to an interesting fact culled from my vast repository of useless information; nothing at all to do with football, mind, but dead true, all the same. Did you know that had someone stuck one of the common-or-garden calculators used today into the sticky mitts of moon-landers Armstrong, Aldrin and Jones, circa 1969, they wouldn?t have had a sodding clue as to how the thing actually worked? All the electronic gadgetry in their Apollo spacecraft relied on the humble transistor, and the silicon chip was but a distant prospect at that time!

Returning to the beautiful game once more, tomorrow sees the stiffs in action once more, but at Kiddy this time. The opposition are Everton; no Wayne Rooney this time round, presumably, but one thing?s certain. Because of our current embarrassment of playing riches, our second-string will be absolutely stuffed full with players boasting yonks of senior-side experience between them. Presumably Skoubo and Facey will figure, just to keep their playing hand in, and we might (should?) also get a chance to see new loan keeper Pressman in action as well. Rob Hulse completed his suspension this Saturday just gone, so he might get a game in order to well and truly shift the barnacles from his botty. In midfield/defence, we?ve more bodies than you can shake a stick at right now, so look out for the likes of ginger-nut James O?Connor there, one Chambo or another, maybe both, Volmer, N?Dour, and Gilly.

And, of course, there?s Kiddy?s excellent match catering to sample; it truly has to be consumed to be believed. In fact, on Midlands Today recently, I saw the bloke responsible brewing a batch of their justly-famous soup for the benefit of the cameras. Not only that, there will, of course, be the stimulating company and conversation provided by some of the most ardent Baggies-nuts I?ve ever come across in my entire supporting life. Add to that their uniquely-warped sense of humour, and we should be in for a cracker of an evening, irrespective of whatever happens on the pitch. We Dick Eds will be there, of course, and we?ll be posting a blow-by-blow account of events on this site on our return. Until then, tara.

 - Glynis Wright

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