The Diary

08 October 2005: Some Albion News, 1914 And Now.

Back once more to round everything up before proceeding in the direction of our holiday home for the last time this year, and what a response I had to my last column, the one in which I suggested that the considerable expense incurred was making away trips more of a lurk than a lark these days. Lots of you good folkies out there totally agreed with what I had to say on the subject; in fact, a significant proportion also said that rocketing costs were forcing them to carefully pick and choose their away trips too, so it isn?t just me, then, is it?

Scale up the responses I received, and it becomes immediately clear that unless something drastic is done, and soon, supporters of Premiership clubs will vote with their feet in increasing numbers. It only takes sufficient willpower to break the habit but once: that particular Rubicon?s been crossed, it then becomes as easy as Larry for supporters to subsequently say ?Soddit, I really can?t be arsed this week.? Sure, I do realise that some clubs have quietly taken onboard the message, and now provide at least some incentives in the form of decent concessions for away supporters. But it still isn?t enough; the malaise goes right to the game?s roots, the real source of the canker being, in my opinion, the proliferation over recent years, bacterial almost, of the various bean-counting numpties and nyaffs currently infesting our stadia. They simply don?t get it about our national game, and what motivates genuine supporters to watch it, and I suspect they never will. Their influence is killing football at this level, and it?s mainly blinkered greed that?s preventing both Premiership people and clubs seeing this. Don?t believe it could happen? Well, it is, and right under your very noses, too.

As I was saying to my sister tonight, up until comparatively recently, I would have known by sight most if not all of our away followers; now, the complete opposite is true. Sightings of real ?regulars? are few and far between. Our support seems to be drawn these days from a totally different demographic, an observation borne out by feedback from former regulars, who simply don?t go any more because of the considerable expense and mucking-about with time off (due to last minute changes for the benefit of TV) involved. Clearly, to the newcomers, that?s less of an issue, but do they get genuine value for their hard-earned dosh? Somehow I doubt it.

The constant but pernicious influence of TV is also sucking the very lifeblood from the heart of the game. That, and the very real fear of failure fast becoming the dominant feature of most games at this level. How many clubs now play only one up front on their travels? Such fare is sterile and boring, not to mention prohibitively expensive, and the only surefire way to bring clubs (or more pertinently, the Prem) down to earth once more is to hit them in the bloody pocket, where it really hurts. Act together, knock a few thousand off a gate ? or, better still, several in succession ? and you begin to concentrate minds wonderfully. And the only realistic way to do that is not to go, and ostentatiously so. Scream blue murder, whatever it takes. What more need I say?

The last five days have also seen me busy down our local library, doing more spadework for ?Im Indoors?s nascent literary tome. And, to be absolutely fair to my other half, the period I?m currently researching, 1914-15, ties in perfectly with my interest in World War One. It?s not just the sports pages that grab my attention; even a casual flip through the microfilmed pages of the ?Midland Chronicle? reveals the issues that were so important to local people around that time ? and not all of it was down to the awful carnage taking place just over the other side of the Channel, either.

Take what was then Oldbury Childrens? Court (now ?Juvenile Court?), for example. Only the other day, I saw an account of proceedings there dated February 1914. The principal reason for youthful appearance in the dock around that time? Chucking snowballs in the street, would you believe? Something that hardly merits a glance (or even registers as a crime) these days ? and, because of global warming, the lack of snow necessary to provide the ?ammo? now renders such juvenile antics about as rare as a politician?s straight answer to a simple question ? but back then, that?s what featured heavily on the constabulary ?hit-list?. These days, it?s parking on pavements, or similar nonsense. And, towards the end of that same year, reports of a magisterial blitz of a totally different kind. In two separate cases heard on the same day, two young lads were convicted of stealing: the first nicked a railway lamp costing around five bob, and the second around three dozen boxes of matches, cost, again, peanuts. Their sentence? Both were given three strokes of the birch apiece. Their ages? Nine and ten respectively.

And it wasn?t just kids upping the local crime statistics, either. Just to show there?s nothing new under the sun, in the summer of 1914, there was what would now be regarded as a major sensation. To cut a long story short, a local chap, newly-separated from his wife and young child (contemporary accounts don?t give a direct reason for the split, but reading between the lines, I suspect there was at least some domestic violence involved) pumped three shots straight into her head. A relatively common thing in today?s ?guns mean respect ? society, sad to say, but back then?

The background to the tale is interesting, to say the least. As was the custom in those pre-welfare state days, when the split happened, both wife and child, destitute, were taken into the care of the local workhouse. It wasn?t that long afterwards that the husband asked to see his wife ? West Bromwich?s workhouse being located where Sandwell General Hospital stands now, so my stepmother tells me, and she should know, being 85 ? and he must have been a very persuasive fellow indeed, because the workhouse authorities readily agreed to his request. (Or did they simply see his intervention as a possible means of getting yet another unwanted pauper off their books? Who knows?)

Anyway, whatever the reason, he was allowed to see his wife, who at the time was sitting in the dining-room, along with quite a few other female inmates. In burst hubby, a few sharp words were quickly exchanged, after which he pulled out a revolver and fired four times, three of the shots hitting his wife in the back of the head, the fourth missing its mark, the spent bullet later found by another inmate. Although the gun was fired at point-blank range, almost, incredibly, the lady survived to tell the tale, and hubby eventually got his at Staffordshire Assizes (now Crown Court). Ten years was the prison term (he did have the brass neck to later appeal against the sentence, but that was quickly dismissed as well), but hubby really should have counted himself incredibly lucky not to be facing a death sentence.

The onset of the war also brought further problems in its wake. Peruse the letters columns of local newspapers around August 1914, and you?ll find an absolute plethora of Black Country folkies with Germanic-sounding names wishing to publicly record the fact that although their recent ancestry might have been about as Teutonic as old Kaiser Bill himself, - there were lots of German exiles working in the UK at that time, lots of them as restaurant owners and waiters - they were all quite loyal to the crown, actually. I could well understand their anxiety to prove themselves British to the core: elsewhere in the country, at the beginning of the war, it wasn?t exactly unknown to see what were ostensibly German-owned shops bricked in, and their proprietors savagely beaten. Oh, and even dachshunds falling victim to mob rule simply because of their unfortunate breed name and ancestry.

In the borough itself, much excitement was caused by constant appeals for men of military age to join Kitchener?s Army. Indeed, during those first heady months of the conflict, West Bromwich did try to raise a Pals? battalion (a military unit consisting entirely of soldiers either drawn from one particular place e.g. the famous Bradford Pals, or having a similar occupation in common e.g. The Hull Commercials) of its own, but far more interesting still, an attempt was also made to recruit a company within the unit mentioned above (approximately 250 men), but consisting entirely of Albion supporters! Yep, that?s right, officers and all, a bit like taking members of our current supporters club, sticking them all in khaki, then commissioning the committee members! Imagine the likes of Alan Cleverly and John Homer in uniform and solemnly pledged to lord it over their fellow Baggie? Or the pair of them standing on the firestep of some trench somewhere in France, then leading their fellow-Baggies ?over the top??

I do have my suspicions that the original intention was for the club to draft some of our star players (Harold Bache, who initially took a commission in the South Staffs, the ?parent? regiment, particularly springs to mind, here) into its ranks also: certainly, once war was declared, Albion were extremely generous in making available the use of the ground for post-match recruiting purposes. Oh, and the club also offered to ?volunteer? several of our players for service with the colours - irrespective of whether they actually wanted to join or not!

Back next Friday with a look at our prospects of catching The Arse on a bad day, and getting some much-needed points for a change. In the meantime, we?re going in search of footie, probably of the West Midland League variety. And admiring those lovely autumn colours, not to mention the many varieties of fungi proliferating around the region right now. Should be fun.

And it?s goodnight from him?? Although his particular brand of comedy had very little in common with either Albion or the beautiful game, it really would be remiss of me not to record the sudden death of funny man Ronnie Barker in some way. His 70?s and 80?s Saturday evening comedic duos with Ronnie Corbett invariably had me giggling until I couldn?t stand it any longer, but what really did it for me was ?Porridge?. Although I?ve not carried a bunch of keys on a chain in anger for some ten years, even now, I still get asked the age-old question: ?What?s it really like to be in prison??, to which I?ll unfailingly respond: ?If you?ve ever watched ?Porridge?, that?s about as accurate as it can possibly get?. In fact I?m dead certain that well before those first scripts even saw the light of day on TV, Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, the writers, had included in their research some lengthy but judicious canvassing of both genuine villains and genuine screws.

Walk the landings of any British prison with me, and I?d quickly point out to you the Norman Stanley Fletchers, the Lenny Godbers, the Groutys, the Jocks, the Dylans, the ?firm but fair? Mr. McKays, the soft as muck Mr. Barracloughs ? all of these and more can be encountered without too much difficulty trying. And then there?s that basic comedy-fodder, the constant need for the inmates to try and pull the wool over the eyes of Authority, and the universal mirth when done successfully. Ditto the officers ? they?d never admit it right out loud, but they also secretly delight in those lovely schadenfreude moments when one or more of their number, the more pompous and dislikeable ones especially, are made to look very silly indeed by their charges.

And that?s where I come in, of course; it?s not at all difficult for me to come up with a fund of incidents that wouldn?t have looked out of place in the fictional Slade Prison, and this is one of them ? the sad tale of ?Gertrude? (name changed). Oh ? and I make no apology whatsoever for the fact this is a bit of a lengthy tale; it?s pure Barker/?Fletcher?, it really is, and all the better for it.

Gert? This lady first came to me as ?reception cleaner? (a plum job indeed) around the early eighties, and believe you me, I wasn?t complaining. Fairly elderly but wonderfully reliable, able to work without supervision, discreet, always wanting the quiet life, she really was a screw?s dream. (She was also an avid Albion supporter when not behind bars, but that?s another tale entirely!) The thing was, after spending some months with us, then being transferred up north to do the remainder of her time, they?d sent her back very quickly, and under a bit of a cloud, as well, having been recently sacked from some cushy number or other back there.

Hearing this, I was genuinely surprised ? I couldn?t imagine for one minute old Gert getting up to the sort of disreputable shenanigans trusted younger cons indulged in, given half a chance; bringing in booze and/or drugs, the smuggling in and out of letters, that sort of thing - so my curiosity quickly got the better of me. And one particularly slack Saturday afternoon, when nothing was doing, I finally discovered what had happened.

Gert had only been at this prison around a week when she was given the much sought-after job of Officers? Club cleaner. I couldn?t say I was totally surprised, for Gert was a past-master at keeping her head down, then quietly, blamelessly, doing her bird: the job really was tailor-made for precisely that sort of convict. It involved going outside the gates on a daily basis, then trundling her little vacuum cleaner and all the other domestic paraphernalia just a few hundred yards further down the road to where the officers social club was located, and at the end of her working day, returning to the jail in exactly the same way. Once there, all Gert had to do was bang on the window so the steward could let her in, and away she would go, polishing and dusting the various bars to everyone?s complete satisfaction, including the governor?s. As I said, the job suited to the ground someone who could be trusted to just get on with it, without undue risk of surreptitiously nicking the grog and half the furniture and fittings with it - and that?s precisely what Gert did. Get on with it, I mean.

What brought about her eventual downfall, though, was the club?s fruit machine, nicknamed the ?one-armed bandit?, ironically enough. No crafty breaking into the money-box, then making off with the contents for Gert, though ? as far as she was concerned, that sort of idiocy was strictly for losers. No, what happened was totally accidental ? and, more to the point, totally ?Porridge?. Having finished her vacuuming and so forth for the day late one afternoon, and ready to head back ?home? as usual, she was stood idling by the fruit machine and smoking a quick fag before departure, when she suddenly felt the ?jingle? of a loose coin rattle her overall pocket (this prison was one of the few at the time paying inmates ?proper? money).

With absolutely no-one around to tell her not to do it, and with temptation rapidly rearing its ugly head - the steward was busy seeing to a beer delivery outside ? she quietly switched on the thing, slipped her gash coin into the slot ? and that?s when it happened. Instead of all the reels coming to rest on a money-losing combination, or one paying peanuts, as you might expect, somehow they came up with the jackpot, all fifty or so quid of it, all of it in loose change, all of it rattling away like crazy as it eagerly slipped the bounds of its electronic prison, and all of it creating a rapidly-growing but incriminating metallic pile around her feet! The poor woman?s eyes literally bulged with the shock of it all, then frantically darted first left, then right. A ?Porridge? moment, if there ever was one. Fifty quid better off, thanks to a freak accident ? but what to do now? Help!

As a rueful Gert was to tell me much further down the line, what had happened presented her with a genuine dilemma, hence the initial panic. Ironic, but had her jackpot win occurred anywhere else but the prison, the money would have unquestionably been hers; the coin she inserted in the slot was her own, legally obtained through the fruits of her labours. If she ?fessed up to the steward, she knew damn well he would have simply pocketed the money for himself ? after all, who would believe the word of a convicted criminal? But if she didn?t, and simply left the money lying there? Quite - and human nature being what it is, I severely doubt whether anyone else could have either.

The initial frantic phase rapidly subsiding, Gert finally came up with a ?cunning plan?. Knowing full well the officer at the gate wouldn?t bother to search her ? after all, it was only harmless little Gert coming back, as per usual ? quick as a flash, she scooped up all her ill-gotten gains, secreted the entire lot about her person (not to mention inside the aforementioned vacuum cleaner as well, which instantly developed a ?rattle? far in excess of what was considered normal for such things!), and headed straight back to the nick. As she?d thought, getting past the gate was an absolute doddle; once back on the landing, she then quickly embarked upon what seemed to be the logical solution to the problem at the time, the surreptitious distribution of the spoils among all her little mates.

What went wrong? Er ? basic avarice, really. Her somewhat unusual plan for boosting the nick?s local economy was as theoretically sound as the policies of John Maynard Keynes, but the same couldn?t be said of her less-intelligent compatriots, who instead of being canny and only spending small amounts of the extra dosh in the canteen - a small shop where inmates could buy little luxuries ? in one go, instead they started chucking it around like there was no tomorrow.

What they?d all neglected to take into account, sadly, was the simple fact that at frequent intervals, the canteen?s books were audited ? and you don?t need a degree in accounting to see where this is going. Within just a matter of minutes of opening those dusty ledgers, it became plain as daylight that just a certain few inmates were spending far more than they could ever hope to earn in a million years. Some judicious questioning on the part of the governor later, the whole sorry tale was exposed ? and that was the end of Gert?s time in the job. Within a matter of weeks, she was winging her sorrowful way back to us, but as I said earlier, I wasn?t exactly complaining!

 - Glynis Wright

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