Shrewsbury Home.

Thursday; penultimate day in this trip to Upper Austria. Great fun! Coffee and cake at so many houses. (and such fine cake!) A beer, schnapps, hospitality. I am caked out and eat a marvellously friendly evening meal with friends old and new. Relaxed. More cake. Rum.

Crash into a now familiar bed, setting the alarm on my mobile phone. Last day tomorrow. Get some sleep. I am asleep, if it’s possible, before my head hits the pillows.

I am awoken by the beeping. My brain is awake, but my thoughts are clear, rebelliously so :”It cannot possibly be six a.m.!”

My fingers, paying attention to neither have switched off the alarm. Automatically. My eyes are informing my brain that it is still dark, cannot be six a.m.

I am warm, the duvet is my new best friend. I conclude that the alarm is broken. Decide to let my body clock wake me up … it hasn’t failed me yet: I am usually awake before the alarm anyway. I settle down, begin to doze …

BEE-eep Bee – Eep!

WHAT!? I’ve switched you off once! I spring to the ‘phone, check the alarm really is off, switch it on and off again – to be sure (why do we do that?), then try again. But, too late my mind has taken over. I have had a couple of hours of sleep and I am starting to work out what I will need for tomorrow. The bloody machine beeps again…

… My mind is engaged and I realise that it’s not the alarm, it’s a text signal. I am getting texts! At nearly two in the morning (Austrian time). An emergency?

I open the texts. My brother … some garbage (sorry bro, really) about meeting “fri afternoon”. What?

He knows I am in Austria. Doesn’t he ?

I reply, my fingers punching the tiny keys:

“I am asleep in Austria. Get the Shrewsbury tickets and let me sleep!”

But I am not asleep. I spend the next forty five minutes or so planning the day tomorrow, writing lists and instructions. Then getting up and editing them. I am Mr Control Freak sometimes.

Then I fall asleep again. Properly … and at the proper time the alarm brings me back.

Later I am sitting ,feeling very tired in the airport. Two black insignia less helicopters, definitely military – hover around, parallel to the ground. Like one is keeping guard over the other. Waspish movements, then one by one they settle on the tarmac. Russian invasion? I am thinking comically.

But the chunky guys who get out have U.S shoulder flashes and thick soled boots. Ray ban shades. Black Hawks.

 

Other passengers take surreptitious photos. I think about it, but my body won’t listen any more, it just wants to rest.

My brother has the Shrewsbury tickets. He picks me up. We head to the game. Don’t look at the seat numbers … I am heading for my season ticket seat. We can move if –if – it’s overcrowded.

Last season Shrewsbury brought a lot of fans. West Midland Police used a mobile fence to keep supporters apart after the game. Big, metal contraption. I had to tell them I needed to get to Shrewsbury in order to get through it.

This Saturday, two coaches maybe. We went there earlier in the season; good crisp game after an inadvertent guided tour, and won, reasonably easily (1-0).

Before the kick-off I am pleasantly surprised to see the young mascots of the teams kicking the ball to each other. So friendly and a welcome sight.

Kick off. I do not mean to be mean, but Shrewsbury do not look strong. We are passing all around them very confidently. Make no mistake we are good at passing – we just seem to find it difficult to pass the ball into the net often enough.

Then we do!

Craig Westcarr, who scored our two goals against Bradford had more than enough time, space and downright composure to trap the ball, feint a pass to an overlapping player, pivot and drive the ball into the net (OK, slight deflection) but it feels like the start of a big score. Five minutes gone.

Should know better, shouldn’t I?

Mainly doldrums-stuff for the rest of the first half. But we’re winning aren’t we, keeping possession, keeping, pretty please, a clean sheet and OK we’ve seen another Westcarr shot, a Sawyers header and a Taylor free-kick go close.

The Shrewsbury fans are not happy with the ref, though this can be sublimation and really they are not happy with their team. Rather dangerously the come out with the traditional

“You’re not fit to referee” song.

He tries hard to get things going in the second half: sending a Shrews player off for leaving his boot in when James Chambers tackled him. Not exactly raising his popularity with the away fans then.

A game of football between three kids: aged I would guess between four and seven catches my attention. In the home fans end behind the goal. Played with a piece of screwed up paper. The big one keeps getting the hump and picking the “ball” up … the younger players are better than he is and he doesn’t like it.

But Craig Westcarr is fouled. Seventy minutes or so gone. He goes down. Playing the “old soldier” and getting attention*. One of The Shrewsbury players says something that he doesn’t like. There’s a miracle recovery! He springs to his feet and he’s forehead to nose in an instant. None of us have ever seen him move so fast!

Ref has no option: straight red card!

Our top scorer banned for the next three games. Brilliant move “Westie”.

Ten v. ten and some meatier football until the whistle. We’ve won. We kept a clean sheet, but, driving home, discussing Mother’s day (Tomorrow) it feels as if we only drew.

Port vale away next week and there is still a chance my season ticket will get me into Championship matches next season.

A very slim chance I will grant you that.

• Apparently, I find out later the unpunished foul caused an injury that required seven stitches.

Bradford Away (From a Distance!)

I have tremendous host, here in spring-beautiful Upper Austria. A marvellously spacious room, balcony and such hospitality. I should not be surprised (but I am!). Every time I have stayed here I am met by the same polite, genuine friendliness that relaxes me. Wonderful.

The son is a fine musician, a sometime-guitar teacher. Oh, and a Man United fan! Saying that, we get on well together, talk music, genres, but I cannot persuade him to shun the Red Devils and become a Saddler.

Tuesday evening and he mentions that he will be going to his neighbour’s to watch the United v City game (a real derby) and would I like to go. I admit that I am tempted. Walsall are playing at Bradford but that is unlikely to feature on any TV show. But I decline, hopefully gracefully.

He sends his father a text one minute after the game has started: Utd. are one down. I am in bed when he gets back, but meet him later on the following day.

“We lost three to nothing,” he says. “I was angry for one hour after the end of the game. Then not. We did not have a chance. Man City were in, I think you say … a different class …”

What a marvellous attitude. I salute it and him.

He is also willing to take a moment, interrogate his smart-phone (known as “handies” here) to find the Walsall result. I am expecting poor news. But he tells me we won two – nil.

That Craig Westcarr scored both goals.

The rest of the day – needless to say – goes smoothly… except he still will not convert !

(Leyton) Orient … Home

22^nd March, 2014

Started off the day with a shopping trip. Sainsbury’s. To pick up a few things that will help me next week in Austria. I am going to take something I will call an “English Easter” to a school in Upper Austria. Long story behind it breaks down into my work in two previous European Union funded education projects and a lasting friendship with a teacher there. She became a head. Her sister works in another school and asked if I would do something similar at her school. There is something I find relaxing about the scenery and people there. Pace of life is steady; people take an interest in you and the children are keen to learn … and – at least – pretend to understand my rarely spoken German.

Now I am not famous for going back to places. Cromer and St Johann/St Peter and Walsall Football Club being the notable exceptions.

There is, of course, some trepidation in me. I will be travelling alone. A flight from Birmingham to Frankfurt and on to Linz. A small airport in Upper Austria about which the locals say staff know your name if you use the place twice. Don’t laugh, it may well be true. The arrangements are over. I have some Power Point presentations on a memory stick and I am ready to give it a go. “To keep your heart young and fit, “ it was said once on BBC Radio 4 you should do something each day that scares you. Maybe this will qualify. New school. Teachers I do not know (yet) and flying.

No replies to my texts asking if my brother would be going to the game today and while, coincidentally bumped-into-and-talking with another former European-schools project partner (mid-aisle, Sainsbury’s) Cully rings.

We arrange for him to pick me up and we’ll go get a beer. Then another call. My brother. Sorry, can’t go, but will get the tickets for next Saturday (home versus Shrewsbury).

Cully needs to borrow a coat, he’s driven across the sleet and hail storms on Cannock Chase and thinks he won’t be warm enough. No worries. He happily borrows my “avalanche coat” – the one with a transmitter that’s activated by (I am not quite sure, but) avalanches, being buried perhaps, so that tracking teams can find, can find, can find – well the coat obviously … hopefully with me inside it, warm, unbroken and laughing off the battering.

A pint at the Wheatsheaf, Great Wyrley: scene of many over-the-years pre and post-match beers. We talk about comics, football, how would you design a house from scratch (well – go on – how would you?), lighting fires, evolution, did I mention football ?

Good companionable talk and then climbing into the car and zipping to the game. The weather is so changeable: by the time we can see the field the skies are blue and the playing surface looks marvellously green: credit to the ground staff. A mutual friend, Gerry is there.

Leyton Orient. Where do clubs get their names from? Why Orient? Best guess is that it is in the East End of London. I know that the stadium is not so far from the enormous Olympic Park that was constructed on contaminate, completely undeveloped ground for the 2012 games. West Ham will be buying the rebuilt ground where the stadium is although there was some typically-bullish talk about Leyton Orient taking it on. In the end, and sensibly, they just couldn’t afford the financial commitment. Also intriguing is that, early on in the First World War over forty players and staff from the club joined a local regiment. There was – kind-of – farewell parade which followed the last game of the season (20,000 people attended the match).

As of twenty-first century now, they are well placed to be in the play-offs, might even sneak automatic promotion –and they are playing at Bescot today.

We kick off and it’s straight down to impressive business. Busy, probing. My eye is taken by Lalkovic and Brandy, but Sam Mantom is back from a three game suspension. We take the upper hand quickly. Sawyers looking relaxed, Westcarr, as usual at the moment, seems a little off the pace. We mount attack after attack and, as is often the case we are wondering aloud how they can be in such a good table-topping position … and we are not! I guess every supporter of every team knows this feeling.

We are kicking towards our own fans, full back Andy Taylor getting forward often and effectively. We’re overloading their right back, pushing up. Passing well, finding players. Neat, tidy. More shots than usual … Lalkovic, Brandy, Sawyers and our earlier talk in the pub about being “found-out” as a one-strategy team seems like wasted words. The Orient defence are under pressure. The ball screws in to the middle from a corner. It seems like slow motion: the ball spinning slowly almost still on the spot and everyone, everyone just gawping at it. Then Paul Downing is there and batters it into the net! Time catches up with itself and we are on our feet, cheering, predicting three – nil wins and composing imaginary text messages to those who are not here.

Inside for a beer at half time, still the persistence to look at season tickets continues. The stewards I am sure are only doing what they are supposed to do, but I cannot understand it.

 

Back out for the second half and, somewhere below us pitch-side there is a small drama as a spectator seems to collapse. I was watching the game, so do not know whether he tripped on the stairs or had a seizure or similar in his seat. The medical team and stewards are there very quickly and he is escorted in to the lounge area. I hope he was and is all right. Well done to the stewards and staff.

But Orient are a different proposition in the second half. Their manager, Paul Slade has said something to them in the dressing room that has wound them up and they tear into us. Once again we lack the penetration – Brandy excepted – to break away and make it count.

And under the pressure a low-danger going nowhere shot is deflected off Paul Downing into the Walsall net past Richard O’Donnell who is diving the wrong way (to cover the original shot)!

Furious energy from both teams then, seeking the winner, but a draw it is at the end. Unsatisfactory in the scheme of things for both teams – moreso for us I fear.

We are playing at Bradford on Tuesday night. I will be ensconced in Austria, hoping to get a text that says we are back on the victory trail again, but certainly not missing the match.

Shrewsbury at home ?

Now there’s a prospect!

 

“Taking The Plunge?”

a.k.a. “To Buy (a Season Ticket) or not To Buy?”

Started thinking about this at Christmas last year. Then time dragged on and it wasn’t worth it …

This year it started niggling me again and we have been playing well and I’ve been to so many games (home and away) and it’s cheaper and it would mean I didn’t have to keep ringing up and queuing at the box office “window 5 for collections” and, and…  and … and … it’s possible to put “and” into a sentence too many times.

Talked it over with other regulars before the recent Crawley game, decided which would be the seat to go for …

… and we lost, playing badly. And didn’t get back onto a good and winning track … but I kept going to the matches.

So got into the car today, drove along the blossom (flowering cherry, almond and blackthorn) lined lanes and roads , past a sunlit garden with flags of smoke escaping from a dying bonfire and past the re-furbished Walsall Arboretum to the ground. Bescot Stadium! Into the car park. Lots of fancy big cars there and men walking around in impressive suits. The young lady in the box office was both extremely pleasant and efficient.

“Taking the plunge are you?” is how she opened up the conversation/sale.  I had already filled in my application form and we talked over the choice of seat. She was kind enough to take the trouble to check it was where I thought it was (although she had to move a “staff member” who previously had the seat)

“Is it you?” I asked.

She smiled, warmly.

“No,” she said, “I don’t put myself through the pain.”

I was expecting to have to wait to get the season ticket, thinking it would have the names of the teams we would be playing and corresponding dates – and that is not sorted yet: after all there is still a (very outside) chance we will be in the Championship.

But no, a few strokes of the keyboard fingers, the printer whirred and checked my card details, found them acceptable and swallowed my let’s say hopefully “investment”. She then handed me the little wallet, each match numbered; no team/date details. How efficient!

As I type this I still haven’t done more than leaf quickly through  it and decide which safe place to keep it so that I forget where it is less often.

I also bought a ticket for the game on Saturday, at home to Leyton Orient (currently lying third in the League. Promises to be a good game – and we are due for one aren’t we?

Then I travel to Austria on Sunday. Flying Lufthansa to Linz and to take something like “an English Easter” to a school there. I do not often go back to places but there is something restful and enervating about this quiet area of the world – and people I have come to respect and call friends.

Into Walsall to do a little bit of pre-trip shopping. Not much luck there, but nipped into the New Art Gallery in Walsall (one of my favourite local drop-in places). A cappuccino and a look at the Independent newspaper.

News that the MotoGp season* starts this weekend. Sadly I will not be able to watch the season unfold as the TV rights have gone to BT and we do not wish to pay for the coverage. But Mark Marquez, the young rookie who took the season by the scruff of the neck last year will riding the floodlit round at Dohar with a broken leg (injured in training- riding an off road scrambling bike, by the sound of it). Still slightly disillusioned, but do not doubt the truth of it, by the words of the course leader at Stoke Rochford Hall who said he can corner so brilliantly because he has done it so often it is now in his “zombie memory”. Supreme athletes and artists do that, he explained. It takes a away a little of the mystique about performers like Ritchie Blackmore and Steve Morse. I would like to think there is a little more to it than that.

   

There is a new exhibition in the gallery. Born-in-Japan artist, Chiharu Shiota, who now lives in Germany has some interesting work there. Abstract to be sure. One piece is a whole room full of old suitcases suspended from a net by red cords which begins near to the floor and escalates towards the back top of the exhibition room. Intriguing and something similar to some of the works we saw while in Venice at the Biennale.  I spent a good twenty minutes chatting with a guy in there about the meaning of art and such installations. He was very interesting. We talked about poetry, meaning, abstract art versus representational works and logos. He is, he told me, an illustrator.

I should have done two things, I realised as I was getting into  the car.

First asked his name and secondly given him my poetry blog address.

*Would like to wish all the riders an exciting, successful and, above all, safe season.

Images: Build It … www.bescotbanter.net

Marquez: www.edition.cnn.com

Blackmore: www.last.fm

Artwork: http://www.thisistomorrow.info/viewArticle.aspx?artId=2265

Packwood House and Rotherham (Away)

15^th March

Had bangers an’ mash (sausage and mashed potato) for dinner yesterday. Bit slovenly, eating them of a tray on my lap, while watching TV (the mysterious disappearance and no-traces found of a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane).

Bangers ‘n’ mash needs pepper right?

So fetched the pepper mill off the dining table and left it on top of a pack of playing cards by my left elbow. Coming downstairs at around 6.30 to get a cup of tea I realised the portentous error. Rotherham (a.k.a the Millers (pepper mill get it) and the pack of playing cards is one from a sponsored match (thanks I.C.A.D.) at Bescot. An omen ?

Still not travelling to the game today so decided to go to National Trust’s Packwood House, about forty minutes pleasant drive away. Last time we headed to Packwood it was closed and we went, instead to nearby Baddesley Clinton (very charming with some humorous scarecrows).

The banks of the roads are alive with brilliant yellow daffodils. Hedges neatly trimmed and in one case well laid, looking pristine in the powerful, warm spring sunlight. A bit windy too.

Arrived, parked, membership (oh yes indeed!) cards scanned and a brief walk around the ornamental gardens; verdict being they will probably look good in summer. Outside introduction to the house given by a volunteer wit h a Scots accent. Very informative, great history. In a way quintessentially English. A farm leased after the Reformation, Bought and improved, passed through the ever-expanding family. Heirless neglect. Bought by a rich industrialist for his fifteen year old son, Graham Baron Ash, who re-invented it (and massively added to it) as a “Tudor manor”. The cow barn converted into a great hall and a “Tudor long gallery” built between it and the house proper in faithful-to-the–period style, with authentic furniture “saved/rescued/salvaged” from other properties during the Depression.

            

The kitchen walled garden brought back memories for me of Little Wyrley Halls’ walled garden, though was nowhere near as grand. The one at Little Wyrley hall has been turned over to grass – and, last thing I knew was a paddock for a pony. A well-spent morning, not thinking about the game: away at Rotherham, who are well in the promotion/play off place hunt.

Set out on the return journey with BBC Radio WM on in the car. Commentary of the Swansea v West Bromwich Albion game on. But every now and then the “goal horn” going off when scores came in from other games. Nineteen minutes (or so) Rotherham nil, Walsall 1 came in. Lalkovic scoring his “sixth goal of the season” and the – somehow desperate statistic that “in the last fourteen games Walsall have never lost a game they have been winning”. Can you believe the research that goes in to these things? I have been impressed by Milan Lalkovic since the first game of the season: he’s energetic, skilful and hard to knock off the ball. His Chelsea contract runs out at the end of the season, and, good as he is, I don’t imagine Chelsea will keep him. he has made loyal noises about coming to Walsall, but my guess is he will go to a Championship team – and our chances of that are running out.

Back home, unpacked the car. Radio on upstairs. I’m checking Facebook, getting the bulletins. With seventeen minutes to go, our defender, Ben Purkiss gets sent off … and some seconds before the final whistle, Rotherham equalise.

Down at mom’s half an hour later, the TV news is bringing the latest latest about the Malaysian airliner MH370 and the Russian delegate vetoed the U.N resolution that would have had tomorrow’s referendum in Crimea registered as unlawful.

Watched, as promised in an earlier post, some of the winter Olympics ice sledge hockey: the final between the U.S.A. and Russia. The two main protagonists in the Crimea/Ukraine scenario. Actually, while it takes a lot of skill (naturally), energy and guts to compete it wasn’t actually as brutal as the trailer seemed to suggest. Less so than the standard ice hockey where there’s further to fall and body slams into the wall are common and bruising. The U.S. triumphed … and in Sochi, Russia too.

Meanwhile, closer to home the Express and Star meanwhile is bewailing the fact that Walsall could do with bigger crowds. No joking? But it’s often the Express and Star that, in spreading rumours and refusing to give us fair publicity, banjaxes our potential. To whit the over-egging of the “racist” stuff during the Wolves game, giving former Wolves goalie Matt Murray a platform to report his feelings as fact, and making it seem as if Bescot is a dangerous place to go.

Now I realise that the E and S is printed in Wolverhampton, but we could ask for a little more positive coverage couldn’t we?

Also coming to bear, of course is the expense. This is an expensive month to be a Saddler’s fan, with the Football League adding the Coventry away game to our fixture list.

A small point too: why oh why can only season ticket holders go into the bar in the main stand? The story given that it is to stop those eating in the restaurant is too, too feeble. The corporate bunches – come and gone – are separated and have their own dedicated bar.

 

Crewe (home)

11^th March, 2014

Morning TV reminds us all today is the first day of the Cheltenham Festival (that’s horse racing) and that, last year there was snow and the track was frozen hard. It is also singing the praises of our athlete’s at the Paralympic games in Sochi. Jade Etherington and Kelly Gallagher winning our first Paralympic “on-snow” medals for their courage in taking on ski-ing while being partially sighted. That’s courage! Our two curling teams are doing well too, it seems. The new one for me is called, I think sledge hockey, and looks like a violent version of the original rollerball film. Disabled players on sledges with ice-hockey style sticks and a puck. Have to try and watch one of the games.

No snow here, this time around. Blue skies, sunshine after early fog and, after a day up at the allotments – mostly it seems shifting slabs –  my body is aching and part of me just wants to curl up in the foetal position in a dark room. The M6 is closed somewhere nearby and that causes knock-on problems for local traffic. As well then that, a bit obsessive perhaps, I set off with plenty of time to spare. A more-than-usual amount of Walsall fans are on the radio and one of them, tempting fate, suggests that after all of the recent defeats Crewe might be in for “a tanking”. Strange how that sent a shiver up my spine. Easily finding a parking spot – my traditional one – I get just a little cold walking to the ground. I don’t rush, there is plenty of time. I’m not queuing to collect a ticket. This one was bought as part of a link-up deal with the Wolves game.

Towering above us, and more importantly the M6, is what was (maybe still is?) Europe’s largest road-side electronic advertising hoarding … and it is advertising forthcoming events at Bescot (but not the matches) and switches to an ad about gas boilers featuring  our captain Andy Butler who is training to be a plumber when his footballing days are over at Walsall college. Gas boilers advertised on an electronic sign: ironic perhaps?

Turnstile staff are, as usual cheerful. But the ground is markedly empty. Two coach loads of hardy Crewe (the Alex) fans stir about in the roof of the Family Stand, but Walsall supporters are like patches of colour and slow-motion movement scattered about elsewhere.

This journal was born as a result of Crewe Alexandra. Mark Savage, a relative of some remove (I never was much good at remembering family links) is a died-in-the –head Crewe supporter. Son of my great-auntie’s oldest daughter (you work it out). Last couple of seasons we’ve headed in to see them, eaten lunch and drunk tea together and taken in the game.

Mark sent me a text saying he couldn’t make this game. Then another saying he had had a book published on Amazon called A Hundred and Twenty Grounds for Divorce. It’s apparently about the break-up of his marriage, subsequent events and his ambition to visit every Football League ground. I mean to buy it (at 77p it’s got to be worth it eh?) But, I thought Hmmm, slightly different but give it a try.

Hence this journal. Thanks Mark. I think.

The two teams are warming up well before kick-off. Nobody could fault our levels of fitness this year anyway. The colours look clean and fresh and the playing surface has been well maintained, looking green and even. Our goalkeeping coach has a fierce shot on him as he’s trying to warm up keeper Richard O’Donnell. And there’s us in need of a striker!

The game starts slowly and never gets going in the first half. We’re trying to be patient, passing the ball across the back a lot, then up, then back again. It is painful to watch but at least we’re not losing as we go in. And they’ve had two players booked. There is the ridiculous pantomime of stewards asking to see season tickets as we drift into the lounge. Not sure what the point is when the ground is so damned empty and letting everyone in might mean we sell a few more beers.

Talk about the planned “stag night” trip. It was going to be Tallinn, now, it seems there is some doubt. Accompanying the father of the groom I am keen to know exactly what responsibilities I will have. Keeping the party out of fights with other groups?

Second half and suddenly we are losing. Crewe looked better than us in the first half, although we could have pretended we were playing a patient passing game waiting to play the killer ball and slam four or five goals in.

Really ?? Well we can dream can’t we?

We seem to liven up a bit then and there are chances at both ends. Substitutions. Lalkovic on, Ngoo on. On loan from Liverpool he is apparently an England under 21 striker … must wonder as he is warming up in front of such a small crowd what his future holds. He tries hard enough and has a fierce shot bent around the near post. But for all our pressure we are getting nowhere, rarely testing their keeper in fact.

Then there’s a searching Lalkovic cross, missed by all the Walsall players up there and planted perfectly into the net by a Crewe defender. Seems for moment that he’s the only one who believes it.

 

Then the ref’s whistle: the  cue  the manic, mighty – some might say edge-of-desperation roar from the now-enthusiastic Saddlers fan and the gallop to a 1-1 draw.

Incidentally the whole Ukraine/Russia situation is no longer big news. Doesn’t mean it has been resolved of course.

 

Photosource:Walsall Advertiser

Wolves (home)

It’s another of one-of-those-days days today.

But first, I suppose the maths: amazingly despite being beaten at Coventry/Northampton we begin the day still in with an outside chance of making a play-off place. We are no longer in contention with most of the top teams (table wise) but might challenge for sixth spot. Results being what results can sometimes – but unusually for Walsall – are. So, Wolves running freely away at the top of the table, scoring goals for fun and business it seems, dispatching their rivals cleanly and efficiently …

So no pressure then …

Popped into Great Wyrley Library to support the World Book Day “fest”. I am a member of the reading group there but had to miss the meeting last Wednesday because I was bound for Northampton (a.k.a. Coventry City’s home ground). There is a general concern that local libraries in Staffordshire, especially the – quite literally – smaller ones will be “rationalised to help the local council make cuts. Cuts somewhere along the  long line of deniable-accountability decisions that are being imposed by central government. Perhaps dressed up with explanations that this is “central funding being withdrawn” or similar. Interesting … was it Winston Churchill who once said that a democracy is defined by “what it chooses to defend rather than what it chooses to fight”?

I wonder where the money comes from that goes to “international aid”, how more of it can be found, how the government can come up with millions of pounds to promise for measures to assist “Flood damage areas” and why this isn’t used to bolster such community assets as libraries. A local business leader of – at least national repute – Digby-Jones recently stated that parents whose children could not read should have welfare funding withdrawn … now there’s an incentive eh?

My brother, who rode shotgun so entertainingly on the way back last Wednesday, picked me up and we parked early enough pretty much where we usually park. Huge police presence. Our visitors toady – the Wolves – Wolverhampton Wanderers were in the Premier league, what, two seasons ago and are on the championship trail. New manager Kenny jacket has the team firing on all six cylinders: mean defence and about to set a record eight consecutive win streak if they can today.

Crowds boisterous. Match sponsored by Banks’ Brewery. It’s a perfect game for this traditional local company to take on. Hope the beer doesn’t spill over into aggression and confrontation. P.A. announces the crowd as almost eleven thousand and it’s warm. Great to have such atmosphere: turning Bescot into another, more intense and rather marvellous world. How magical would it be to have this for every home game?

There are other people I know there – of course. Some nods, some talk, some about expectations …

We play Troy Hewitt and Romaine Sawyers up front as a double striker team, Downing is left out of centre back (our emerging and maturing star defender) and the first twenty minutes are even and fiercely contested. Wolves are clearly a powerful team, but our industry worries them a few times, we harry well and they make mistakes.

There were always going to be goals; for us Walsall supporters just a little sad that the first one went to Wolves and showed their mobility and dogged approach. Equally poor was the fact that one of the Wolves players quite deliberately ran along the Walsall fans end of the ground (Where the gaol had been scored to be fair) and antagonised the crowd. Undeniably poor reaction Also indefensible, however was the fact that – though understandable in one way – one of the Walsall crowd took it to heart and scrambled over the wall to “remonstrate”. The situation was never going to get better but three of the Wolves players coming over, trying to intimidate the guy only managed to do the opposite and stewards had to intervene (should have got there sooner guys ?).

Into the bar at half time; why the stewards are suddenly asking to see “season tickets” is frustrating and a half time chatter. Drew is off on holiday soon to Lanzarote … but isn’t overly concerned about missing the game that week.

We tell each other we can still get into the game, are very happy about the way Sawyers is playing, hope we can keep Febian Brandy, preferably on a contract next season … and hope that our management team will stay. Dean Smith, Richard O’Kelly and Neil Cutler (Goalkeeping coach) deserve much credit for the way we have played. A small squad run on little or no money, small crowds and big hearts. It is just possible that they will be away to bigger things having demonstrated such ability. Maybe not the premier League, but er Blues (Birmingham City) –just down the road – next season in the Championship ??

Second half we are still in there fighting. Then a Wolves shot comes back off the cross bar and is put into the net. Two –nil. Heads start to go down and we go into that pass-across the field or back to the keeper system. To be honest Wolves are good at this: two goals up they lock up the defence and seek to irritate. Some fouls conceded and taken. An ugly spell. Then their third goal.

Some substitutions but maybe our small squad is feeling the pressure. We never stop trying – we just haven’t this season and that is worthy of note! Great attitude. But at this point we aren’t exactly moving forwards, just keeping the ball – and that suits the opposition.  They are, after all, winning.

Out of the ground. Police everywhere. White vans blocking access: I am sure there is a system but would love to know what it is. Cordons of uniformed officers. The helicopter growling and banking in the clear blue sky over the ground and the M6. It was a lot easier to park than I had thought it would be; and getting out is not significantly different to less-crowded games.

There is some passionate chatter on the car radio (BBC WM) and “Franksy”, the presenter does his best to stir it up get more people to ring in with their opinions. One woman, a Walsall fan, is near to sobbing as she rails about the “scandalous” gestures so-and-so (Wolves player) was making at the Walsall fans.

Later there is some official statement that there were racist remarks being made by the Walsall fans and that the “police” would be “looking into it”.

Cannot see it myself. How will you collect evidence on that one? The Walsall fans will say one thing, the Wolves players are bound to say the opposite. More importantly, surely – the football.

We have been good this season, on some days extraordinarily so. Today we were beaten by a better team. More skilful players (costing and earning more money than we can dream of), with parachute payments from the higher leagues they were in before. They should be promoted, given all of the advantages they have. It is good to be proud and passionate, tribal even, about your own team, but let’s stick to the football eh when talking about the games we can’t or don’t win.

It was a local derby, fought like one, fanned like one and our neighbours, those we garden next to, work alongside or stand by in the pub or at the concert (maybe the Heart and Tom Petty tribute one next week?) have the bragging rights this time … like we had them earlier in the season when we won at Molineux.

A little short-sighted of their fans singing, mockingly

“Can we play you every week?”

In the Championship would be good eh ?

(Unless they still want to be in League One next season!)

Coventry ? Away?

5^th March, 2014

I’m standing by my allotment shed discussing allotment politics when my mobile phone blurts out its text-received beep-beep. “That’ll be Cully,” I think, “he’s getting back to me about going to the match tonight …”

Wrong! It’s my wife, letting me know she’s “going to Deb’s for  a coffee …”

I am, a little harshly I realise, jolted to think of our daughter’s observation about the facile nature of some social networking comments of the “feeling happy/eating a biscuit” variety. Largely pointless, except perhaps to reassure the individual “adding the comment that they have a value because they have posted something in the Ethernet. And the inevitable sadness that value is based on putting something out there that has very little real value. Like a blog? Like a self-published book ? More on that perhaps later.

I get a little stick about going to the game tonight. It’s not easy being a Walsall supporter. But then it never has been.

Eventually Cully rings. He can’t make it. Working in Solihull until, er probably 6.30. Ironically for a Coventry supporter. But this “supporter isn’t going either. And that’s another digression. Coventry City. Once one of the most successful teams in this part of the world are fallen a long way from grace these days. They were docked points at the beginning of this season for “financial irregularities last season (basically signing and playing players they could not afford: cheating perhaps by another, better dressed name), they no longer play in Coventry, but ground share with lowly (even compared with Walsall F.C.) Northampton Town. The mighty (and I’ve been there for a Bruce Springstein concert) Ricoh Arena management asked for more rent and Coventry couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay. For a while it was like a poker game, maybe it was  a bluff… but no. So Sky Blues home games (!) are no longer played in Coventry. “Exiled,” as Express and Star reporter Matt Maher has it, going on to say in this evening’s sports pages:

“ This isn’t the place to delve into the hows and whys of Coventry’s current plight, a classic modern football tale of moneymen putting their own self-interests ahead of a club’s well-being and where – as always – the biggest losers are the fans.”

So – just me and my brother then, tickets already purchased.

When I get to his house he’s on a call. He works for a massive multi-national company, usually from home and this happens a lot. At least I believe it does. I am sure he could tell me more but he would have to kill me.

We plan the route on the fly, avoiding what BBC Radio WM says is the M6 closed because of a serious accident and get to the “compact” Sixfields (is it a stadium (as per traditional football scuttlebutt) or Sixfields Leisure as the local, rather poor signs state?

Car parking is very close and at £4 quite reasonable. The ground is actually part of an out-of-town shopping and entertainments estate: there’s a multi-screen cinema, several universal supermarkets, a couple of U.S franchised eating places and, let’s say the other kind of places that you find in every out-of-town territory.

The youngsters selling the programmes, when asked confidently state that they are working for a company that works with the Cobblers (Northampton Town) and quite happily show us to the “away” supporter’s entrance. Seems to me, I am thinking, we are all away supporters in this game. And we probably followed each other down the M6/M1 route … and are probably
parking side by side here. Behind the goals and once ensconced in the ground, having been told by  a hi-viz vested official that you can “sit where you want” we look at the illuminations of the logos and signs from the outlets on the hill opposite. The hill on which allegedly a determined group of Coventry City supporters gather to watch a fraction of the pitch when Coventry play. It’s their version of a protest. They will not pay to go in, thus giving money to the owners because they want their team back in their city. But tonight ? Too dark to see if anyone is there or not. The seats are closely arranged, the one immediately behind me being taken by a tall guy and his knees, quite accidentally are in my shoulder blades for most of the first half … and when I’m catching up with the programme and the paper at half time I am unintentionally invading the space of the lady in front of me. Shame the seats are not off-set. Before kick-off we buy food – a generous hot dog, artistically patterned with mustard and coffee. The range of pies on offer includes steak and ale. The programme incidentally is a fine one: there are ten pages with Walsall information and it is a glossy high quality read. It is called PUSB but there is no explanation: an acronym something, something Sky Blues maybe.

The Guy on the public address is overly enthusiastic for such a small crowd: almost American and the gimmick of presenting ten footballs to the crowd during half time, which, somebody  near me suggests cruelly, means every Coventry fan gets a ball (such is Saddlers humour). I wonder whether it could be organised for all ten balls to be thrown onto the pitch during the second when play is over that side (such is my divergent thinking).

Apart from the chap with “Steward” on his hi-viz back, there are other staff. In their bright vests and for some reason I cannot quite explain they remind me of Lego characters. There’s one marked “Perimeter”, another a long-legged, black trousered blonde with “Stand Manager”. Mr Perimeter is chatting amicably with a Walsall fan and, it seems encouraging him to be standing. The P.A. reminds us that this is a no-smoking, all-seated venue and politely invites us to take our seats. Mr Perimeter and this animated fan continue to swap chatter.

 

Cannot remember the last time I was in a ground that has floodlights at each corner (like here): the old traditional arrangement. The quality of light on the pitch is noticeably unequal. Beyond the lights the new moon, bringing my grandfather to mind as always, is veiled by light cloud.

The first half is poor from our point of view. We are penned back by an efficient Coventry team and seem short of ideas and energy, a lot of passing, which we normally do so well, goes wrong. Refereeing decisions are, at best eccentric and – unsurprisingly become the butt of Walsall chanting. (Our “choir” is always inventive and usually topical). This evening we have the

“If you’ve paid your rent, stand up

If you’ve paid your rent stand up” among others.

We go in at half time a goal down.

But come out faster, slicker more aggressive.

There are no ball boys; at one stage a well wrapped up photographer has to hurdle wall and ranks of seats to retrieve the ball (no spectators in this stand). No ball boys Is that because tis is an evening kick off and they have school tomorrow, or because local kids will ball boy for Northampton, but not Coventry? Note to self: check at other evening games to see if there are ball boys.

Players who had  a quiet first half (Febian Brandy, Milan Lalkovic) are in the thick of the action more and more often and we go on the hunt, putting pressure on the Coventry defence. Which is sound. Mal Benning, our young full back came towards us on a steaming run, had a shot saved and put the rebound into the net.

We were on top and significantly so. Pushing up. But a couple of the team started to look tired. Lalkovic – on a season long loan from Chelsea, Craig Westcarr … and we’re missing Sam Mantom, suspended after being sent off against Preston on Saturday.

Couple of substitutions. Ngoo (on loan from Liverpool) a young, tall aggressively confident “giraffe” of a player coming on for Craig Westcarr and Troy Hewitt for Lalkovic.

But while we were pushing forward, wouldn’t you know it ? They crept up and scored the winner.

We kept on hammering away and there was a tremendous volley of shots one after the other in the final minutes. The sound of the boot hitting the ball carrying the short distance amazing. But, frankly well organised defending and luck meant we were going home 2- 1 losers. James Chambers has been sterling throughout, looking unruffled and fit, elegant yet determined.

M6 closed on the way home, so a lengthy diversion down the dependable A5, including a second diversion down the old A5.  The road we were taught at school built by the Romans; straight, efficient. My old route to work. The motorbike shop is still there, so is the Vauxhall garage; the one where, when I couldn’t pay for a routine service I was vouched for by the receptionist (who had been the “tea monitor” at a school nearby where I worked and could remember me (also perhaps that I rarely had money to pay my weekly tea fees!)

Tamworth was also once one of the most significant towns in England: capital of Mercia. We wondered how many people now learn about this. And talk drifted on to the rights and wrongs – as we see them – of Scottish independence (and what might happen to the Scottish Nationalist Party, a vote against Scottish independence would take away the key plank of SNP ambition of course … so what future ?), the events in the Ukraine (feted by our media as a “sovereign state” (what? I am thinking, they have no sovereign …) apparently invaded by Russia. The truth may be somewhat different, but I have two thoughts on the matter.

First: if all of the Spanish-speaking people in say, Texas made a fuss and expressed a wish to join Mexico (unlikely but bear with me eh?) what would Barak Obama’s reaction be? Probably to send troops in. Now I realise the situation is not exactly the same but it is worth thinking on. The uprising in Kiev deposed what, when all is said and done and whatever we feel about the situation, was a democratically elected government. So, to this way of thinking we in the west are supporting an undemocratic regime.

Secondly: I believe that Germany was able to “annexe” Sudatenland (then part of Czechoslovakia) because Hitler “proved” most of the subjects there were, essentially Germans, German speaking for example …

OK two opposite cases and each equally provocative …

We decide that the outcome is likely to be an annexation of the Crimean peninsular (strategically important to Russia) and a reduced Ukraine being adopted swiftly by the EU. We cannot afford to “annoy” Russia as they are the source of a lot of our oil (and so power) … and we seem to be back in the realms of the moneymen running things and the ordinary people getting hurt (or, indeed, killed).

Bring on Saturday, the Wolves and the sell-out crowd.