Fire Regs at the Beech Hotel: Burton Albion Away.

“Fire Regs” at the Beeches: Burton Albion Away.

I read in the local paper that we have made another loan signing (though last midfield “box-to-box” loanee from Middlesbrough has yet to fire a shot in anger).

A striker! It has to be a striker doesn’t it? We need somebody to help take the pressure off hard-running Tom Bradshaw, win balls for him to run on to, so that he can use his devastating close ball control to engineer more goals and ease us into the final stretch of the season and a winning run …

So, surely be Gad (as my maternal grandfather would have said) I will read on to find we have snapped up a forward; for me, preferably a target man type, but any flavour will do. Surely … ?

No, reading on, and I guess it’s no real surprise that we’ve hooked up another “versatile” midfielder. Admittedly from Premier League Bournemouth (could never have imagined I’d be typing those words in the same sentence) … but, still …

On Thursday night we were at The Garrick Theatre, lovely little local theatre watching A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie. A typical whodunit featuring the nimble-minded Miss Marple. It’s a story I don’t know but manage to predict the eventual ending( all the while sitting next to a tight-lipped saddlers Widow who remembers the plot from a TV adaptation).

Good to be at the theatre: live entertainment and nights getting both lighter and, dare I say it? Warmer?

But we need two cars to get to the game at Burton on Saturday. Having a good season means that there is now a regular brood of six from Rugeley: and that means an extra car.

Home to one of the biggest breweries in Europe (once upon a time it was Bass, founded in Victorian times, taken over by Banks’ now operated by U.S. giants Coors) Burton is about seventeen easy miles from my house. I worked there once upon a time and have some magical memories of people and events there. (Burton also houses other breweries and a fine micro-brewery at The Bridge.) No surprise that the team is nicknamed the Brewers, with Billy Brewer being the mascot.

 

I offer to do the driving and, after having a quick chat with visiting-home daughter Bec and Scott I top up with petrol and am just a few minutes late. I like to be organised: decide we will park at the official Burton Car park, but as we turn off the A38 get the message that there is a perfect parking spot opposite the Beeches pub and slide gently backwards into the said space.

The Beech Hotel (pub) is the “traditional away fans pub”. At 12.30 the car park is already full, the bar heaving, choruses of Goin’ Down the Wednesbury Road” floating up to blue skies and a ruck of police officers and security men around.

There is also “Little joe’s Burger Van”; with only on family queueing (it is quite early but I warn the woman who serves me that Saddlers’ fans love a burger). I am the only one eating: simple burger and chips and a pint of lager shandy.

Then, giving up one of the only three silver chairs at the only table I join the others to neck my shandy. And it is getting noticeably colder; or is that just the shandy? This provokes some discussion about the relative merits of leather gloves. I can only listen because I have left my own Thinsulate gloves in my other coat.

Jack and Chris decide there’s time for another round (there’s plenty of time as it turns out) but return, laughing about the fact that when Chris steps out of the bouncer- guarded door he is told he cannot go back in as there is a strict “one out-one –in” policy. He tries to tell the guy that he has just come out (the one out) but needs to go back in, to be told:

“Fire regs mate!”

There are times when it just isn’t worth the words …

Meanwhile, we wonder whether these two security guys actually realise that there is a whole separate entrance off the “beer garden” and that people are nipping both in and out of it willy-nilly.

Drinks duly drained we set off to walk the half mile or so to the Pirelli Stadium. This is a different approach: I know the one side of the ground reasonably well as a “conference venue” having attended umpteen meetings there back in the day. But never on a match day and never on a day when the Brewers are actually looking reasonably odds-on for a second consecutive promotion.

Today playing against another, very local and potential promotion candidate in the Saddlers.

And the ground is rammed.

I had been a little angry (unreasonably so) earlier in the run up because of wat I considered a grudgingly small allocation of tickets for away fans: there are reportedly one thousand eight hundred of us crammed into approximately a third of the ground. It is tine: neat, cantilevered stands, but still incredibly small. And we are sardined together: a throwback to the nineteen seventies games in a way: in the standing only section behind the goals. I have a reasonably good position in front of a crash barrier, but my legs are feeling the treadmill running I was doing last night at the gym. But, hey all those bodies crammed in make it warm.

And we are so noisy!

The P.A system is poor: indistinct and the mighty Queen song is reduced to mediocrity, sounding like a poorly practised cover band on a bad night.

Our manager Sean O’Driscoll has been trying, it seems, to play this game down in the media: but nobody here is taken in: we need to win and we want to win. I have my own, tribal instinct reasons to want to come out on top, but this is football.

Burton are managed by Nigel Clough: they are bound, because of this to be a physically tough team and also be fit. I fear it is a game we will do well to get out of with even a single point and everyone uninjured.

 

What would I know?

First off: the team news is good: we have reliable O’Connor back in the centre of the defence. He is combative but experienced and has a wonderful never-say-die attitude. Young Matt Preston has had a good couple of games while O’Connor was out injured, but this is a game that needs a level of maturity. Paul Downing will no doubt be calmer too. Andy Taylor is still at left back. Hmmm, what is going on with the super-talented Rico Henry (he is on the bench meanwhile)?

Before the kick off we actually see our new loanee, just dabbling at the side of the pitch; a few simple exercises. He is soon out of breath. Does he have the fitness we need? There is also Mick Kearns down there, talking with someone, perhaps for the on-line commentary?

By kick off the stand is so crammed I cannot raise my hands in front of me. It feels so confined: low roof, short distance to the pitch side wall. A real throwback to the earlier days of my football watching days. Except we are standing on well-made concrete steps not an ash bank or hard packed earth, and there are no holes in the stand walls for the wind to whistle through and there are no holes in the roofing for rain to find and drip drip drip down my neck. In fact at some grounds there just was no roof for away fans. The good old days?

And this is a sell-out crowd! A top-of-the-table clash local derby!

Walsall are up and at it straight away. Taylor and Lalkovic trying a few things down the left. That don’t somehow come off.

 

And we look good!

Indeed we look good for the whole game, but this left wing thing just is never going to work today. The team, however is up for it. Forde, in particular has been quite outstanding in recent games; more sensible, adopting a wider vision and making some killer runs. Bradshaw is having a busy time; nothing new there then. But he keeps on going. There seems to be something going on: Bradshaw knocking the ball back (under some hefty challenges ) to Sawyers. Sawyers making something happen, bringing in Forde or Demetriou, or Mantom. We also try some hopeful long balls, but these big defenders eat them up. But we are fast, winning some loose ball challenges and looking god. But we have to make this dominance pay. Get a goal! Get a second. We can pass, pass, pass, run, pass back all day but what we need is goals and, try as we might we cannot get a goal.

Half time and nobody is moving. We need to keep our spaces and wriggling out, getting coffee or having a pee, just looks like too much work. Then I get the nutter. He comes from somewhere, pushing and shoving his jelly-boned way through the masses. Ducks under the crash barrier and puts himself in the space. All of the second half he is gibbering, loudly on. And On. And on. What he is saying makes little or no sense; criticising players who are having a good game, moaning about O’Driscoll. Football grounds are not always places to have an in-depth discussion with strangers and there is just no arguing with some people. And arguing with an idiot just proves there are two idiots so … I keep my peace, smile grimly and watch the game.

Walsall kicking towards us in the second half. Still bossing the game. Still not scoring. Still getting knocked about. Little protection from the referee.

There is no scoreboard at the Pirelli Stadium to let me know how long is left to play and it is full time before I realise it.

I am not disappointed, strangely. Pleased that we didn’t lose in the last minute (like last week) but this was a game that, surprisingly would have been so easy to win. We still need that striker … if anybody is listening.

It is simple, simple to slide the car out of the parking space, across the traffic, onto the generous A 38 and I have delivered my passengers to Rugeley and am at home in little longer than it takes to get back from a home game. Wigan ,still heads-down and charging win, taking them beyond our reach (at the moment) to second, but in the way that will happen (us being Walsall) to keep us o tenterhooks, other results go in our favour. We could have done with the win, but we hang on to fourth place (and still have a game in hand on second and third placed teams.

“First, second or seventh!” was the cry in he car on the way to Burton. Me? I’m thinking that if we need to get into the Championship via the play-offs, I’ll take it!

Up The Saddlers!