The Shirt and The Iron (Scunthorpe Away)

Last Wednesday of the month: poetry group at Great Wyrley Library. Last month we chose “sport” as the topic for this meeting. Do you know how difficult it is to find a reasonable poem about sport? (Seriously folks any suggestions welcome in the response box below. Would love to you’re your ideas.)

Someone else came up with “the Shirt” by Carole Ann Duffy  (current English poet laureate). I have heard this independent lady reading her poetry and, while it was being shared in the rather small confines of our library I could imagine bot her voice and face as she read it out. Bit of a cliché, but went to this Walsall supporter’s heart right away; the themes of high salary and some self-pitying celebrity player trying to make excuses for poor performances. The “anybody but me” syndrome” again.

We are playing Scunthorpe United today. Away. I’m going. Bright sunshine, high skies after some rainclouds earlier.

Cully’s driving. Navigating part-by-sat-nav part by experience. The sat nav (Tom-Tom I believe) sits in pride of place in the centre of the dashboard. The arrow stays still, the graphics move underneath it. “A bit like flying, instead of driving; don’t like it, “ he says.

Satisfyingly the machine gets it wrong from the off and I take out an unnecessary dog leg, smiling smugly (well inside anyway).

The journey is comfortable, enjoyable and full of conversation on initially  familiar roads and then motorways (with some almost inevitable summer roadworks limiting us to 50 m.p.h..

We see the high single legged floodlight pylons of Glanford Park while we are still on the approach. The ground is now at the back of an out-of-town shopping park with all the usual suspects including a McDonalds, a Ben and Jerry’s (playing music from the 1950s) and a franchise gastro-pub. It’s friendly in there. We order a meal and drinks, sit and continue the conversations. Then well fed, stroll to the ground.

Going through the turnstiles we are not given a ticket which I find interesting. It takes out the costs of printing and is eminently sensible in that respect of course … but is it legal?

 

The ground feels homely. It’s compact, built to the same spec all round and looks as if it was built to a plan that was stuck-to. No out-of-character additions. There’s a purpose built gallery in the roof of the left hand stand for cameras and media, there are flags flying from poles at the opposite end of the ground. That stand (we are behind a goal line) is standing-only. That’s also interesting, given the discussions going on to return parts of grounds to standing areas again (they were changed to all seater stadia by law following recommendations in the Taylor report after the Hillsborough disaster) .

We look dazed from the kick-off. The Iron playing fast, zippy football, passes accurate, either in front of the runner or into space which is soon taken up by an attacking player. We are not able to keep up, it seems. Our new look team. Without Kinsella who has been impressive, but fair enough, may need a break; without Grimes and Sawyers and James Chambers back into the middle of defence. Forde is on and Manset gets a debut. (seems he was playing the “long game” after his trial game against Leicester, going to some Turkish club and after a better deal (no blame attached there: football is a cruel kind of life and players need to make money as and when …). No deal was offered, so he came back to Walsall. James Chambers lasts all of ten minutes and Dean Holden comes on to replace him. It doesn’t get better. Scunthorpe (why are they nicknamed The Iron?) are like a tide washing towards our goal, wave after wave. Fortunately they don’t look like scoring. They too are on a winless run and may just be a little over anxious.

The half time entertainment is amusing: fans spin around to make themselves dizzy and are then to take a penalty against the home mascot (“Scunny Bunny”). Except they all fall over before they have finished spinning. The announcer on the pitch is enjoying himself anyway.

Of course I recognise some of the travelling fans now; we are some kind of pilgrims after all, trying to keep a kind of faith. Against all odds sometimes!

Second half is little different, except Scunthorpe are better motivated, more switched on. they haven’t won yet and sense things might be about to change. A first half dribble raid by Adelakum which ended in a scuffed shot is repeated. But this time the ball is in the net. A few moments later we concede a free kick. MacSheffrey’s long distance shot beats O’Donnell and they are two nil up.

Cue the charge. We establish some kind of order. Press forwards, more in hope at this stage but things begin to come together. Then, Tom Bradshaw, who must be difficult to play against, is through after willing running. It seems to be in stop-motion. I see him check the position of the keeper (Olejnic) and the ball dinks off his head and curls – towards – the net – over – the – line.

Goal! Well-deserved because the man has been chasing everything since kick off, big hearted and energetic. Good eye for the goal. Manset has shown touches of skill, but been a little off the pace. But he is big. He is strong and the defenders knew he was there. I would like to see him in the team again on Saturday (home against Colchester), just a little more bedded in.

It’s not enough. Baxendale making a big, bold challenge to keep the ball in provokes a bit of passion from Scunthorpe’s Bishop, who has niggled all game (but at least has some fire and passion about the game). The referee who has been poor all game, not stamping his authority, gives a goal kick when, in fact, the ball didn’t go out at all.

So, Scunthorpe’s winless run ends. Does ours continue or did it just get worse than that?

 

 

En Route to Brazil.

There’s a part of me that thinks this post ought to be about a couple of “warm-up” friendlies England have had en route to Brazil and the World Cup finals. But, to be totally honest, while I want us to do well, I feel genuinely – sadly – far removed from the players, team and their progress. I am enthusiastic about football, but the connection between me and the England team becomes more tenuous by the year. Disenchanted and becoming more so.

Roy Hodgson has my respect. I think he is an excellent coach. Like his public persona, his quiet determination, his self-deprecatory attitude, the sharpness with which he deals with some of the inane and ill-considered juvenile questions put to him by the likes of Adrian Chiles (ITV).

But the games – as games – were wholesome, but largely uninspiring. A reasonable enough 3- 0 win against Peru at Wembley.  2-2 draw at Wembley against Peru, an unconvincing 2 -2 draw against Ecuador in Miami, fairly swiftly followed by a 0 – 0 draw in a Miami game interrupted by an electrical storm. Good refereeing to take the players off during what appeared to be a Biblical scale thunderstorm: everything’s bigger in the States, right? (I didn’t watch the rest of the game (live on TV here at something approaching midnight.)

 

But a new complexion has been put on our opening game by happenings at the local reading group. First Wednesday of every month we get together at the local (Great Wyrley) library to discuss a chosen book. This time it was Beneath the Blood by Val McDermid (which got a lowly three out of ten marks from me: overly complicated plot, too many obvious red herrings – is that possible? – and writing devoid of detail). But the library is running a world cup themed competition. Choose a book on a sporting theme (I chose one about Bradley Wiggins) and you get a sealed bag with a book featuring one of the nations taking part in the World Cup finals. Me? Wouldn’t you know it; got Italy.

Meanwhile BBC properly extensively covered the commemorations and celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of the D-Day landings with a lengthy report and interviews from the French coast. All very stirring stuff: so important that we remember this occasion, the braveries and sacrifices and the fact that days and destinies were changed from and on that day. The production was  accredit to the BBC. There were markedly different-in-style speeches from Barak Obama and Prince William. The first reminiscent of a Shakespearean actor, delivering well practised words and raising the voice, pausing for effect and engaging the audience in an almost rabble-rousing style (except that the “rabble” were veterans and families and politicians.  Prince William, English, modest and under-stated, quiet and firm, resolved and gentle. He laid a simple Royal British Legion poppy wreath.

Both speeches had dignity and integrity: just opposite sides of the Atlantic coin.

But amongst the world-leader pieces: the Queen visiting a cemetery, President Putin, Angela Merkel being welcomed to the scene were interviews with veterans. It seems that this will be the last of these events for the Normandy Veterans association. It is, sadly, the way of things: they are getting older, fewer and less able to stand up to the demands of travel. This has to be a shame, with no blame attached to the men who actually ran up the beaches, piloted the aircraft, crewed the ships (and all of those behind-the-scenes, behind-the-day wizards). Can we do nothing to keep the obvious spirit burning? There is one example, much vaunted by the media, of a man from a residential  home going A.W.O.L. from the home to attend the ceremonies. Heart-warming in one sense, though certainly not for the staff at the home I imagine. And in their interviews, these men were cogent, coherent, modesty incarnate and young-of-mind. There is such candid, disarming honesty in their recollections, which are not “big-picture” revelations (the fate of the free world, duty and for the good of the nation) but about an infantryman who, in being seasick on the way to the beaches, lost his dentures, that one man had never, in all of his years attending this event met any of his colleagues. The veteran who charmingly began to “chat up” the interviewer (and her rendered unable to interrupt to make the all-important switch back th the studio. But, unusually the accents were very local, not only Midland but Staffordshire and the Black Country.

And the one who mentioned Walsall Football Club. He lives not far from Bescot, he said, where they play now, but this soing back to the old place … Fellows Park. We all stood up in them days. And at half time, I looked around and a bloke behind me pointed at me and says “I know you!”

“Yes, says I and I know you an’ all” he was from the same mess on the ship I was on going to the beaches.”

Ending the interview, his friend said “ I dunno what we did …. We’re like some kind of heroes. I suppose we might have been.”

And it brought a lump to my throat, that modesty.

So, really:

England or Italy in that first game ?

Got to be England eh?

After all, those were warm-up games weren’t they ?

 

Images: Hodgson: thesun.co.uk

Cahill goal celebrations: mirror.co.uk

Normandy veterans (one of many I could have chosen!): independent.co.uk

 

 

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!)