Rat Runs, Jonahs and Life After Dean …

“That A5 bit at Churchbridge is the tricky bit,” Andy warned me at the game on Saturday. We were going through the complex arrangements necessary to get all of us to Greenhous Meadow, Shrewsbury on Tuesday evening.

As plans unfolded I would try to get away from work, drive to Four Ashes to pick Andy up from work, then drive on to Shrewsbury.

I know a rat run to avoid the Churchbridge islands (A5, crossing the M6 toll and the A34 and the Orbital Way which leads to an out of town shopping centre and the tip (oh and Cannock).

I have enough time as it happens to drop in to home, eat a tasty bacon sandwich, then set off. A second “alternative route” I was going to use to save time ended up with barriers closing the road. A frustratingly short distance from where I needed to be; but I had time to spare.

We compared our busy days before we remembered we are without the “ginger Mourinho” and talked about histories of managers and players leaving (in some cases, like Paul Merson) player managers indeed.

So may names have been linked to the job by the papers: Tim Sherwood, Shaun O’Driscoll, David Kelly, Dean Holden, Paul Tisdale (Exeter City), and Adam Murray (Mansfield Town). At work an Everton supporter suggested David Moyes (I think perhaps he doesn’t quite grasp what paupers we actually are).

Also linked is Mickey Mellon, currently ensconced at Shrewsbury. What a great idea: stir up things by suggesting the next manager might be working at the club you are playing next.  Between us we decide that, in reality, nobody in authority at Walsall has even thought about drawing up any kind of list, other than who to send Christmas cards to and who to buy presents for. Too, too early. Not that this will stop the speculation.

We slide gently onto the M54 by the new i-54 centre (Jaguar Land Rover one of our Midlands success stories, will be looking to boost production and expand their plant in the near future. Real jobs, producing something: bostin’ !

Off the M54, round  a few roundabouts to find a parking space at the Brooklands Hotel  near to the ground: traditional nesting space for some years now. And we’re early enough to get a seat in the “posh end” of the pub; clearly a couple of blokes who will not be disturbing the peace then.  And are discussing the dominoes tables when the rest of the crew arrive. JB, Jack, and, making their season’s debuts (I think) Big Mike and Matt the Painter.

Crisps, Bombay mixes and lightweight banter. Then the stroll defying traffic on a number of dual-carriageway islands to show our tickets and take our places (not even remotely connected to the numbers on the tickets!

I find out later that there are, give or take, 1,500 Saddlers fans there; noisy, witty and in good voice. Just as well; I am losing mine! It is not far, but this is still a good turnout: Tuesday night and close to Christmas after all.

We have the same team out that began the game against Bradford. Looking sharp and busy. Shrewsbury look second best but still manage to get a frustratingly good percentage of the fifty fifty balls and rebounds. Sawyers and Evans have a couple of shots that come off the posts.

Then, one on one with Etheridge Larnell Cole scores.

It would have been possible that, having been deserted by the management team and going a goal down – against the run of play  team might have curled up and given up. This team? No! They quickly regroup, stung into action. Milan Lalkovic, never short of fire and passion, takes a ball from sawyers and raps it into the Shrewsbury goal. Half time: one all.

Painterman Matt is downcast (or attention seeking), going on about being a bad-luck charm. we cannot remember the  lasttime he came to a match … and he is not famous for winter matches. we talk about work, changing jobs ( a tralerman next maybe?) and I hope I convince him he is not the Jonah he thinks he is.

But we think we will miss Tom Bradshaw, who has gone off, following a hefty tackle from  Antony Gerrard (once a Walsall player, but looking really a tad overweight now). There is no messing: Bradshaw limps off the field of play and down the tunnel.

Jordan Cook comes on. He doesn’t have the physique, the match fitness (perhaps) and we wonder how we will get a grip on the second half. While we are wondering this, however, we are surrounded by a thousand and more positive thinking Walsall supporters who have anew song or tow.

“They’ve got Mourinho,

We’ve got the physio”

Shrewsbury are being stretched by skilful passing from the whistle. Rico Henry in particular is making space and can dribble like a good ‘un. The home team sink to the  physical. The referee has let some of this go, but by seventy minutes is sending Ian Black off: second bookable offence. He doesn’t like it: argues, stands at the edge of the pitch like an unruly, sulking schoolkid.

Then Walsall are in full flight, but they would have been anyway.

Cook grows in confidence. From a corner – completely unmarked at the far post Downing rises majestically and nods in an easy goal. His first of the season. We go just a little bit crazy – and some guy in a silver jacket, who has been jeering and gesticulating at us from the Shrewsbury seats gets a full couple of choruses. He is not happy. We are. Even more so when Sawyers slips a ball to Henry who guides it towards Cook. Cook’s first touch is a little too heavy. I think he’s messed it up, but he gets to it and hammers it into the roof of the net. Satisfying!

Three one!

The magic is still with us.

This is brilliant, taking us to third place in league one … but a special note of thanks to the players and staff at the Saddlers for keeping the faith.  

Meanwhile, the Conservative government have actually decided to go to Parliament to seek approval for the Royal Air Force to carry out bombing raids on Islamic State (so called) in Syria. They have been coordinating attacks against the same enemy in Iraq after being invited by the Iraqi government, but now want to extend this to raiding ISIS homelands around Raqqa.

David Cameron’s party have avoided doing this up to now, because a no vote would, frankly, have been  embarrassing.

To make matters more interesting, the Labour (her majesty’s Opposition) leader is absolutely anti-war. The question is will he (Jeremy Corbin) issue a party whip and expect his M.Ps. to vote as he would wish or will he/dare he allow a free vote?

F.A. Cup replay: Shrewsbury Away.

There’s nothing like a road trip to a game to lift your spirits. With friends. To a football game when your team is getting stronger by the week. And you feel you are going to win the match. That you deserve to win the match; partly because the team you are playing is from a lower division ( and if you are a Walsall fan there are not many of those) … and you can feel the glory of the next round of the F.A. Cup beckoning.

So, dark at around five thirty. The lift arrives. Three of us in the car … and each of us has been under the weather. This could be just the pick-me-up we all need.

We have to dodge the traffic jams at Churchbridge where work is being done on the junctions imposed by the still-less-than-successful M6 toll road on the already busy A5 and A34. It’s rush-hour traffic and we slide onto the M54 – bound for Shrewsbury. Between us we know the way, so its no problem when the Sat-Nav goes on the blink.

Past the JLR factory and the i-54 business park, through new roadworks, remembering that we do not need to go all the way through the city centre this time. We park up good and early: pub car park, costing a fiver. Long steady walk to Greenhaus Meadow where, mysteriously there is car parking but not for away fans –how ridiculous!

The floodlights are low and I keep getting after images on my retina. Disorienting. England are playing a friendly game against Scotland* up at Celtic Park. Once these games, part of the “Home Championships” at the end of each season were passionate blood and thunder matches. Perhaps there will some of that spirit in the game tonight. Apropos to that I was amazed by how poor the playing surface was at Wembley for the qualifier earlier. Apparently that was because there was American Football played there the week before. I have no problem with the use of the stadium for that – it is a kind of sport after all – but surely more could have been done to get a better surface? For our national team? In our national game?

That England game is live on TV, but there are still a lot of – noisy – Walsall fans at the game.

There is a good exchange of typically insulting songs and banter between the fans. But the football is dismal. We are, frankly, poor. Manset is caught off-side again and again.  Shrewsbury unable to put much quality together. Until the second half.

They score shortly after the second half kick-off.  A good goal that starts with a sloppily, given away pass from Walsall. We try and “up” our game. Shrewsbury respond with more effort and a degree of gamesmanship that eventually has four players booked and one, Adam Chambers sent off. It seemed a reasonable challenge, though it was full-blooded. Hardly a sending off.

This will have an impact on the run of up and coming games: Adam is a key player in our line up and stands to be banned for the next three games.

There’s nothing like a road trip to a decent football game, did I say?

Well … this was certainly nothing like a road trip to a decent game.

* Happily England won 3 – 1

Stags and Shrews (Shrewsbury at home: F.A. Cup First Round)

I walk out of the hotel. I’m going to be in a taxi, on a plane, in a minibus for the next ten hours or so. I need some fresh air. Some light exercise. Just an hour’s walk around to clear the cobwebs, get the blood circulating.

And to stand for two minutes silence at eleven o’clock. This is the first time I can remember when I have not been in England at a Remembrance Sunday service. And this one is a hundred years after the beginning of the war that everyone believed would end all wars.

I plan to hold my token silence at the War of Independence Victory Column just around the corner from the hotel. Outside looked very wet from inside the hotel, with rainwater funnelled off roofs by downspouts that resemble a giant’s speaking tube … emptying water not into drains but onto the pavement. But, by the time I am wrapped up and walking through the automatically operated doors there are patches of blue sky and it is not as cold as we had feared. Very hospitable climate indeed – and people too.

But I have a few minutes to spare before eleven – and want to explore a little more. I walk outside the Old Walled City. I notice some movement: a bloke climbing a stepladder, pulling plastic sheeting off … off,

Wow!

It’s unmistakeable: a section of the former Berlin Wall. And connections are made between what I had been watching on BBC’s World TV channel this morning.

It is twenty five years since the “collapse” of the Berlin Wall. I stroll, but rapidly across the tramlines and traffic (there really isn’t much). The people are preparing an official ceremony. Covering up the wall section with black silk. There’s a German flag on one side and an Estonian flag on the other.

I get two quick phone photos before it is covered (I can work out how to get them onto the internet later I hope). A lady there explains to me the significance. The figures tumble around inside my head.

Ten years ago Estonia got independence, twenty five years ago the Berlin Wall fell, a hundred years ago World War One began. Shocking! Numbers eh?

I manage my silence, get back to My City Hotel in time to clamber into a taxi, explain to the driver we want the airport not the seaport (others were not so lucky, trust me) and we are off into that zombie world of international travel. Bring on some form of teleportation that doesn’t end up with me having the head and limb of a random fly a la Vincent Price B movies.

I have had a great adventure on this “stag night trip”; met new people, seen new things and added to my knowledge. Lit a couple of candles in the Russian Orthodox Church for “absent” and inspirational friends. Hearing some rehearsal for an organ recital from the Lutheran “dome” church.

Awake all of Thursday night/Friday morning talking about horror films, families, jobs, houses and travel – and watching YouTube clips. Travelling down to Gatwick Airport in a cramped minibus and flying into Tallinn.

Hotel then a succession of drinking holes. A fascinating old walled city, magical in the flame-lamp lit, damp-cobbled evening. Good food, variety of places to eat and happy people: mostly tourists. A welcoming city, interesting sights with free-information signboards explaining historical significance and contexts.

Bed reasonable early. Breakfast good. A walk of the town: Toompea, the churches, the viewing points and embassies. Coffee and cake, then we visit military antique shops, one that, sadly has church icons for sale (from where and how old and with what traditions I cannot help wondering) and fail to reach an agreeable barter for a Quadrophenia Soundtrack vinyl LP (two Euros and a pack of unopened Walsall F.C. playing cards not having the buying power we expected you see). Then meeting “the lads” for a “sports fest” in a sports bar.

     

Beginning with the Chelsea Liverpool game (a couple of Liverpool fans on the trip disappointed by the result), Rugby Union: England vs New Zealand (final score 21 – 24) and the Formula 1 from Brazil.

Inevitably it gets raucous. I step out for bread and cheese and a coffee, wondering how Walsall are getting on against Shrewsbury in the F.A. Cup game (you can use your ‘phone where the group are, but have to pay a forfeit: roll the dice and drink a nominated drink: by now the rules are that you have to “neck it in one”).

When I get to find out we are losing 2 -1, but there’s a Tom Bradshaw (wouldn’t you know it?) deflected-off-the-knee equaliser in added time.

So – a replay for us … and a chance to go?

After the long afternoon of sport, there’s more serious drinking time. Four of us split off for a meal and when we get back there’s a short been bought for me. I neck it and, retreat being the better part of valour, retire early. With good memories and good company assured.

Sheffield United next in the regional semi-final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

No Signal, Jet Lag and Doncaster Rovers at Home

I have been away: three days in New York (so much seen, so much left to see) before joining an escorted “heritage of America Tour” that swooped through Philadelphia, Lancaster County, Gettysburg, Colonial Williamsburg and ended in Washington: a city of many monuments and, for me, little identity or soul.

          

 

Overall a great experience: meeting such friendly people and learning so much while travelling the miles and the years. Also frustrating. Because my nephew lives in New York, but without a mobile ‘phone signal – and after running up a twenty dollar ‘phone bill getting the wrong numbers _ I had no way to get to see him. My guess is he would still have got engaged even if he’d met up with us. (Congratulations Tom!)

But, after delays, long-time sitting in airports and plane seats, watching all three available TV episodes of the Vikings and winning two virtual poker tournaments – oh and a marvellous taxi driver who mentioned driving a visiting friend of Randy Lerner’s past the Aston Villa ground – we got home. Stayed awake until English bed time and went to sleep.

At some indecent early hour before the sun was up my ‘phone went off. A message from my brother which read:

“Won – lost – drew”

Needless to say I cursed the ‘phone and wonder – still – why the message didn’t drop in earlier.

Lost seems not to cover it –as we were, apparently truly hammered 4 – 0 at Rochdale, having previously beaten Preston N.E. 3 – 1 at home – the only home game I missed because of the trip.

Meanwhile in the cup formerly known as the League Cup (now the Capital One Cup) Shrewsbury won against Norwich City to earn a home tie against Chelsea and Liverpool and Middlesbrough were involved in a penalty shoot out that needed thirty spot kicks (imagine that) for Liverpool to go through. This took an additional nineteen minutes and is – it goes without saying – a new record number of penalties that, hopefully will not be broken for many a long year.

So I set out to drive to the game: still feels strange to be on this side of the road. It also felt like a long time since I have been to a game (that’s how good the holiday was!) Feeling also some trepidation: we have only won one game in nine this season so far – or three out of the past twenty seven – and the season is finely balanced. Local media talk is about James Baxendale – who once played for Doncaster Rovers and Andy Butler has returned to Walsall (from Sheffield United) on what is termed an “emergency loan”. I have no idea how this differs from any other loan, but it sounds rather desperate.

 

Warm day, no problems parking; stroll to the ground, into the Bonser Lounge. Met up with Andy and Cully. Out in the stadium my first impression was green, space , watching O’Donnell signing autographs for kids behind the practice goal and noise: that “overture and the crashing drums of The Who to welcome players onto the pitch.

Tom Bradshaw back from injury, Reece Flanagan, Grimes on the bench. And the kick off appeared a little chaotic, players not seeming sure who was going to take the kick making me think of schoolboy games when somebody says, at the last minute “Oh all right, you take it but give me the ball; OK?”

Poor first half; no routine, passes going astray, no rhythm and Saddlers players staying back, putting no pressure on the ball or the Donny defence. Bradshaw working hard, bravely and selflessly up front, but nobody behind him to pick up the scraps.

Then, almost as even the most hardened of us was ready for the half time whistle some good play down the left had Sawyers threading a ball to – impossibly – Baxendale when the tall Rovers defenders were expecting a cross (I guess) and little “Bax” fired a sweet shot into the corner of the net.

Second half was a different matter. Walsall in full flow. Players up for it and going forward relentlessly. Some hard and some harsh tackling from Doncaster, but following an injury to the first choice ‘keeper and Billy Clifford coming on for Flanagan, Forde found more space and had composure down the left, with fine support from Andy Taylor (an accomplished player who looks the least athletic of footballers I have seen for some years (don’t judge a book by it’s cover”). Fine, sharp passing brought Sawyers into the game. He looked up, spotted a run by Bradshaw, popped the ball into the space and – another goal for “Bradders”.

Later a free kick on the edge of the box had us wondering who would take it. A real tussle going on in the area, Baxendale upsetting the defenders, getting roughed up, Andy Butler going over and elbows flying about. My guess that Taylor would take the kick was completely wrong: Antony Forde stepped up, shot, the ball arced in, bounced of the inside of the post and into the net. Some credit has to go to Butler and Baxendale here for the distraction I think. But the ball was in the net – again!

This was the final result, although Bradshaw and Sawyers would be replaced by Grimes and Manset (some fine touches and strong play) and there was a general sigh of relief. Maybe this means we are back to business as we once knew it – that’ll be at the start of last season incidentally. But, just maybe, a lot of weight has been taken off the players shoulders now and we are at home again next Saturday.

Summer Solstice Been and Gone.

Phew!

We’ve had a couple of days of scorching weather either side of the summer solstice (by scorching I mean, for England, of course – that’ll be twenty plus Celsius)

And I am typing this during the half time break of ITV televised live game between Cameroon and Brazil. The atmosphere is crackling in the stadium: yellow shirted Brazilians swamping the seats and whooping it up in stunning fervour.

The score is 2 – 1. Two great gaols from Neymar – but Cameroon are full of spirit. It’s a proper game!

       

And England are out. Losing 2 -1 to a dogged Luis Suarez inspired Uruguay. Out-played and out- fought. Just not good enough. I am well past the recriminations stage: they are not realistic the ranting fools that call for his head, or changes to rules.We lacked skill and we didn’t have the determination to give that little bit more that overpowers, intimidates, shocks and confounds those against whom we played. There are questions to be answered, but not those posed by the fickle media. There are points to be made about the European – particularly English Premier league – way of treating football as business, not football as sport. Rumours doing the early rounds that the F.I.F.A. World Cup may not continue as a competition; that U.E.F.A. will set up an opposite/different competition.

We have one game left: tomorrow night against a Costa Rica team that have surprised and impressed their opponents so far.

But, at the moment I am truly caught up in a game! Football as I like it. The match is about skill, expectation, underdogs, hope and luck. It feels like a game. Unlike the two that England turned up to earlier. Honestly, I have few expectations of the type of player that pull on the national shirts for my country these days. I see them as – no fault of their own, perhaps – being far removed from the fans. It’s about the wages, but about far, far more. Pride, for example. Passion. Never-say-die; that Alf-Tupper willingness to go on and on and on that Uruguay’s Suarez demonstrated so perfectly in coming back from a serious injury and walloping two goals past Joe Hart – even after he should have been exhausted. I am sure such bulldog spirit used to be an English trade mark.

The game is played on the pitch and the likes of Rooney (particularly) seem content to believe the drivel pulped out by the press. Ego, not effort.

Ah well …

Wimbledon tennis championship started this week. How will Andy Murray cope this year?

 

 

The Tour de France begins in eleven days. Begins in – of all places –  Yorkshire. The first stages being as follows:

Saturday 5th July: first stage, Leeds Harrogate, 190 km Sunday 6th July: second stage, York Sheffield, 200 km Monday 7th July: third stage, Cambridge London, 170 km

Back to my own football club: lowly Saddlers with big dreams. A whole host of pre-season friendlies coming up, some activity in signing up players: Joe O’Connor as replacement (though of course we do not “replace” people as simply as that) for Andy Butler who couldn’t agree on a deal and has joined Sheffield Utd. Wales under-19 and under 21 forward Tom Bradshaw, from Shrewsbury Town and a  non-League goalkeeper, Craig MacGillivray (from Harrogate).

I am looking forward to more of the Brazil game (have to go in a moment) but also to the start of the season. Fixtures are out now and we get one of my least favourite places out of the way on day one: Port Vale away.

… and, who knows maybe some fire from the England team in their last game in Brazil?

 

images: Neymar in the net: mirror.co.uk

Cameroon lion: metro.co.uk

Andy Murray (last year): telegraph.co.uk

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.