NEWS

21 November 2000

OK everyone, last update until the West Brom game : the JH move to Charlton has, unsurprisingly, collapsed. However, for once it's not his fitness that is the problem : basically we wanted Lisbie on loan, Charlton wanted JH on loan, we said "no" and Charlton said "well bollocks to you then". So we're back at square #1 again. We now have a player who is costing us £15k a week basic (£780k a year at least), who may not be 100% mentally (he certainly isn't 100% physically, and never was), whilst we still have a huge wage bill to sort out. Frankly, I feel this was a missed opportunity, he will doubtlessly be hero-worshipped beyond his attitude allows, and naturally I expect him to carry on in his carte blanche manner until some mug enlightened team splash out for him. It's now obvious we were stitched up left, right and centre on him, and it appears that the opportunity has been missed for now. Ah well.

Anyway guys and gals, I'm off now, I'm still contactable thru the normal means. See you on the 2nd.

18 November 2000

Bloody hell, another away game, another win and another last minute goal. In other words, Trent 1 Wandle 2. The first game post-JH, even though he hasn't actually gone yet he's picked up the euphimistic pre-transfer injury, which meant that Euell and Gayle were up front. Didn't seem to miss him, in fact like Crewe we looked a lot more mobile up front. First goal came from a very good defensive mistake from Bart-Williams, Euell picked it up, ran and slotted past Lurch pretty easily. From there on, it was mainly Forest pressure, and it was of no real surprise when they equalised 2 minutes into injury time in the second half. Bugger. Or was it? We came out of the blocks, Pecker forced a corner, Ardley swung it in, Trond connected and...... well, you can guess the rest.

Anyway, shall we?

Plus points: We won. Away. Again. Don't seem to miss Hartson that much, nothing a semi-decent and quick centre forward can't more than adequately replace. Amount of backing up our players did on each other. Way that some of our players found space very easily. Some good passing in places. Dean Blackwell had a good game. So did Kimble. In fact, nobody really had a stinker. Trond's goal, if anyone deserves a break, it's him : the "We've Got Trond Andersen" chant was the loudest and proudest I've ever heard it. The way we came back immediately after the goal. Good turnout for us considering the absolute fuck-up regarding transport - suffice to say, if I'd come back by train, I would still be on it as opposed to writing this for you now.

Minus points: Still worried about Will's passbacks and I think that Darren Holloway needs to put the boot in a bit more. Ardley's fart-arsing about that cost us the goal. Indeed, playing for a 1-0 win after we scored probably wasn't a good idea - though it was the first time we've adopted such tactics blatantly this year. Few misplaced passes.

Where to improve: Think we need to give up trying to play for a 1-0 victory, true it was the first time we've tried it this season, but really it just doesn't work. Never has done. Bit of basic passing wouldn't go amiss at times, and there are still minor adjustments to be made. But I can't really complain, hell, we even look quite sharp and mobile...

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) My journey up : found out that the latest train that would have got me up to Nottingham in time for kickoff was 10am. Any later and I wouldn't have got in. Getting a train to Loughborough (on the Derby line), then getting a cab to the station. And I will not begin to describe the boredom on the train going up..... (2) My journey back : the car I was in took about 3 hours max door to door. And they wonder why people won't use public transport. (3) Forest vs Wimbledon a couple of years ago would have been a reasonably standard Premiership fixture. People say we've fallen, Forest have fallen further. A lot further. (4) Two of my mates managed to get into Forest hospitality, with free beer. No, I am not jealous. Much.

Nice: I've always liked Forest's ground.

In a nutshell: Hey, I dig this town.

17 November 2000

You know that careless talk costs lives. Well, this is kinda how today feels. Confused? OK, in a move that surprises many yet surprises nobody at the same time, JH is about to be sold for a lot of money to another club, medical permitting. Except that the fee is between £4m and £5m and the club in question is Charlton Athletic. Hardly the Champions League stage he was expecting, though Charlton are (for this season at least) higher in the divisions than we are. The deal, should it happen, is not expected to go through until Monday, so he'll have Forest to prove himself (assuming he plays, funny things "injuries"). In return, we'll probably be getting a Charlton player called Lisbie (or Lesbo, can't remember), who's very quick up front and has a major shot on him. Which is handy.

So, what does this all mean? Well, it certainly means that we've given up our promotion push this season, though many would say (not me, honest) that is no bad thing. It also now seems to suggest that "It's time for part 2 of the mass cull, TB, this time I think some sacred cows need to be slayed....", as pointed out on here earlier this week. Want proof? OK, according to W&WW, about 5 major players are about to be axed because they're either "past it" or "not doing enough" - one is even considered to be a "troublemaker", though not JH. I wonder who the five players are? I think I can gather who, I'm sure you've got at least 3. The emphasis now clearly seems to be on youth, together with some much more reliable older heads, and having seen our young breed this season playing with enthusiasm, skill and a desire to win not seen for a long time, I for one welcome it.

This won't help the paranoid Womble one bit, and of course we've got the usual quotes. You've heard them, "lack of ambition", "asset stripping", blah de blah de blah. Honestly, I swear there is a special phrase book available which gives off these quotes. The sale of JH will be symbolic to many people, just as signing him was, but this time round there doesn't seem to be the mass suicide going about. Maybe it's because the sale was going to happen anyway, and with public knowledge of our £4m debt, we all know who was going to go. But another reason may be JH's recent lethargic performances. It would be somewhat ironic that the last game that JH could well play saw him at his lumbering, unfit and dare I say it uncommitted worst. How many good games can you honestly recall JH having? 5 at the most, out of a 2 year spell. I've said it before, and I'll say it again now : how much longer can we wait for JH to get fully fit and fully motivated? The answer is now becoming very clear - too damn long.

In a way, I suppose you ought to feel sorry for JH - six to eight weeks ago, he was on the verge of earning double at Rangers with Euro football to boot. Now? Assuming he's fit, he'll now be playing for a team likely to fight relegation earning less than what he gets at WFC. JH is supposed to be pissed off by being sold, although I wouldn't like to say it's because he gets carte blanche to do what the fuck he likes at WFC and get well paid for it. However, if he's now being moved sideways because he's not doing enough then really he only has himself to blame. Certainly the Drillo story could have far reaching consequences, if true, which may speed up his exit even quicker. As my Fulham report shows, major changes need to be made, and thank fuck TB is making the most dramatic change of all. I honestly believe that if/when he goes, WFC will start picking up again.

Of course, he could fail the medical........

12 November 2000

The stuff after this paragraph was written this morning, however as I was working, I didn't have time to upload it. Just as well, as something came to light after I wrote it today. In Drillo's new book, he alledges that John Hartson used to spend a lot of time down the pub instead of training or fighting injury. The only fighting he did was apparently getting in brawls with other WFC team mates in taxis. Bearing in mind that he has also supposed to be in fights with VJ and Dean Blackwell last year, it does make things a little bit more interesting. What makes it more explosive is the fact that JH hasn't denied it, issuing a "no comment" type statement and will only comment further when he's discussed things with cunt features Barnett. Assuming this is remotely true, it makes my comments about him below somewhat poignant. If you think I'm singling out JH in this way, it's probably because I am. When you hear that he's got massive influence amongst the players (and I presume they would tag along in what they do), when you read on the one hand that he wants to stay at WFC for his contract and yet you hear from someone else that he is "desperate" to leave, and when you see how our captain is performing on the pitch (sorry for anyone who doesn't believe that he's being serviced enough, when you duck out of as many challenges as he does, he's currently nowhere near a 1986 model Fashanu or even Holdsworth or Ekoku), you do tend to wonder if he is a poisonous influence and we ought to cut our losses on him. ATM, I certainly do. And I certainly never thought I'd say that when we signed him.

Why have I suddenly developed a strong twinge of deja vu? After watching Elys 0 Harrods 3 I thought I was experiencing various alledged "performances" of the last 24 months. We started off OK, even got on top for a 20 minute spell, but conceding in the first half, then that penalty (supposedly a bit on the iffy side, not that we deserved anything else) and we just bottled it. The players as a whole didn't want to know. The annoying thing is, Fulham weren't really that special, it's just that we made them look good. Had we put the same amount of effort in as we did against Boro, or even Barnsley last week, we could well have got a result. But as you well know, we clearly don't have the stomach to put two games of 110% effort in succession, so it's no wonder we lost

So, who can I blame? The fault clearly lies with those on the pitch. Not TB (who can only do so much), not the owners, not the coaching staff, not the tea lady. But those 11 players who started (and finished) yesterday should seriously question whether they should pick up their wages next time (they'll pick them up as usual no doubt). Let's get a few home truths out of the way : JH should not be captain. In fact, I'm now seriously doubting whether he should even be picked. He doesn't inspire the team on the field often enough. Talk of him being a good influence off the pitch (given what Drillo is supposed to have said about JH going for mid-morning pissups I can see that his "influence" seems to entail him getting everyone pissed up) means fuck all as far as I'm concerned. He looked slow, lazy, sluggish, and quite frankly if we'd only paid £2m for him I would be disappointed. He's supposed to love these sort of games, well it's time he started to fucking show it. Euell came on for Damo and to be honest if somebody pays £5m for him, I would snap it off them ASAP. People like Gayle, Kimble and Blackwell are only being picked because they're part of the furniture, and they're keeping out more hungrier (and probably better) players like Pecker, Harley/Kramer (yeah, I know Kramer's injured, but you get the point), and even Wilmott and Gier. I've said this virtually every week now, but our players always seem to be half a yard off the pace. In fact, yesterday, they looked even slower - whenever we got a throw in we just stood there, nobody moved - I doubt if anyone was capable of moving. I wonder if I'll hear yet another story of certain players getting bladdered after the game?

Am I being unfair? Were we simply outplayed? No, I don't think so on either count. I'm definitely not the only person getting fed up with JH, eavesdropping a few people after the game yesterday and he certainly wasn't being talked of in high regard. When Gayle fucked up yet again, people were really getting on his back. And I don't really blame them. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the end whistle where people weren't giving much in the way of booing (which I think was deserved yesterday), though I think that it was just sheer pissed-offness. It's clear that there are still major problems with attitude, if there aren't then explain yesterday. I firmly believe that there are still too many bad apples there. On paper we finished with a very strong team yesterday, but we were clearly second best. It's time for part 2 of the mass cull, TB, this time I think some sacred cows need to be slayed....

Because I've neglected the usual format for match reports for this one time rantathon, here's some minor points : Why does Mark Williams always let the ball bounce once before challenging? Why is it that whenever "we" (the fans) get pumped up, turn out in relatively high numbers and put effort in our singing, which is what TB wants us to do, do we fuck up totally? If I hear somebody at WFC turn round and say that the team needs to be lifted from us getting behind them then I think I'm going to firebomb the admin offices with everyone who works at WFC inside it. You owe us, fuckwits. How many fans have Fulham found in the last 6 months? 5,000? They are clearly those who can't get into Ponti Stamfordi, they've adopted that misplaced smugness already, despite Fulham not actually winning anything. Generally, I've known a few Fulham supporters in my time and they're nothing like the pricks I encountered yesterday. Oh, and one more thing - why do I always seem to have flu every time we play Fulham? Why do I always need to hold a post mortem afterwards? And why do we always seem to lose 3-0 to them as well?

Two other points : one, REMBE didn't turn up for his book signing session in Wimbledon yesterday. I think that he may have had other committments like being a coach on a matchday, but even so if you advertise that you'll be there, then it is good PR to actually turn up. Who does he think he is, Joe Kinnear? (don't answer that...) Second, and very contentious - guess who is back training at WFC? One Andreas Lund. He seems to want to play for us, which is something, and be honest, he can't be much worse than our so called "stars"........

11 November 2000 [AM EDITION]

OK dudes, special AM edition before the Cottaging game, just to clear up a few things : firstly, again, apologies for lack of updates (even by my standards) - this is due to a mixture of me being under the weather, huge amounts of work and the complete fuck up they call the US election (and if you think that FL is going to be the end of it, you've got another think coming....). Secondly, I posted my thoughts on REMBE's retiring on the guestbook, I'll repeat the gist of it here : it's sad, and it's unfortunate, but it's a shame that my last abiding memory of his playing career was his poorly timed "misquoted" articles in the Substandard last year. Thirdly, the new kit is yellow (you can tell I haven't been updating :) ), maybe we'll find out how many people voted in today's programme. Or maybe not. Fourthly, WFC are now openly advertising for somebody to "support" the marketing department. Insert your own snide comment here, I can think of at least 30 such forms of abuse here :)

Fifth, and the main jist of this morning, is a response to what Weird and Wonderful World put in its news item last night about us needing to cut £4m off the wage bill. Firstly, it proves that my conservative estimates on our wage bill (see "Planet Reality") were indeed, too conservative. I thought that my figures were bad enough, they're now even worse than I thought. It's been reported that people like Wild Thang and TP - both long term crocks - are on £7k a week, and Michael Thomas is on (wait for it) - 8k a week. It is also apparent that TB won't announce that we're in such a pickle because of "supporter morale". In other words, he may say that "we need to cut our wage bill and we may need to get rid of JH". Two points : (1) Will getting rid of JH really be so universally unpopular? I'm not so sure, quite a few people I speak to are starting to get slightly fed up with his lack of goals and his general all-round attitude. Most people think he'll go anyway, and if TB lets on about the wage bill being so high, his sale may be a little bit more accepted - witness the increasing regularity of comments like "as long as we sign a decent lower league striker I'll be happy with him going". (2) If the above figure on Michael Thomas is correct, that must make him one of our highest paid players. MT was a TB signing. TB was pissed off with dipping out on Dunne (him yet again) because of problems with the wage bill, yet seems happy to sign players with just as high wage bills. So the question to ask is, again - does TB have a clue about the admin side of transfers? Worth pondering, especially if he starts doing a sob story about how little money he's getting (no, I'm not starting a TB Out campaign).

Finally for this section, and a point proven again? When REMBE announced his retirement, he told some people at WFC about it. Fair enough. So, how did a great deal of WFC's staff get to hear about such a big thing? Through the Substandard. What were the people who knew about this doing? I've mentioned in the past that much of WFC's problems stem from the lack of communication between various people in the club, if half the staff don't know that a big player has retired then what hope have we got for doing anything remotely contentious?

Enjoy Foolham, I'll be the one in block D, row 21 shivering.....

6 November 2000 [AM EDITION]

Well, I'm glad that a 500 mile round trip for one of the most stupid kick off times ever was worth it, and Tykes 0 Typecasts 1 was a nice reward. We missed loads of chances, so did they, and it's not inconcievable that the game could have finished 4-4. Still, it's an away win and a welcome one at that. Rob Gier can count himself lucky to stay on the pitch or unlucky that he got caught out twice, depending on your point of view. Good games for Pecker, Trond and Damien. Still reckon that in general we look about half a yard off the pace still, again, serious thoughts about our general level of fitness still persist. It was an entertaining game for the (ahem) masses on Sky, and for those who couldn't go - hope we looked good. We sure sounded good.

The 2¢ worth:

Plus points: We won. Away. Third clean sheet in a row. The fact that we kept on going for the whole 90 minutes (shades of vintage WFC?) and not settle for the point. Nobody really had a stinker. Can you remember the last time we scored a winning goal in the last minute?

Minus points: Can't help thinking at times that our defence seems to still shit itself whenever put under pressure.

Where to improve: Ball. Net. Foot. Goal. The four main things you need to score a goal. Unfortunately, our attackers seem to miss one of these components out.

Quotes: "Tommy Tyke gave me some sweets last time. I let him feel me all over" - un-named WFC fan before the game. And you reckon I'm warped?

Truth is stranger than fiction: (1) The weather. Was that fucking cold or what? (2) Why did Dean Blackwell, REMBE and Steve Allen follow the team bus in their own cars? Can't we get a bigger coach? Or is the amount of beer that JH is storing in the back of the bus taking up three seats? (3) Seeing "Scabs Out" and "Coal Not Dole" written on a wall by the ground. The miners strike was 16 years ago - kind of reminds me of that Jap soldier who kept thinking WW2 was still going 30 years later. (4) Barnsley fans streaming out after their goal. Guess they had no confidence whatsoever in their team coming back.

Nice: Harry waving to us (WFC fans) not one, not twice, but three times when we chanted his name. We still love him.

Dump: Sheffield. And Barnsley.

Next week, I'll be justifying what Pinochet got up to: Am I the only person who thinks that Rob Gier was a little hard done by yesterday? First challenge was stupid, but bearing in mind the Barnsley guy was offside anyway when the ball was played, and I suppose his yellow card was a bit of evening out. Second one? Well, the Barnsley guy did go over the top of him......

Take a look around:

For anyone who still believes that football was much better in the "good old days", examine the above evidence. For those who weren't following football pre-Taylor report, or for those who have forgotten what it was really like, the stand we were put in was basically a death trap. The wiring (left) was at the back of the stand, and it wasn't new cabling either. The toilets (right) were, ahem, "fully ventilated", ie without a roof, and there wasn't much in the way of plumbing either. And this is the year 2000. Worse is that the rest of the ground is nice and new. Ah well, with luck this stand will be condemned soon and they can rebuild it. And the next time some When Saturday Comes reader goes on about how horribly sanitised todays grounds are, show him the above before twatting him. Oh, and the "legendary" pies were shit as well.

Dumb: The kick off time. Behind Torquay away Boxing Day and Nottm Forest away Boxing Day in the league of "World's Stupidest Fixture Scheduling".

Scary. Still: Dean Blackwell's footing.

Was it worth it? You're god damn right it was......

In a nutshell: Cool. Literally.

Meanwhile, Drillo's book should be out soon, should be interesting to read (and probably a bit more factually accurate than OGEM's effort, though that shouldn't be hard). Anyway, couple of snippets from the book are coming out from the Norwegian press, and this bit confirmed something : the man who was solely behind his sacking was KIR. If SH had remained, so would Drillo. That kind of buggers up the theories of a few people doesn't it? Hopefully, it will lay to rest the often-held view that Drillo was an R&G lackey, though somehow I doubt it.

1 November 2000

Firstly, an apology for SW19 being out of action all last night (good job I updated in record time :) ) - this was unfortunately totally out of my hands. It's also pretty tricky to run a mirror site whenever things like this goes down (as for some reason it takes 4 hours for my URL provider to update a redirect command, the techies will know what I mean), so sorry about that. Isn't it just typical that servers never go down when we've lost.......

Speaking of things breaking down : the sharper eyed amongst you may have noticed the slight lack of coach travel to Barnsley in the programme. The apparent reason for this is that the OSC have effectively scrapped the coaches (and therefore abandoned their main reason for existing) because they are now making a loss on every single coach journey. However, there is a coach running for those who are stuck, but it's now being personally funded by Mr Elkins himself (if you want to go, you'll have to call him). So now what? Well, there is talk (and I stress, talk) that WISA may start running the coaches themselves. I assume that this will be sorted ASAP because as the general away attendances have shown, more and more people do want to go. Who, what and where I don't know, but we'll find out soon enough

Personally speaking, I think that WFC itself should run the travel, and not WISA. Why? Firstly, why should fans have to run something that the club could easily afford themselves? Secondly, if things go wrong, then it would reflect badly on WISA (WFC are big and ugly enough to deal with this sort of thing). And finally, did anyone mention cost? It may be a good idea to get sponsorship from a local company with vested interests, complete with concessions (if anyone at WFC Marketing wants to pay lip-service to my ideas, contact me at the usual address), this will be able to ensure that we don't end up with a financial shortfall. It's a shame that it's come to this, but with the scare stories (both imagined and real) about the OSC coaches, I'm surprised it's taking this long....

Reserve team action for you : we beat West Ham 2-1, despite going a goal down (against the run of play) we had a great deal of the game, probably most of it. Second half saw our goals, Voodoo has obviously shaken off the curse of getting a blowjob off a witch and scored the first goal. Des Byrne scored a cracking free kick for the second (apparently REMBE was seen laughing at the goal....), and overall it looked pretty solid. Some good prospects for the future on show tonight.

David Kemp (remember him?) is now the Oxford manager, with guess who as Director of Football until the end of the season (where he'll probably expect a nice big payoff). Apparently, OGEM didn't turn up on his first day in his new job. Ah well, at least he made his intentions for the season known in advance.