Happy Baggie convoy to Reading
Tuesday 30th March 2010, 9:10AM BST.
Albion blogger Jarrod Hill enjoyed his part in the travelling convoy headed to the Madjeski Stadium as the Baggies took another step toward promotion at Reading.
Saturday’s trip to Reading turned out to be a minor feat in organisation for us Albion fans, who 40 forty coaches laid on free of charge by the club.
It has become a regular occurrence each season, as the club aims to thank the fans for our support throughout the year. We were on the same coach as Cyril Randle and his nephew. Now Cyril is best described as being the West Midlands’ answer to Hugh Heffner, so I literally had to beat away the bikini clad girls just to say hello to him!
A point earned on the road kept most of us happy, although referee Andy D’Urso was shocking enough to raise our collective blood pressure to a dangerous level, with Pete ‘Hilltop Baggie’ Danckert blowing his top alongside me on more than one occasion.
The draw was a fair result, we had the majority of possession but Reading had more clear cut goalscoring opportunities. The fact we earned a draw away from home against one of the in-form teams is in no small measure thanks to our goalkeeper and club captain Scott Carson.
Carson was simply superb, even the one that Reading managed to get past him came after he had already pulled off a brilliant save before it was tapped in from a second clearance off the line.
Young Scott has had mixed fortunes this season and is quickly becoming the fans’ marmite of our squad, but love him or hate him I still believe he has earned us more points this season than he has cost us.
Saturday’s result has become even more enjoyable after Nottingham Forest lost last night at Newcastle. The gap between us and Forest in third position is now nine points with six games remaining.
It’s starting to feel a bit like Christmas Eve when I was seven years old, but this time I am dreaming of Premier League football and not a Star Wars x-wing fighter!
Sir Terry Baggie had us chuckling as normal at Reading, with his Tony Mowbray mask that had ‘giz a job’ written all over it! He was also dressed as a steward in a tongue-in-cheek bit of fun referring to our home game against Saturday’s opponents a few weeks ago.
But the home stewards didn’t see the funny side and made any fans dressed in high vis jackets remove them before entering the stadium. They all looked like they had been enjoying free food rations laid on by the club, and the only time you would see more fat men in suits would be at a dart player’s funeral.
Onto this Friday’s home game against Leicester City. Let’s all hope we have some of our walking wounded back in time for the game. Chris Brunt, Robert Koren, Marek Cech and Roman Bednar were all missing Saturday and it is testament to the depth of our squad that young Chris Wood can come in and do a decent job up front on his own.
Jerome Thomas looked to be getting over his own injury problems and was a constant threat to the Reading defence, with Joe Mattock behind him shackling the impressive Jimmy Kebe.
Leicester will be fired up for this Friday’s game as they chase a play off spot and as we all know there are no easy games in the Championship. But if we can maintain our unbeaten run we will take another step towards promotion.
The strange thing is, as much as I want us to hurry up and secure our passage into the greed league, I also don’t want this season to end.
My only consolation is that at least I have a World Cup this summer to feed my thirst for football, where there will be Albion players to watch.
I am feeling happy, I hope you are too.
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Latest Blog — A week is a long time in football
This time last week we were staring down the barrel, third from bottom with a worse record than at the same stage last year, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.
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I had my high vis jackets but had 10 police stop me soon as I got off the coach don’t think they saw the funny side off it poor sods!
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I think one more win or two draws will do the trick ,cant see forest catching us now ….
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Morning mate, i dont think you or i have any chance once Cyril and Tez are on the trip, it was embarrasing to see all those young girls crowding round them just to get a glimpse of the two legends.
Mr D’Urso was the worst of a very bad bunch of refs we have seen this season, with the notable exception of Mr Singh last week. I really dont even begin to understand how they reach their decisions, and the lines people(have to say that cos of the female one a couple of weeks ago) dont seem to want to get involved either. How Reading finished with ten men is beyond me, and there were two decent penalty apeals too. Even more surprising was our own Steve Madeleys assessment of Mr D’Urso……The ref wasnt good but didnt make any howlers. I’m off to Specsavers because along with many refs this season they have been nothing short of shocking.
Anyway, my bloods returning to just above normal now, so looking forward to Friday, tough game but winnable and very glad ive got my Watford and Doncaster tickets, because they could be the games when……..Shhhhh dont want to temp fate.
BOING BOING
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Hi Hilltop, i also read Steve Madeleys review of Mr D`Urso, somewhat different from the majority of fans, however his diplomacy is probably more refined than ours, lol.
I still think that prom….. shhhhh will be either the Doncaster or Middlesbrough games. I just hope we acheive it actually at a game and not due to Forests results elsewhere. I remember it happening the second time we went up under Meggo, much prefer to need to get a result and then getting it!!!
See you Friday mate im really eggcited!!!
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Probably a little premature but congratulations must go to Di Matteo and his coaching staff for a first class job.I was screaming for experience last Oct/Nov and in Tamas,Watson & Reid we got what we needed, nothing spectacular, just players doing a solid job.Now the real work starts and decisions to make, how do we tackle another attempt at the premier?
In my opinion we have never give it a serious go,do we continue with the prudency or does Jeremy start looking NOW for serious investment into the club to help finance our attempt this time.Surely Jeremy can be trusted in any attempt to bring in and vet any potential money people out there if he really has the club at heart!!!
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…Leicester will be a hard gaming. Surprisingly we’ve lost at home to each of the other three teams in the play off places this season: Forest, Cardiff and Swansea. Mustn’t be complacent – time to break the duck!
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Streetly
We spent £23m last time we were up there, Birmingham spent £16m….on an Ecuadorian and some Championship players, who I suspect were all on wages we’d be willing to pay.
Moore, Meite, Valero-£10m
Olsson, Jara, Mulumbu, Dorrans-£3m
It’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend it, get off JP’s back……..
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Warren
I dont think Streetlybaggie was getting on JPs back only bringing up the issue of what we do next season if/when we get promoted. Your point re spenditure is a very valid one and an observation i am sure quite a few chairman have made this season.
I have always said that the more money you spend on a player the more difficult it is to get value for money on them. It all comes down to the manager and how they value them. Maybe a topic for a few weeks time, up the baggies.
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Bomber
Streetly’s a long-standing JP critic. I’ve nothing against Streetly personally, but me and he disagree strongly on this subject.
It seems a lot of us think it would automatically lead to more success if we spend £12m and potentially get an Alves or Elmander, than it would to spend £5-6m and get a Doyle or a Rodallega. Personally, I don’t think that extra £10m is the reason a team stays up or not, I think it’s more complicated than that.
Anyway, it’s good to have you back Bomber. I’ve been posting on these boards for a while, but have never acquainted myself with any of you properly. I’d love to pop in to one of your pre-match booze-ups before the end of the season if you have any planned.
Boing Boing
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Great result last night now for Nigel Pearsons
Leicester they have to get something from the
game we have not been that convincing at home
recently probably the expectation. Fans must be patient if goals are a long time coming.
Lets hope Bednar is fit and our defenders keep
their concentration we have shown theres goals
from most positions in the team but theres
always the chance of a lapse in defence. 1- 0
will do.
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Warren,
No matter however you look at the situation, our previous attempts of competing in the premier have been disatrous and last season we were bottom from November until the end of the season.Wolves I hate to say have put up a better fight than we ever have and before I get accused of being a wolf in disguise I have missed around 20 home games since 1966-67 season at the Hawthorns.All I am asking is how do we go about giving it a real go this time?
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Warren
You are always welcome, this Friday i will be in the sportsman poss about 2.30-3pm.
Streetlybaggie
I always beleive that succcess at any football club is down to two things. Firstly who runs the club, and by that i mean manage it. Some managers can survive on little funding and work minor miracles (look at Doncaster this season) but success is always relative. Some managers have been given significant funding and won trophies, either way if you give a poor manager either no money or bags of it he will still fail. However give the right manager what you can afford and your relative success will always follow.
The second thing that all successful clubs int he modern age need is money. If you look down any league you will generally see the clubs who have spent the most money at the top, ie Manchester United, and Chelski in the greed leahue and ourselves and Newcastle in the Championship.
So in short if we have the right man in the hot seat we can acheive relative success, ie promotion followed by staying in the Premier League while on our current financial footing.
However if we were to bought by someone of the wealth of say the owners of Man City, then just surviving in the Prem is no longer relative success.
So in answer to your question of how do we give it a go, i would say, spend what we can afford and hope RDM has the ability to bring us our success. Anything else really isnt an option unless we want to be the next Portsmouth.
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Streetly,
I agree, we made a mess of it.
But I don’t agree it was JP’s fault. We outspent several of our relegation rivals, as we had done in previous Premiership seasons. I think TM bought badly and we lacked balance.
I’m not denying money can help, but it’s not directly proportional to success.
If there’s no investor out there (and lets by all means look), we stay in our means. But no investor doesn’t mean relegation. It just means we have to spend £15-20m well and try and be competitive without paying silly wages.
I think we can do it. It’s a vastly different Premiership to the one we left behind….
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Thanks Bomber,
I have to travel to get to the home games, so Friday’s a bit of a nightmare.
I’ll be at Donny though if there’s a plan there. If not, I’ll come and catch you at one of the other home games!!
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Warren
Yep we have our tickets at the ready for Donny and i have a feeling that game could be the one that we have more to celebrate at!!
Going on the coach so no real plans yet, im sure Sir Tezza will have a pub in mind tho!!
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Hi guys,your right Bomber i got it sorted,me and my followers will be heading for the lakeside bar where we will be made more than welcome,well i will be dont know about yow lot,aye boing boing
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im not sure if doncaster is a garrison town but the fancy dress theme i believe is army,Cyril will just love that,aye boing boing left right left right
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remember lads and lases slowly slowly catchy monkey,dont care about other results just our own,concentration disiplin are the key words on the pitch(nice to see the booers have wound their necks in)100% backing off it,lets take the roof off on saturday tea time.
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18 H, you,l be teking it off on your own mate,aye boing boing
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I thought, ‘who the ****’* Hugh Heffner when he’s at um? So I searched. He’s naughty. Then Sir Terence and I are called ‘Leg Ends’ when Tail Ends might have been more appropriate. Nice to know you kids recognise experts in the girlie field though and Terence has been in as many fields as I have. Last time I was in Doncaster Sir Tel was November 1947. We were top, they were bottom. We lost 2-1. We went up there in a 1927 Dennis coach with canvas roof, engine just been re-bored so maximum speed was 30mph there and back. Bikes passed us, cars passed us, everything passed us, but we had a great time overall. Set out from Carters Green at 6.30am Saturday, got back to Stone Cross at 2.30am SUNDAY! My uncle Horace organised it with his foundry mates and the beer thay shipped in Nottingham would have floated the Queen Mary. 14 pints he put away and was upright walking the kerb edge to prove it. I sat on a stairway in the Nottingham pub drinking lemonade as I was just 16, with lots of other blokes. They kept on going up slowly but surely. Later I found out it was a ‘house of ill-repute’. I wasn’t too sure what it was, but it was naughty, just like High Heffner.
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A word on our trip to Donny last 6 match form
shows us top Donny 5th Leicester slipped right
down form table lets hope Roman will be back
soon to get us back scoring although i detect a more cautious approach from RDM which now were in sight of PL is sensible or maybe hes
worried about our defence !
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This was a great day for us. A brilliant atmosphere! There was a vibe in the away end and it felt like we all knew that we are once again on the verge of another special promotion! The banter and stick we dished out, havin a laugh with other Albion fans was brilliant. We baggies know how to have a good time! It was like a party of 4,000 people!
After the equaliser everyone was going mad and people was lookin around at other fans they dont even know and celebrating. I might be getting ahead a bit here but I think this was the game that we all knew….
WE ARE GOIN UP!!
I was glad we gained another point on Forest after they lost but to be honest… I wanted them to win. I still have feint hopes of winning the title and dont want Newcastle to run away with it because it would flatter them too much. And I dont believe Forest will catch us now anyway. But hey, whatever the result was it was going to be a good one for us.
Reading fans played a part as well although they are a perfect example of the phrase
‘You only sing when your winning’
Oh and just how old is Sir Terry? Im sure I only seen a young kid with that Mowbray mask on?? :)
Lookin forward to rest of the season now, its the best time to be a Baggie once again.
BOING BOING!!!
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20 Cyril. 22 Danno.
Two lovely posts that make this site so worth reading despite some of the silliness on here that can sometimes makes it so dispiriting.
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