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So, as I contemplate the Ewood Park fiasco, the answer is clear. This supremely inconsistent squad needs a taste of the cat. Like all disciplinary measures, for maximum effect it needs to be applied as the most terrible of a carefully graduated scale of penalties. Minor dereliction of duty (say more than one stray cross in a game) would attract a fine of a week’s wages. Something more serious (nothing but stray crosses in a game) would mean the player repaying his entire wages that season. Something absolutely gross, and not scoring when there’s only the keeper to beat comes to mind, and he has to repay the entire squad’s wages. Think what that would do for the squad’s team spirit and the club’s balance sheet. Before long, the wage bill would be zero and every player would be taking on day jobs to repay their horrendous debts. If mere financial discipline did not do the trick, we would ratchet up the punishment. I have often been mildly amused by the weirder warming-up and bonding antics adopted by some teams in the 15 minutes before kick-off. Leeds, wasn’t it, who in the 1970’s used to perform an entire ballet in the mud? Far better than the band of the Royal Marines at Wembley. My scheme, though, is to bring the cat into play. Initially one might just give an innocent trainee twenty lashes, pour encourage les autres as the French Foreign Legion used to put it in the movies and probably still do. But, for the ultimate, the squad’s leading non-scorer might be ritually flogged in the centre circle before kick-off. Given that it is a cat of nine tails, one could simultaneously chastise almost the entire side: synchronised flogging, now there’s a crowd puller. We could afford a whole second tier on the Bob Lord Stand in no time, and French lessons would boom in Burnley. One would have to be a bit careful, of course, because the players, after weeks of privation caused by the ruinous financial penalties suffered previously, might not be able to take too much punishment. But, to avoid these continued Jeckyll and Hyde performances, drastic action is clearly required. Oh, and if you think that a leading non-scorer is a bit of nonsense, it isn’t. As a batsman, a top West Indies bowler was recently described in the press as test cricket’s leading duck maker. So there! Which brings me seamlessly (how? whips, that’s how) to the Houses of Parliament and the Club’s 25th anniversary celebration. Having been a member for, roughly, 16 years, I can’t say that the club is much the wiser for it. In that entire time, I have managed to attend just two AGMs and the freebie at Turf Moor the other season. Apart from intermittently writing articles of dubious merit – I have edited things myself on occasions and know that editors need articles - I fear I have consumed rather than contributed. So, it’s perhaps appropriate to say – who knows, possibly even on behalf of all the other more passive members – just how much appreciated is the work of the few who actually make things happen. Not least the excellent 25th. So many members attended and will have their own thoughts that I’ll restrict mine to just three. First, the two star speakers, Tommy Cummings and (slightly to his surprise) Ralph Coates. Both very good indeed and an interesting contrast in styles, perhaps the difference between the 1950s and 1960s. Second, Barry and Mrs Kilby. It is supremely important these days that chairmen can be seen and met and talked to (imagine Bob Lord at our top table; it doesn’t come easily, does it?). I did wonder how many other supporters club and other functions Barry attends each year: the poor chap must be permanently pie-eyed. Last, as Peter Pike toured us around the Houses (if you see what I mean) I was impressed, as one can hardly avoid being, at the sheer weight of gold plastered over every bit of the building except, of course, the spartan Commons chamber. It led me to wondering what would be left if all the gilt was removed. The answer, I suppose, would be the ingrained and underlying democracy of Britain: democracy may enjoy a bit of gilding but it doesn’t depend upon it, and will remain after the gold is gone. Put like that, democracy is a bit like supporting the Clarets in a replica shirt (work it out!). When I say "three" and "last", I don’t mean them. I must make mention of Mystic Meg who sat opposite me at the lunch and who was so confident that she could foresee, if not the future at least the sweet course, that she wagered 5p on it. Mystic Chris, of course, knew better. So did the other sages and savants assembled. All wrong, but then who could ever predict the workings of Parliament, even its catering division? Confidence was so shaken that no-one would take me up on a dead cert on the length of Tommy Cummings’ speech. Let’s hope that gambling within the precincts is not a capital offence. Whether it was the cat or some other drastic action Stan decided upon after Blackburn, it worked against Preston. The worst thing about the 0-5 trashing was that, for the first time I’ve noticed this season, we were not just rated as inadequate-but-trying, but as something of a joke. There was no respect for us trying hard and failing, as there has been in previous defeats: we were just clowns. The comments about each player became more derisory ("Branch, more of a twig" was one). So, when the whole thing turns around and almost-as-high-flying Preston are soundly beaten 3-0, do the Press eat their words? No, they do not. Indeed, as a Friday night game, the national press ignore it completely: no match report, not even a score, appeared in any of the Saturday papers. The upshot of that weekend, though, is that the cat has lost its comfortable 10th place, thrown out of its comfortable basket without even a catnip mouse. Wimbledon, who have been improve fast, now overtake us on goal difference, and the very selective attention of the press is again apparent. Wimbledon, it seems, are making a strong play-off push. Burnley, with a better win that weekend and the same number of points, are consigned somewhere south of Gerry Cottle’s Circus. And yet, in a moment, the entire picture blurs and rearranges itself. In a mid-week game apparently so uninteresting to the media that it neither appeared under "Today’s Fixtures" in the press, nor in the previews on Radio Five Live, we beat Wimbledon 2-0. Suddenly, there is the sound of hasty words being consumed. The Clarets are solid, combative, challenging, pushing for a play-off place; all the things we weren’t a week ago. We regain 10th spot, too, but now on points, 61, that put us within a genuinely measurable distance of an amazing end to the season. A great deal now hinges on the Baggies. Owing to that happy feature of the licensed free trade, freebies, Nino has received some gift Villa tickets for the Everton match and free tickets in the hand are worth… well, enough anyway. An inconsistent and frustrating team, Aston Villa (or, as small daughter calls them, Aston Vanilla) have enough stars to make any game worth watching in theory, if John Gregory will actually include them in the squad. He starts only with Dion Dublin of his recognised strikers and it is a long while before Ginola and, finally, Juan Pablo Angel, are introduced. Each shows superb ball-control and passing skills, and you wonder why they are not given starts. Supposedly, Ginola loses heart quickly: if he doesn’t achieve something in fifteen minutes, he throws his toys out of the pram and sulks, while Angel apparently hasn’t yet got the endurance to last 90 minutes. Amid the almost total silence (31,000 "fans" behaving as if they were in a cathedral) I have ample time to wonder how mediocre managers like Gregory can waste the talent available to them, for which they paid so much money, while brilliant managers like Stan harness their purchases to the wheel immediately. None of that explains Andy Payton, however. When the Baggies result comes through, the 1-1 is both encouraging (we’re coping at the top) and dispiriting (we threw away 2 points), but the overall effect is better because every other result goes our way. We inch forward to 9th place and 62 points, still needing (because of our terrible goal difference) 5 more points to get above Preston on 66. I now have no doubt that we can do it, but imagine we will not. Today (after I’ve e-mailed this already delayed article off to the Editor), we’ll probably obtain a poor draw at Norwich. I also predict draws against Birmingham and Watford, and losses against Sheffield United and Tranmere. There are 15 points left and there ought to be at least 8 points for the taking, but I can see only 3 of them. Unless, that is, the cat has done its stuff. Chris Down |