Captain Sensible loses his way

If my pet cat should ever fall under the wheels of a bus then I hope it's Jonathan Greening who breaks the sad news to me.

You see the Albion captain is one man you can rely on to cheer you up. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

For example who else could ask, during Albion's pre-season tour in 2005, whether the sun in Portugal was different to the one in England because it was hotter in the Algarve?

And then there was the time his car was being serviced and he arrived to training in his wife's bright PINK Mini - and expected to get away with it.

From a journalist's point of view Jono doesn't disappoint. He speaks honestly, from the heart and is always a willing interviewee. He never shirks his duties as a captain and ticks Tony Mowbray's requirement that all players should show humility and respect. It's no wonder he's so highly thought of by his peers, Albion's coaching staff and all who deal with him.

However, I'm sure the club's press office could only shudder when he was asked about then Middlesbrough boss Steve McClaren, before Albion played them a few years ago, and completely dismissed the future England manager's credentials of taking charge of the national side, before adding: 'Just look at the players he's let go...' (Mind you, you can't argue with his observations on McClaren)

But surely nothing tops his latest gaffe, earlier this week.

Jono had arranged to pick up Kevin Phillips for training and, somewhat sensibly, typed the address of the collection point into his satnav.

After setting off at 8am, all was well.

And then things started to go wrong. Very wrong.

At some point - possibly as he was passing the JCB factory or seeing signs for Alton Towers - it dawned on Jono that instead of typing in 'Uttoxeter Road', he'd put in 'Uttoxeter'.

He ended up a mile outside the Staffordshire town.

We can only imagine what his team-mates (and more to the point, Tony Mowbray) must have thought when Jono and Kev finally rolled into the Walsall-based training ground at 10am, more than an hour late.