July 2008 Archives

In my seven years covering Albion I've seen two managers leave and many players depart, with others arriving.

Some I've been glad to see the back of, some I was sorry to see leave. Some I am in touch with, others I'd cross the road to avoid.

Yet one man's recent departure will leave a huge void.

You may not even know of him unless you read his programme notes or have met him.

Reverend Ken Hipkiss was Albion's Chaplain. This meant a bit more than singing 'The Lord's My Shepherd' in the centre circle.

Ken was an occasional fixture at the training ground and a regular at matches. Most of the time you didn't know he was there. That, in many ways, was the whole point. You weren't meant to.

Yet he was a crucial servant to the club, from a spiritual and emotional point of view.

Players live in an era of fat salaries, fast cars and glamourous lifestyles. Yet the need for pastoral care should never be underestimated.

It might be a player being sent off or suffering a major injury. Once that player leaves the pitch he is put to the back of our subconscious mind. The other players get on with the game, the coaching staff are busy making tactical decisions, the fans keep supporting the team, the media continue to report on the game. One man has other concerns.

While the match continues, he will be shuffling out of his seat in the stand to venture down into the tunnel to lend an ear or offer a little comfort. Perhaps it will be welcome, perhaps not - at least the players concerned have that reassuring option. While life goes on for the rest of us, one man is busy making sure the player is okay. While you're celebrating a goal you'll be oblivious to this. While I file 800 words I won't even give it another thought.

Yet it's one man's job. By job, I mean his voluntary sense of duty. He doesn't even get paid for it.

I have witnessed, or know of, players who have been affected by a range of issues. Some have had major personal problems, some have endured marital or family issues, others have had health or emotional concerns which no amount of money or fan adulation can remedy. Some have had to deal with tragedies or traumas you or I would simply not be able to comprehend.

Ninety per cent of these remain filed away, out of view. It's the things we don't see. It's the issues we don't know about.

Yet, in all those times, one man has been there for those players regardless of their religious beliefs or otherwise.

While the players may be heroes to the fans, he has often been a 'welcome' hero to the players.

Not any more.

Ken Hipkiss' services are no longer being required by Albion - shamefully, with no real explanation being given - and that represents a shift away from the core of the club's community.

It's difficult to see the reasoning behind this decision or what good will possibly come out of it.

Ken's departure will be a big, big loss to the club.

Is it me, or does it all look a bit 1985/86 to you?

All it needs is a non-smoking sign and...

No, let's not even go there, otherwise I'll start getting worried about the prospect of seeing Garth Crooks sometime soon.

And, frankly, I'd rather not.

(I won't even mention the results)

Question is, Albion fans, do you prefer it with, or without, the sponsors?

It was Scott Carson day at the training ground today.

Modelling the new goalkeeping top, the new Baggies keeper was unveiled by the club following his move from Liverpool.

He made it clear he wants to resume his England career and wishes to make his Albion stay a long-term project. Reassuring words for Albion fans. At 22, Carson can only get better and will learn from his experiences.

Answering questions from press, TV and radio, it was reassuring to also see Scott steer away from being too critical of Villa for not pursuing him.

Carson could have put the knife into Martin O'Neill but he showed a dignified restraint.

After all, we all know that having a dig at local rivals is a cheap shot, usually executed by those who have an inferiority complex, a sense of insecurity and little else to say for themselves.

It comes down to class. Some people, like Scott, clearly have it.

Others simply don't.

FORMER Albion players Richard Sneekes and Darryl Burgess have set up a football summer roadshow.

The ex-Baggies duo, who played for the club during the late 1990s and early 2000s, have linked up with former Walsall promotion hero Chris Marsh.

The trio are running a series of different football courses around Birmingham and the Black Country to encourage children during the summer holidays.

The courses, open to children between the ages of four to 14, are open for boys and girls and cost £45 per week for one child, which includes a souvenir tee-shirt.

Next week's soccer school will be at Boldmere Falcons, Sheffield Road, Boldmere. They'll also be visiting West Bromwich, Tamworth, Sutton Coldfield.

For more information or to book a place call 0844 7794625 or visit the website, www.totalfootballuk.co.uk

If there had been something like this when I was 4-14, who knows where I'd be now...

While Albion were getting battered by Koln in some quaint German village stadium, watched by locals with moustaches and bad hair, the more serious side of football was already underway in deepest Leeds.

Boing FC, you may or may not know, are a team made up of Albion supporters. Coming from far and wide, the 20-man squad headed up to Worldnet 08, organised by the Internet Football Association.

And while Tony Mowbray's men slugged it out in Euskirchen, Boing FC were busy reaching the semi-final of the 64-team tournament held at the University of Leeds' Bodington Hall.

After a 0-0 draw against Rotherham - where, I'm told they had a good goal disallowed - the lads then battled out a 1-1 stalemate against Partick Thistle. This was followed by a narrow 1-0 win against Welling to finish top of their group.

Group of Death? Quite possibly.

In the knock-out stages they beat Castlerock (a semi-pro Irish side) 2-0, before dishing out a 1-0 battering through a golden goal, although by all accounts it should have been settled long before then.

Quarter-final opponents were Coventry City, who were seen off 1-0.

And then it all went a little wrong.

Sadly - and we must assume Mowbray doesn't suffer this problem - the excesses of Saturday night (footballers will be footballers), two players having to rush home, injuries and fatigue meant that the depleted Boing side were made to play semi-final opponents Preston immediately after a jaunt up a huge hill. Which is a bit harsh.

PNE were already warmed up and ready to kick-off by the time our lads completed their trek. Like I say, not a problem Mowbray necessarily had at Wembley.

They lost 4-1 to North End, who went onto lift the trophy.

Full credit to manager Richard Eades, captain Stuart Turner and leading scorer Ryan Trump (who also played in an England v Scotland game), as well solid centre-half Mark Currie and a goalkeeper called Knoxie, who, until the semi, had only conceded one goal.

A good effort, I'd say.

AND so we head home.

Albion's defeat to Koln might have looked bad but it wasn't the end of the world.

Okay so the defending had a touch of the Laurel and Hardy about it but the players were shattered after being given a 'good beasting' (the words of fitness coach Dan Harris) on Friday.

And it didn't help that the walk from the Euskirchen dressing rooms to the pitch took about 15 minutes.

The athletics stadium had that quaint feel to it that you only get in pre-season. On the one side we had what amounted to a 'main stand', while on the other we had park benches dotted around - I'm sure there was a tramp asleep on one of them - with vendors selling Bratwurst, a green mess which resembled battered cabbage and a lager/coke concoction, which looked as bad as it sounds and probably tasted worse.

Sadly, camp compere Georg van den Hoovel, who conducted the most surreal of press conferences at the previous game, was not present otherwise he could have defused matters when it all got a little nasty.

In their infinite wisdom the stewards placed rows of chairs on the running track for the two sets of coaching staff and players. Good idea.- until some bright spark forgot that it might rain.

And it did. So much so that the organisers wheeled out four huge umbrellas - the kind you get in 'smoking areas' of pubs - and plonked them in front of the main stand to keep both sets of coaches and subs dry.

Sadly this meant that only those of us with x-ray vision could see what was going on on the pitch. Matters weren't helped by the fact that the German press had already sneaked into a small media room, grabbing the last of the power points. (I could make a gag about Germans getting up early to claim the best seats by draping their lap top bags over the desks, but I won't)

However all wasn't well. Herr Angry from Koln was not happy. Seeing the umbrellas, our moustachioed friend stood up and shook his fist at the stewards in a pique of German anger I've not seen since Oz was upsetting the locals on the Dusseldorf building site in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

The umbrellas came down when the showers stopped. Which is just as well otherwise I would have had no idea what the score was.

This was all too much for a group of Albion fans who had clearly been sampling the Warsteiner in nearby Bier Kellers. Expecting the players to emerge from the tunnel, our friends from the Black Country had camera phones poised and ready to film the teams emerging. Which would have been a great idea had the players not already sneaked onto the pitch from behind one of the goals. It wa like being back at the old Wembley. And to top it all we were treated to a collection of Germany's finest stadium rock before the game.

Germans with bad hair and moustaches, stadium rock, the prospect of hooliganism - it was all too 1983 for my liking.

At the end fans invaded the pitch and Koln player Tobias Nickenig ended the game with a souvenir he probably didn't want.

After much back-slapping and signing of autographs,. Tobias walked back to the dressing room blissfully unaware that a mischievous Englishman had scrawled WBA on his back...

OUCH!

That'll be the slightly cleaner version of what Joe Corrigan said after he ended up with an egg on his head.

The goalkeeping coach took a blow to the head after dropping some kit - yes, even keepers drop things - in the hotel courtyard.

And, then, as he stood back up after picking it up and smashed his head against a gate...cue an outburst of finest anglo-saxon.

He wasn't the only one suffering today.

Albion players feasted on pizza, chips and Spag Bol last night and paid for it today.

Fitness coach Dan Harris made sure they burned every last drop off.

And he looked mightily pleased about it.

A hugely taxing morning session in the rain was followed by more torture in the afternoon, prompting Roman Bednar to tell Laurie Rampling to 'stop smiling' as the club photographer snapped away in amusement.

It clearly wasn't Roman's day. Not only was he panting away like a moustachioed German in a late-night Channel 5 movie but he also ended the day with red raw ears.

The footballers play a game where they form a circle and try to keep the ball in the air. If it bounces you lose a 'life'. Do it too often and you get your ears flicked by every player.

Very funny. Not for Roman though.

Elsewhere, Tony Mowbray was thrilled for other reasons as you could imagine.

Just under £4million for an England goalkeeper who was rated at double the price last year? Not bad business.

The Baggies boss clearly does a fine line in sarcasm too. At one point he popped his head around the hotel room door and asked 'any transfer news today lads?' ...before walking off, chuckling to himself.

While we're on the subject, one thing worth clearing up about Carson is this so-called buy-back option mentioned in some media this morning.

Well there isn't - because such clauses are not permitted by the FA. Something about it compromising fair play and being open to possible abuse I believe.

For now, it's off back over the border tomorrow for Albion's game against FC Koln, which we're told, apparently means Cologne in German.

But then what do I know? I always thought Cologne was something that old men receive every Christmas?

SHOULD the UK ever be a three-minute warning away from nuclear attack then I hope Jonathan Greening is the man who informs me of my imminent date with the grim reaper.

The warning of catastrophic radiation poisoning or, at worst, possible death, will be far more welcome coming from Albion's captain rather than any government public information film.

Not least when Jono delivers news of my imminent demise with his usual jovial, good-humoured smile.

I may even find it funny to be honest.

It's just as well that he has a sense of humour as poor Jono, one of the world's happiest men, has been getting it from all sides this week in Tegelen.

Not only has he been the mobile chicane for the front-runners in the team's eight-man Super Mario Kart Challenge but, earlier this week, a few of the players watched the club's 2007-08 DVD.

All seems well until the very last frame of the film when Jono, somewhat inexplicably, got coerced (so he tells us) into waving at the camera with both hands and yelping 'see you in the Premier League'.

Big mistake - not least as he now gets reminded of his outburst at frequent intervals. And rightly-so.

Jono explained himself: "I just keep winding them up and walking around going 'see you in the Premier League'.

"I blame it on the people who did the DVD - I was stiched up.

"They were begging me to do it and, being the nice guy that I am, I did it and now I'm getting grief.

"It'll probably end up on Youtube."

Let's hope so.

Meanwhile, Albion players were on a day off yesterday and given a day out at a local shopping mall.

Roman Bednar will today be wondering what to do with the wire-less mouse he bought for his laptop.

Sadly he didn't bother buying the software to download onto his computer.

Let's hope Roman has better luck when he buys the car he promised himself for winning promotion, not least as his company Vauxhall Astra has already been sent back to Heart of Midlothian.

Having been in the team's Tegelen hotel when Marek Cech arrived earlier this week we have been wondering when Scott Carson will arrive.

The club are close to a deal to make the goalkeeper their first England international since Steve Hunt in the mid-1980s.

That'll explain the grin which has been fixed to Tony Mowbray's face for a couple of days now.

Speaking of being happy, club photographer Laurie Rampling has plenty to smile about after being officially named as the 'loudest man in Venlo', the town where we're staying.

Rampling was handed the honour by a waitress in a one of the town's cafes.

The Dutch town has never seen anything like it by all accounts.

How loud is he? Let's just say you can hear Laurie before you see him....

I warn you now, never trust a man who wears a black and white striped blazer with jeans.

If that man is wearing odd-looking glasses - more for comedy than reading - then clearly you should steer clear. This is a man who clearly rated Timmy Mallett as a top entertainer and still lives with his mother. Even though he's 49. He has probably never had a girlfriend.

And for this reason alone I can only commend Tony Mowbray for keeping a straight face when he was 'interviewed' by a man who was possibly the lovechild of Dennis Pennis and Paul O'Grady.

He certainly looked like he was.

With his bleached-blond hair, shoulder pads and slightly girl-like demeanour, Georg van den Hoovel was the self-appointed master of ceremonies at the post-match press conference.

Parking himself in between the two opposing managers, on a stage normally reserved for bog-standard press conferences, Mr VDH brought a touch of the surreal to an after-match gathering by firing his own questions, while looking like a cabaret act. Camp? A row of tents springs to mind. He even interrupted Tony Mowbray on one occasion, just so he could translate something into German halfway through a sentence. The rest of us watched on in awe. This was ground-breaking stuff.

Not surprisingly VDH didn't ask about Scott Carson or Robert Koren's injury. Nor was he bothered about anything else Albion-wise. But I'm sure he winked at the Borussia coach. Perhaps he had a twitch. Who knows.

It was all rather uncomfortable.

The Eurovision feel to last night continued during the game thanks to Germany's answer to Terry Wogan introducing the German side to the 3000-or-so fans, while an irritable English lady fumbling her way through the Baggies' team.

I say fumbling because she got names horribly wrong, with lost vowels here, syllables disappearing there.

At one point our female friend - no doubt wearing a floral frock and wishing she could listen to the Archers in peace - appeared to lose her cool.

"I'm sorry," she snapped, "I can't tell you who some of the (Albion) substitutes are because not all of them have got numbers."

This merely prompted a bitchy and perfectly justified 'oooh' from members of the crowd. I'm sure I heard her stamping her feet and slamming a door. And I bet her bum looked big in whatever she was wearing.

Her co-announcer merely added a touch of 'Woganism' to the proceedings by saying 'thank you' in a surprised tone when she announced Albion's scorer. Clearly he was as shocked as the rest of us to see Sherjill MacDonald score.

Mike Fleetwood and Sam Fox had nothing on our tannoy partners. It was broadcasting heaven.

Speaking of last night's game, a special mention for the supporters who travelled from England especially to watch Albion in action.

Among others were regulars from past pre-seasons, London Baggies, Norwegian Baggies, Black Country Baggies, drunken Baggies, Baggies from The Bill (so I'm told) and Dean Walton, who paid 1p to travel out and just £9.99 for his return ticket. Including taxes.

A bargain at twice the price.

The centre of Goch was blue and white stiped throughout, with some good nature banter between Albion fans and the locals. I reckon there were close to 300 fans.

Mind you, some people had clearly not realised how strong German beer is.

There were no doubt a few sore heads today.

But perhaps not as painful as the bill that Borussia Monchengladbach's 'head of transport' will be getting today after the German club's hapless coach driver drove his bus into the side of the gate, pulling the frame off its hinges and leaving scrapes on the rear wing of the vehicle.

Oh dear.

THERE are certain unwritten rules in life.

Never, for example, ask to see a painting before it's finished, never criticise a chef in certain restaurants over in Moseley and, if you're a footballer, never push your fitness coach into the swimming pool.

It's not far behind pushing the team manager or chairman into deep water.

Roman Bednar will be a tired man by the time this tour has finished after giving Dan Harris - sorry, a fully-clothed Dan Harris - an almighty shove into the hotel swimming pool.

Schoolboy error, Roman.

Elsewhere, there was little joy for Dean Kiely.

Not only have Albion made a £4million bid for Scott Carson but the Albion No1 has now been forced out of the Super Mario Grand Prix.

A new contestant entered the fray, Chris Brunt, which took the number of drivers up to nine.

Because only eight players can play at the same time, it was decided that whoever finished last would be relegated to make way for the newcomer.

Deano was today's backmarker, dropping out after failing to make the cut.

Incidentally, Albion are still waiting to hear Carson's next move but the mood is one of optimism - to the degree that it was initially suggested that Albion may get some joy today (Tuesday). That's unlikely now but staff remain confident.

In the meantime they've welcomed Marek Cech, who arrived at the team's Tegelen hotel at lunchtime after Tony Mowbray rushed off to meet him following this morning's training session.

Elsewhere, there were other arrivals.

Norwegian based Albion fan Stian Boe and his family arrived to watch the players train this morning following their mammoth journey from Scandinavia.

I had to feel a little bit sorry for Stian when he told me of his experiences last season. He went to two games during Albion's title-winning campaign - the FA Cup semi-final against Portsmouth and the home game against Leicester City.

Stian won't be the only arrival.

Albion's very own snapper Laurie Rampling arrives this evening.

Laurie is one of life's characters.

Living in Southend means getting to games is never easy for him.

Mind you that doesn't explain what possessed him, last season, to drive from Essex to Plymouth via West Bromwich.

And then there was the time he spotted Tony Brown on a London Underground train during the heightened state of terror alert.

Shouting 'hey Bomber' across the crowded carriage wasn't one of his better ideas...