January 2009 Archives

You can't beat Newsnow. It's up there with cheap carveries, three-for-£10 bottles of wine, Sky Plus and heated front windscreens (come on Ford, pass it on to the rest of us).

Newsnow is so good it crashes your computer occasionally. Presumably because everyone is reading it.

For those of you who don't know it's a prolific search engine which automatically lists every story relating to any given topic. Albion wise, it means that everything which mentions the club drops down onto the WBA page.

It was sometime last night that a story appeared claiming that Ryan Donk's loan spell had been cut short.

I was at Albion when I found out early this morning. Great timing. I asked the question...'it's rubbish' came the reply. A quick call to the Mail's sports desk to put the record straight - job done.

By lunchtime the 'story' of Donk's exit was here, there and everywhere, with 'news' websites carrying the story as fact. If only they bothered checking...

Anyway, Thursday is press conference day. So that means lot's of hanging around.

First up was a quick chat between myself, a colleague and Luke Moore. He offered some interesting thoughts on his return to Villa and how he'll react if he scores in front of the Holte End.

You can read all in Friday's Birmingham Mail.

Next up was the 'Length'. Or Jonas Olsson if you prefer. Why the Length? The Swede's English is excellent. But every so often he loses a word. When he first arrived at Albion he spoke about putting his 'length' to great use at set-pieces. He meant height. Yeah, yeah, juvenile I know.

And, fair play to Jonas, today was the first press conference he's completed without slipping an expletive in at some stage. His English really is that good. I bet the radio journalists love him. Especially when it's live.

Speaking of the press it was equally amusing to hear one member of the hack pack approach Jonas before his press conference and state 'you may get some strange questions today...some of us work for the British tabloid press'. Jonas nodded politely. Clearly, it wasn't like this at Nijmegen or Landskrona.

Jonas was, in fact, on great form off the pitch, as he is on it. He's a music connoisseur. There's none of this RnB nonsence from the Length. He's a Jagger man, a Hendrix freak, an Oasis devotee. He's a proper music man.

And then Tony Mowbray arrived. Who's fit, who isn't? Will he be eating spaghetti for breakfast, will Morrison be leaving? Gary...forget it.

Transfer wise? Poker Face Mowbray shuffled around, said 'let's wait and see' a few times and answered the questions without actually saying anything.

Miller's had his operation and can start his rehab. He was in good spirits and disappointed not to be asked, once again, about his footballing principles. Amazing what a couple of home wins can do.

Will there be any fresh transfer news in tomorrow's Birmingham Mail? Let's wait and see.

'Signings, this way', was the sign which greeted me when I arrived at the training ground this morning.

It was pointing towards the media room, where a row of Albion shirts had been lined up. Great stuff.

New signings. Lots of them.

This was clearly no ordinary media briefing.

Actually it was.

In quicker time than it takes to say 'When's Almeyda signing?', it was quickly apparent that this would be a very run-of-the-mill press briefing.

The shirts were laid out for players to sign as they arrived for training, something they do every week, for charitable causes. Dozens of shirts laid out. All with signatures, waiting to be sent off to make somebody's day.

The news of new arrivals is clearly for another day. I'm clearing my diary for February 2 as we speak.

Besides, new signings and the press aren't always good bed fellows. Bryan Robson once spent a good few minutes playing down rumours of Albion's interest in Steve Watson only for a colleague and I to leave his office and walk straight into...Steve Watson. And then there was the time that Ifeanyi Udeze signed for Gary Megson and was unveiled to the media. Udeze had so much sweat dripping from his face that we had to interrupt the press conference to check he was okay. Turns out he was just hot. This being January. In West Bromwich. And he'd just come from a Greek club. No, I don't know either.

The training ground pitches were snowed off so today's session was down at the indoor facility - underlining the benefits of Albion's decision to invest in the facility. The alternative used to be the manager's secretary making frantic calls to local universities, schools or colleges asking if their indoor facilities could be used. Very amateur, a bit like an aspiring Premier League club not having its own under-soil heating I'd say...

Anyway, the firmer surface at Albion's dome meant that some of those nursing sprains, strains, aches and pains were unable to train today. Not ideal. Thursday may well be D-Day for those players.

Mowbray was in candid form today. Transfers were hot on the agenda and you can read what the Albion boss had to say here

One thing you can guarantee is that this January window will be a long one.

But then you knew that anyway.