Two major pieces of news for you tonight, the second one later. The first one is obviously Bruise 3 Blues 1 and our second double this season. We practically carried off where we left off against Wolves – plenty of incisive passing, class finishing and a shitty ref to boot. The opening was, er, opened by one David “No Nickname” Neilsen, following a traditional route 1 clearance from Kelvin.
The old methods are often the best. Brum seemed to do a lot of chasing and a bit of kicking, but today it didn’t quite work out for them. Ha. Hughes scored the second with a wonderful free kick. OK, I’ve given Hughes a hard time recently – and justifiably so IMO – but today he did show a bit more willingness to play as a team. Mark Williams netted about 2 minutes later before their goal in the 86th minute, which coincidentally was WAAAAAAAY offside.
Anyway, that’s the boring match description shit over with, let’s get down to the fun stuff :
Plus points: We won. Against a promotion “cert” team. Getting a double over them. Nobody played badly, though some may disagree about Ardley. Good SP debuts for Cooper and Neilsen. Very good goal for Neilsen. As stated above, Hughes finally played today with a conviction that may justify his hefty wage bill.
Minus points: Their goal which gave me just a slight anxiety attack for the last 8 minutes of the game. Which, as previously mentioned, was WAAAAAAAY offside.
Sad: The Birmingham support. Not exactly the fullest I’ve ever seen the Arthur Wank stand. In fact, I would say that they took similar today as we did to St Andrews, and we’ve got no fans of course. Also, they hardly sung and a lot of them fucked off after the third goal. And Karen “I swallow, me” Brady claims they’re a bigger club than Villa? Yeah, OK…..
Funny: The Brum substitute getting substituted before half time. The look on Trevor Francis’ face was not one of enjoyment or sympathy, I can tell you.
Er…………..: Examine the picture above. Yup, these boards are all around the Holmesdale death traps concourses advertising Palaces’ new online betting service. Yeah, I know it’s an NTL job and yeah, I know that WFC are doing exactly the same thing, but come on, would you even trust Jordan with 1p of your hard-earned dough, let alone £10?? I can see it now : you’ve put £10 on the Grand National via Eagles Bet, your horse wins with odds of 20/1 and you suddenly find that your winnings have suddenly “disappeared”, whilst Jordan is quoted in the Racing Post laughing that he’s now got enough dough to open another shitty Carphone Warehouse store. Hey, ask any Palace fan about the result of the Palace Trust last season in case you doubt that.
Speaking of the Grand National: SW19 had Smarty at 18/1 each way thru Billy Hill on a £2 total stake. Yeah, hardly winning the lottery, but it means that I can now buy a beer on Tuesday without having to remortgage my house quite so much.
Quotes: “I hope we get Birmingham in the playoffs” – overheard whilst leaving today. Still reckon it’ll be more likely to be next year.
Worth it? What, a 14 game unbeaten run coupled with a win on the horses? Oh come on now……
In a nutshell: Roll on Burnley.
The second major bit of news tonight is this – we’re looking for a new Chief Executive. Yup, in other words, David Barnard is no longer with WFC. Now, why has he gone? Has he had a row with CK? Has he been sacked? Or has he simply jumped of his own accord? The truth we will probably never really know, but as it stands, we have nobody to deal with transfers.
So, why has he gone? There are so far three major theories that are being entertained, the “CK and Barney had a major barney” – no pun intended, “CK sacked Barney because too much information was being seeped out from the club”, or “Barney left because CK thought he was crap at his job”. The first one is interesting, there have been the occasional report of tension between the two, and maybe things got bought to a head? The second one could hold water : the club are clamping down on “insider” info coming out, supposedly, and Barney paid because of that. Although you can [CENSORED on advisement]. IIRC Barney hasn’t.
Why are WFC clamping down on such activities? Cover-up? Too much gross mis-representation of the club’s intentions? Did somebody mention “smear campaign”? Hmm. The third one may well be too obvious – as pointed out to me only this afternoon, why should the cutting of the wage bill be restricted to the playing staff? Barney wasn’t being paid a shit wage, certainly, and maybe he too benefitted from Hammam’s wall pissing exercise? Also, was Barney crap at his job? Consider this : he was asked by BRG to look into a media/PR department. Can you see one? Also, the SP Chief Steward once had some choice words about him after not being invited to a meeting about the stewarding………
Am I taking swipes at Barney? Nah, not really, I always got on all right with him, but as somebody else put it to me today, “what did he do apart from talk to the fans?”. Regardless, the future is now most important. I myself reckon that although Barney was the first major admin cull to go, he certainly won’t be the last. I wonder how much thin ice people like Reg Davis, Sharon (DB’s “Golden Girl” apparently : note that her and DB joined the upper WFC echelons at about the same time…) and even Steve Rooke are skating on? I’d be very surprised if at least one (or all three) are still at WFC this time next year. As on the pitch this season has shown, reputations and prestige (or lack of it) are counting for less and less at WFC 2001, who’s to say something similar isn’t happening off it? And if it is, why do you think I’m not exactly upset……………………?