Friday evening games in the Black Country, don’t you just love ‘em? Where to start on why they are a crap idea? Weekday afternoon Radio 5 “Live” would be one good reason. Is it always as bad? They were live at a press conference given by the “Emergency Medical Unit”. You couldn’t hear the questions as there were no mikes – you had to guess the question on the basis of the answer given by the Emergency chappies. Apparently, before he died they had discovered that defected Russian agent had radioactivity in his urine. I couldn’t help but muse that if I were choosing superpowers, the ability to wee through walls is not the one I’d go for.
The only good news was that the traffic was no problem. As we had allowed ourselves time for said problems it meant we were parking up on the Wolverhampton ring road bright and early (other than that it wasn’t bright and it was late afternoon). We were right next to where later the away supporters’ buses would be – somewhat irritatingly as it meant we got held up as the polises allowed them out while the Black Country yokels and me shook our fists and shouted “get off our land”.
Anyway we wandered up to the pub we’d been drinking at last time we were here (also for a Friday night Championship game – is there no end to this fun?). Sadly the pub now had a sign “Home Fans Only”. Happily there was another pub over the road. Unhappily it had a sign “No Away Fans”. We contemplated the situation for a while considering whether there was some loophole we could exploit here. But no, it seemed like they had us so we wandered a bit further along to a pub called “Rothwells”. This really was “Everycitycentrepub” in 21st century England. Nowt wrong with it as such but it just had that anonymous light varnished wood look that is meant to make you feel in good spirits but just makes you a tiny bit depressed. There was only me and our lass drinking at first – and a few early evening diners having defrosted reheated unfood. This seemed to frustrate the policemen with video cameras standing outside who kept looking in to see if there was anything they could film. I felt sorry for them so tried to sit at a particularly jaunty angle that made it look as if you’d never know what I might get up to next.
Gradually friends (i.e. people I know – I’m not sure many of them actually like me) turned up and we got speculating about formation. I reckon we played 4-5-1 against Colchester. But the Echo said 4-4-1-1. Some in the pub reckoned it was more like 4-1-4-1. At one point I said we should play 4-4-2-2. Even assuming the authorities would let us do this (which seems unlikely) nobody was in favour of it as we can’t cope with offside traps in any case and this would exacerbate the situation.
The conversation was relevant as we again went for 5 in the middle. This time it was Connolly up front rather than one of the big men (does anyone else have this problem of being unable to remember whether we have played Brown or Murphy?).
The away “end” at Molineux has got to be the worst in the top two leagues. We had taken a good number of supporters down and filled the end that stretched down one side of the pitch. But because you are stretched out you can never get any sort of singing going. People can be 5 seats across from you, bellowing out and you can’t work out what they are singing. You have to try to get the songs across by a form of the parlour game, charades. It’s a song. Four words. First word. Sounds like. River. Home. River at Home. Wear? We’re – yes. We’re on our way? No. We’re the Sunderland boys? No. We’re by far the … Yes! But by the time you’ve worked this out, those to the side of you are no longer singing it.
The game started off pretty evenly – with eleven of their players in their half, eleven of our players in ours and the ball on the centre spot. But thankfully it didn’t stay that way for long as we took control. For 20 minutes or so we bossed the game. We had one cracking chance but otherwise were not looking like turning our domination into goals. And then it was like someone flicked a switch. Yorke seemed to lose the length of the ball. He went to play it back to a defender. But with the defender about 15 yards away, he managed to knock it 10 yards allowing a Wolves player to run onto it and at our surprised defence. He seemed to do this three times in quick succession. And that was it. We lost our way and handed the game over to Wolves. They seemed to be doing as little with their domination as we had done with ours. They had one ball cleared off the line that the crowd behind the goal screamed was over. I have no idea. I was four rows back on the half way line. I can tell you it was over the half way line but little else.
Then just as we thought we might get away with it and re-group at half-time, we failed to close one of their players down and he scored a screamer from 25 yards out. Jammy bastid.
Second half saw Yorke not re-appear. This is a good part of Keane’s management. He will make the decisions he needs to. I really like Yorke in midfield but he was not having a good game. The other players look to him so much that this has a very wide effect. Sadly it didn’t change the pattern of the game. Ward was outstanding in goal and made one save in particular he had no right to. As we well know if you don’t kill teams off, you run the risk of throwing points away. We did eventually move to 4-4-2. By now Kav was on, Hysen had moved to left wing with Whitehead now moving forward into the midfield to allow Nuggsy to come on. You can always tell how high quality a game is by how good Nuggsy looks. He looked very good.
To be honest I forget how the goal came even though I remember the moment of it very well. The ball came to Elliott towards the left side (i.e. our side) of the box and he shot towards goal with it deflecting off a player and into the left side (as we looked) of the goal. Excellent stuff. It is great to see Elliott getting goals and gives me more hope for the rest of the season.
As we headed back down the M6 the overhead signs were flashing that the motorway was closed for overnight roadworks between junctions 6 and 5. I really didn’t fancy wending my way through Birmingham with lorries and other motorway traffic so we turned down the M40 in order to head back to Hertfordshire across country in torrential rain. With a point from your evening out such things seem that little more bearable.
John aka Herts