Having To Put Up With Wanderers Player Commentary Puts Dampner On Last Game of Season.
I hate the final game of the season. I hate it for two reasons. Number one, it means a long summer dragging out in front of you with no stories about the Wanderers except when Tony Kelly gives you the inside line about the Reebok’s bog cleaner in the former BEN or the big boys come a calling for our central defenders. And number two, unless we are involved in some nail biting, title deciding game (as the opposition), finding the match on the internet is nigh on impossible. Especially if we are playing Birmingham. I tried, I really did. But I was also keeping an eye on the pie eaters getting torn a new one by Chelski whilst sitting in my dressing gown eating Alpen. It`s a lifestyle/cholesterol thing.
It is at this time that the £3.99 per month that you fork out to the people that run Wanderers Player finally comes in handy. For most of the season the only highlight has been the wit and wisdom of Gary Megson and, once he`d gone off to tend to his garden, St Owen Coyle confirming that ‘insert name of next opposition manager here‘ is his best mate in football. It`s bland, it`s unobtrusive. Let`s be fair, it`s pretty rubbish.
This more or less sums up the Bolton Wanderers website. Selling you stuff you don`t really need and giving you scant information on the stuff you actually do. I understand that the running of the mainframe was farmed out when we were still in the Football League, as were all the other teams, so the club has less say on how it looks than the Sky 4 have on theirs. But as the first thing that people on the internet see on Bolton Wanderers, it`s dire. And as for the commentary, the late, great, Dave “Ding Dang Do” Higson could do better. Now.
Now, I am no fan of the aimless, one eyed meanderings of Alan Green or the blatant jingoism of Andy Gray. And I realise as Lancastrians we weren’t blessed with the most exciting of accents. But when we score a goal of quality like the second one yesterday, I expect to hear the commentator be a little more excited than “Oh, a goal by Klasnic”.
Due to the fact that Mrs X hails from the Wirral, I had to listen to Tranmere`s unfortunate victory on the Tranmere Player (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) on Saturday. The two commentators seemed genuinely enthused by the match they were watching, as did those on the Stockport player, even though they were watching two poor teams, one of which was already relegated and bearing in mind that the majority of people from Stockport have a problem stringing two grunts together. I admit that I have no idea of the name of the person who does the Wanderers in-house work (I`m not saying I want the job or anything) and I realise that this was an end of season nothing game. But there was just no life to it. And if there is one thing I can`t stand, it`s Tranmere being better than us at something.
Luckily the game itself didn`t end up being as dour as the commentary. After the team came out of the blocks, as they have done a few times this season, they went about proving what we all know. A natural goalscorer is needed during the summer. If we had had one then we would be up with the Stoke`s and Blackburn`s and not down with the three W`s. And Spurs would have got nowhere near an FA Cup Semi. Matty Taylor got through and hit the ball straight at Joe Hart and then Zat hit the woodwork. Good possession, no end product. When the goal did come it was from the usual source. I`m no fan of Paul Robinson taking free kicks, but it was quality nevertheless and SuperKev got his ninth of the season making him the top scorer and congratulations to him for that.
Birmingham then had the ball in the net through James McFadden using his arm and the goal was rightly disallowed. Cue lots of whinging which got three Birmingham players booked. I really couldn`t understand what their problem was. Maybe the ball did come back at him sharpish, but if it`s ball to hand and it goes in the goal, it`s handball. It`s a completely different scenario than if the ball hit a defender’s arm.
Bolton`s second goal was again proof that we can play the ball along the floor. The toy thrower wriggled through three defenders and laid it off to the world’s most famous kidney recipient to score. This propelled the fans to sing about signing him up, although whether it was for the one or the other (or both) is unclear. As for signing them up, I`d have to disagree. I understand that Klasnic is a fans favourite. He does play in the mould that we are used to, plus he is a fighter, which we like. However, he has hardly played the full ninety minutes in any game and after his early season form went on a drought to rival Elamnder`s. Having a cult hero is great, and we are lucky to have had two Ivan`s that have prodded our imaginations, but I don`t want Campo in the team anytime soon. As for Weiss, he is a petulant brat who, when he didn`t get his way, cried to the press. Even El Hadji Diouf didn`t do that. There is no doubt he is a talent but that kind of character has no place at the Reebok.
With the game won, Birmingham managed to snare themselves a comedy penalty when the referee decided that he didn`t like the look of Jussi`s new high viz jacket type jersey. It must have been that as I could see no other reason. Chu-Chu (wasn’t he in Top Cat`s gang?) fluffed it, your friend and mine Lee Bowyer then hit Jussi with the rebound before McFadden used his feet this time to score. This got the various Spidermen, Supermen and Scooby Doos in the Birmingham end jumping. Who knew Fathers For Justice had so many members in the West Midlands. Game over, the team came back out for the obligatory lap of appreciation. I say obligatory, we won`t mention two years ago.
After the game, the manager again praised the fans for the way they backed the team, even if the official website thinks we won 2-0 (see, it really is rubbish). He then went on to say that this is the way they want to play from now on. We got the message Owen. We got it some time ago. Now the season is finished, the time for talking is over. Take a holiday first if you must. No longer than a week.
===After publishing this article I became aware that Pamela Anderson herself was in the Birmingham end until she decided that the best place to show her wares was on the pitch. Brummies. They know class===