The Away End - John Powls - Upton Park || Middlesbrough F.C. news, reviews and comment

THE AWAY END - UPTON PARK 17-9-07
John Powls

Aren't the International breaks interminable!

If, like me, its Boro first and Eng-er-lund nowhere for you then you'd been aching to get back to Premier League action, despite the good results at full and U-21 level (well done, Tayls).

The train and tube journey gives Phil and I plenty of time to discuss the big questions of the moment.

Will The Barcodes go down with Northern Rock?

Boro had just been building a little momentum - will the break effect that? Have any of the squad come back from international duty with injuries? Or have we crocked any more at Hurworth? Johno to The Hornets? - let's hope that we can get him back if Stewie gets an injury.

Is Dava going to Hull - and back? And we're needing a new goalie in January now that the run up to contract 'groundhog day' with old Aussie, Eddie Scissorhands has started with the inevitable messy finish next Summer.

We are enjoying what may be the last late burst of warm sunshine in a poor Summer - how will that effect the pace of the game or will the sun on their backs help our Tango/Samba midfield? Will Gate start with the same line up that battered Brum?

Will we get the chance to see Gary O'Neil in action and will his debut impress like Mido's did at Craven Cottage. Will we see anything of Shawky - even on the bench? Will we get a goal out of Aliadiere or Tuncay?

Since we've been going to these games West Ham hasn't always been a happy hunting ground for Boro. Phil and I are hoping - for once - that our team performance at The Boleyn Ground doesn't come a poor second to The Hammerettes! If you've ever seen The Hammerettes you'll know what I mean.

Maybe it's because of the sunshine, but with Lawro backing us to lose (huzzah! - I love it when he predicts against us) I'm on for a battling point or even a sneak winner in injury time! Will my dreams fade and die? Will my bubble burst?

What do you think!

I like to think of it as The Boleyn Ground rather than Upton Park - the name's somehow redolent of a sort of half-timbered English nostalgia for things past - rather like that curiously self-critical ditty 'I'm forever blowing bubbles', Alf Garnett, West Ham won the World Cup in '66, Football's Academy, jellied eels and the Blitz - that somehow suits this East End club.

Truth be told, though, this part of London and the real East Enders of today - as portrayed by the walk from the tube station to the ground up the vibrant shopping street and past the covered market - are an example of new England's most diverse melting pots of cultures. But even that's a bit of tradition - it always has been like that round this way, a sort of Ellis Island for London.

You can still find the ritual gristleburger with cheese and onions, though!

And, not just for all those reasons, I like the area - it feels 'real'; a bit like going back to Middlesbrough does to me and not at all like say, Chelski, though The Hammers do have more than their fair share of fans amongst the hacks of the 'Street Of Shame' and TV.

Even if we win 5-0 today, Phil says, we'll still be second best in the tabloids (including The Times) and guaranteed three minutes at the end of MOTD. So what's new there, then?

But The Boleyn Ground home crowd is resolutely white, male, dads and sons, working class. The brainless 'Town Full Of Rent Boys' chant always annoys me and doesn't help when we protest about the Skunks' fans sledging of Mido. But in The Boleyn Ground it always feels at its most inappropriate and today it raises its feeble and ugly head only once.

We're in the corner of The Away End at the front, just near the corner flag. The corner that the sun shines into all game. And today the sun is beating down more than shining so we squint our way towards the practice goal and get the answer to one question as Schwarz is warming up - today he's given up the budgie suit for 'the man in black'/international man of mystery effect.

Then we hear the team over the tannoy. Gate's going to stick with the same eleven and O'Neil is on the bench. Hmmm - not sure about that, but it's understandable. No Shawky.

The Away End fills, as usual. Maybe it's because of the lazy Summer afternoon feel or because we're at the front but the noise levels don't seem what they usually are.

We're in our away kit which I don't like - at least I don't like the shorts which seem to me to be insipid and like cheap ladies pyjama bottoms aiming to ape 50's Hollywood glamour.

And that's how we start the game, insipid and trying to ape glamour but failing. For the first fifteen minutes we get nowhere and they are pushing everything at Ashton in the air. He gets a lot of success against Woody and Wheats - it doesn't really lead to anything but they've got us boxed in.

Then they slack their hold a little and we get into the game. They counter by pulling Bowyer back to double up on Stewie and stifle him. Upson and Collins get a stranglehold on Mido that they don't let up on all afternoon; sadly, he is and remains mostly anonymous, save for one pass and one shot late on. Our tactics of constantly throwing high balls at him rather than playing to his feet don't help.

With no apparent injury incident Bellamy, who has only had one run of any note, has to go off. As their fans applaud sympathetically The Away End let Mr Bellamy know that 'Shearer was right, Bellamy's..' - now what rhymes with 'right' and Stadium Of Light?

The Boat has started to get a grip on Etherington on their left so both wings for both sides are stalemated and the play starts to go through the middle and we enjoy our best spell of the half, breaking with Aliadiere's pace and the odd through ball from Arca or Rocky to find him. We sniff the odd half chance.

They do the same and thread Ashton through but he's a mile offside and knows it but he carries on and finishes neatly. Disallowed. The cheers die in their fans' throats. A little playful taunting begins between some lads just along from me and the Hammers fans in the corner of the stand adjacent.

It features - pies, bellies and the allegation that one of their more rotund is a stranger to salad. He waves his impressive belly in reply and receives a generous round of applause. The lads in our end reply in kind and are removed from the ground by police and stewards - the belly-police are watching you!

Then Mido finds a delightful little ball which 'megs their defender and finds Aliadiere inside the area and on his own. He slides his shot wide of Green and against the post when he should have scored. Now it's our turn to stifle the roars.

Shortly after that the never-scored-a-Prem-goal Frenchman finds himself with a slightly harder chance but from only six yards out - he contrives to miss that too.

Soon after he pulls up when on a break out of defence - it looks like a hammy. He's down for a long time and limps off to start what will probably be a lengthy lay off and is replaced by Tuncay. Another who has yet to open his Boro account in any sort of game.

Both sides discover how to plug the holes in the centre of midfield better. Now Arca and Rocky have reverted to type. Forget the Latin American dance rhythms, this is strictly ballroom of the old style, like two old ladies dancing together at the local village hall - slow, slow, - slow, slow, slow; pirouette like you once knew how to do it but that was a longer time ago than either can care to remember, before the arthritis; slow, slow, - slow, slow, slow - sideways or back and end with a two yard pass backwards or sideways to someone with a man on - or just lose the ball.

The Boat resorts to trying to bang the ball diagonally sixty yards across the field to Stewie who's still double marked.

This signals the demise of the last idea in our game.

They can't take advantage. All the momentum dies. Torpor in the sun sets in and the last ten minutes of the half drift by uneventfully as we top up the tan. We're glad there's no excitement so we don't feel the urge to stand up or waggle our girths as the belly-police are still close in attendance.

Nelson-like, they seem not to spot the twenty or so Hammers fans directly behind them in the adjacent stand who have never actually sat down all the half and have now dispensed with those oh-so-restrictive replica shirts and whose resplendent bellies have broken free and are ripening nicely (well, nicely's not exactly the word) in the sun.

Mr Bennett - or 'that f***in' pillockin' b*****d' as he is known to an admirer of his sitting just a few seats away and who has been showering him with similar affectionate epithets all half - blows for half time.

So where are the Hammerettes, then? No announcement, no nothing - they just don't appear. Have the belly-police objected to their usually bare midriffs and barred them from the ground? Are the belly dancers in the stand undercutting their fee? Whatever, no sign, nor of the £2 an hour-ers who used to mascot with big soft hammer-head costumes. Nothing stays the same, does it?

Deprived of the object of our usual hilarity, Phil and I agree that the first half was pretty even and eventually a stalemate. We have limited them to virtually no shots on goal or proper chances and worry that we have created plenty of chances ourselves but haven't taken them. Even the biased evidence of the half time highlights compilation on the big screens show this to be true.

But if you don't take your chances in the Prem when you're on top - well, you know what happens.

We speculate on what the half-time team talks will be and what changes the managers may make. The general theme should be obvious to both - whoever picks up the pace, drives on and exploits the width best going forward can have the game.

To us, in an away game like this and reverting to type as they have, keeping both Arca and Rocky doing their tea-dance routine isn't going to hack it. Although The Boat is trying his hardest, 'makeshift' would be a compliment to his abilities as a right winger.

We've got a right winger on the bench that we've just paid a lot for and who is clearly gagging to get on. So, then, we surmise Rocky off to be replaced by O'Neil who goes onto the right wing and bring The Boat in one to centre midfield to hold the ground while the other three bomb on.

Unaccountably, we're back on the pitch a good two or three minutes before them. We amble on - don't you just hate that - as though we're strolling out looking for the sun loungers that we left our towels on at the end of the first half. When they don't appear we loll about half asleep rather than getting sharp and prepared - so Gate's half time team talk must have been 'more of the same, lads'.

Unfortunately, we are still lolling about, half asleep when they kick off and barely twenty-five seconds go by before we realise that they have come out having listened to what we think Curbs was going to say to them and they scythe though us and score.

As we're getting the p**s ripped out of us by the adjacent Hammers' fans we've now disintegrated to lolling about, half asleep and shell-shocked. They're tearing us apart on the wings and a few minutes later, the inevitable - a cross from the right into the 'zone of uncertainty' and, my word, were Eddie Scissorhands and Luke Young uncertain.

Luke Young slides it into his own goal and we put our heads in our hands and try not to look at or listen to what is happening in the Hammers' fans twenty yards to our left but it's humiliating and hard to ignore.

We pull ourselves round a little and so do the team. It can't be because of Gate's urgings - he seems as shell shocked as we are. He's emerged into the technical area for what seems the first time in the game and is doing his only action - a sort of deeply unfashionable sort of clapping that owes everything to Motown in the 60's.

Has he been with Mrs Gate to one of those endless Motown Gold revival tours where there are nine different versions of The Drifters each claiming to have one of the original four group members? Can't Dave Allen do something useful and arrange for him to get some lessons in touchline gesticulation for the modern manager or get some tapes of Mourinho?

We're starting to make chances again as they forget what they've been told. Unfortunately, the four best all fall to Tuncay. I've said before that he makes really interesting and unusual bending runs which Prem defences haven't picked up on yet. He is doing so here and Stewie starts to read the runs and feed him defence-splitters. He is through one on one three times out of the four but his composure and finishing technique shows a universe of difference to the quality of his approach play - he fluffs the lot. Another is cleared off the line.

You can see Stewie looking for something to bang his head on in anger and frustration. I'm told that Tuncay apologised after the game - well, so he should. Basic Finishing 101 would have got him at least one or two - the trouble is that I'm far from sure that we have anyone on our coaching staff who can coach BF 101 and that's going to be a problem since we've replaced two proven Prem goalscorers with three out of four strikers who haven't got a Prem goal between them - and you can see why.

The inevitable happens as it always does if you don't score when you're on top. They remember what Curbs said to them and exploit us pushing up, cut us apart on the left wing this time, another cross in the zone of uncertainty and Ashton beats Tayls to the ball to slide in a goal that his all round play deserves. They've given us a lesson in finishing.

Too late, because the die is already cast, we're three down and playing for pride, Gate does what Phil and I were proposing he should at half time and replaces Rocky with O'Neil. What goes through Gate's head at this point?

"I've just solved a problem of having no wide right player that I trusted to do the job at the club for a season and a half by signing a player that I've long admired in that position - the fans believe it was a good signing and want to see his debut and he has the drive and energy to exploit this situation. Even if it's a bit late in the day we can salvage some pride. And I've got a defensive central midfielder playing out of position on the right wing."

The little (and very dim) light bulb goes on in his head. "I know, I'll put Stewie out of position on the right wing and O'Neil out of position on the left."

How do you work that one out? Hardly a surprise that O'Neil struggles to get into the game coming on too late anyway but then to play him on the wrong wing..?! Even so, he manages to pop up in the six yard box towards the end and get something on a cross that came at him unexpectedly when it shoots over the aerial challenge of Mido and Collins. Sadly, it more bounces off him than anything and goes wide.

Five minutes from time Gate brings Tayls off - no apparent injury and five minutes is less than useless as a rest after playing two U21 games in the International break. He replaces him with Dava - a centre-back by trade who has mastered just enough of the right back techniques to do a good-ish impression of one. This completely finishes off what was left of our left wing.

By now even the 'Appy 'Ammers belly dancers have drifted off to get in the tube queue early and the belly-police have dispersed.

The game peters out again as both sides go through the motions until 'that f***in' pillockin' b*****d' blows up. Actually, for once and contrary to his biggest fan who kept up the abuse throughout, I thought Mr Bennett had a reasonable game and kept his cards in his pocket in favour of tickings off to the miscreants, save for the couple of occasions when he had no choice.

Phil and I trudge out of the ground past the screens that tell us that The Mackems have won and on our way to the tube we mull over who it is in our coaching staff that persists with the square peg theory.

We thought it had gone with The Ex and Round's hole and Baldrick to Eng-er-lund, where even they have discarded it. But no - it's alive and well. The only other coach who is the common factor is Harry. Is it him? Is it something the FA peddle in the coaching badge courses that Gate is on?

Whoever is the guilty party needs to either repent of their ways fast or, as an incorrigible recidivist, be transported to some penal colony (The Mackems with Kean-o?) - and quick, preferably before next weekend.

Gate said he was going to learn the lessons of the past but this is at least one we're still suffering from. He used the 'L' word again last night on MOTD as well as saying that he could find no consolation in a 3-0 defeat. Well, you and me both, pal.

And you could get on your nice air conditioned coach and ride away insulated whilst we had to endure the longest tube queue for any of the London grounds and sweat out, for us, the longest tube journey surrounded by 'Appy 'Ammers. You and the lads should do it sometime, Gate - it might do you some good and speed up the learning process. It wasn't just ten minutes that cost us either, as you've said in the papers today, it was all ninety.

The stats on the West Ham game stand as a stark reminder of what has to be addressed. We had 60% possession away from home, three times the attempts with twice the number on target - which doesn't include the two attempts of ours that hit the frame of the goal. Schwarz didn't have to make a save until injury time but still picked the ball out of our net three times while Green had to make three or four fine saves. They gave us a lesson in finishing.

Doesn't take a genius to learn from that, Gate. But have we got the coaching staff to take the non-scoring sow's ears and turn them into the sorts of silk purses that we let go in the window?

I know that in the end their departure was inevitable but with the chances we created yesterday Veruka and The Yak would have put away at least as many as we conceded.

Unless we're well on top Rocky and Arca together in the team is a luxury too far and they egg each other on in fiddle-faddling while our Rome burns. A right foot, left foot combo is probably better - so let's start with The Boat (until Shawky is fit enough to try) and Arca with O'Neil and Stewie on their proper wings. At least until we've won the battles and the opposition tire enough to chance Rocky's lack of pace and him slowing us down.

Given a likely Aliadere injury it's probably Tuncay with Mido up front - can we do anything about the Turk's finishing in the week? And we must give Tom Craddock a slot on the subs bench rather than Lee - who is another of the Prem can't score/won't score crew.

It's not rocket science, Gate. Get on with it now, because..

..next week it's The Mackems at The Riverside where we gave them their only away win (and virtually their only win) of their last Prem campaign.

For all sorts of reasons - and how many of the Riverside faithful will be tempted to 'bring a mate' after a 3-0 defeat, Gate - this will be a must win six-pointer against a Mackems side who won well on Saturday and who will think twice in the future before coming off the pitch with anything left to answer Kean-o back with if they lose.

The Away End will be back with a Carling Cup Special after the Spurs game on 26 September.

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John Powls is a published poet with five books of his work in print. He is a regular performer of his work at major literary festivals and exhibitions in the UK and America, often working with musicians, painters with photographer Carol Ballenger.

Check out Red Shoes 250 for more of John Powls, right here.

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