18-05-2022, 21:07
Tomorrow it'll be 139 years since we beat Notts Rangers at Wellington Road in the final of the Wednesbury Charity Cup. Can't believe it's been that long! Gone are the days when you could ride your coach-and-four down to the ground, park in the stables, buy a refreshing pint of nettle & celery pop from the Temperance Bar and then find a convenient chimney-sweep to sit on for the match. The stands would ring with all the old terrace classics like The Referee Is An Onanist and Ee-Aye-Addio, There's A Possibility We'll Win The Cup (If The Lord Of Hosts Deems Us Wretched Sinners Worthy); then everyone would have a grumble about the negative, defensive mentality when the team took the field in a 1-2-7 formation.
Stick the likes of Harold Aston or William Bisseker in a modern team and you'd hear all sorts of rubbish about their fitness levels or their advanced state of decomposition, but I tell you, when Jack Grealish can work a shift down the pit, play ninety minutes in the rain *and* annex Tanganyika all in one day, then he'll be a proper footballer.
Stick the likes of Harold Aston or William Bisseker in a modern team and you'd hear all sorts of rubbish about their fitness levels or their advanced state of decomposition, but I tell you, when Jack Grealish can work a shift down the pit, play ninety minutes in the rain *and* annex Tanganyika all in one day, then he'll be a proper footballer.
"I would rather spend a holiday in Tuscany than in the Black Country, but if I were compelled to choose between living in West Bromwich or Florence, I should make straight for West Bromwich." - J.B. Priestley