09-02-2022, 09:54 AM
I hardly go to games any more due to distance and finance but found I couldn't sleep last night due to the state we find ourselves in. Forgive the dodgy memory (I'm sure Manc will pull all manner of holes in my logic) but I found myself thinking back to how we got here.
On Sunday, 7th May 2000, we beat Charlton 2-0 in the last game of the season to stay in the Championship. Since being relegated from Football League Division 1 in 1986 we had been mostly appalling, the nadir being the coffin party at Gay Meadow in 1992. However, IIRC, SGM had taken charge in March and had sewn seeds of recovery.
Fast forward 12 months and we were losing in the second leg of the play offs at The Reebok. We'd added some steel at the back, a method of playing, and a little bit of magic here and there with players like Jason Roberts. Whilst we fell short (and the fans that night still make it one of my proudest ever Albion moments). It did feel like something embryonic was starting.
As everyone who was there for all or the majority of the following season knows, 2001/02 was truly magical, the best season ever.
With one or two exceptions, the next dozen years or so saw us begin every season stronger than we finished the last. I was never a fan of Peace, seeing him as ultra-cautious, but we had a plan, we had key people in key positions, and generally we moved in the right direction.
Our recruitment policy for a while appeared as if we were using a real-life FM Scout cheat. Molumbu, Dorrans, Olsson, GMac, Brunt, Morrison, Odemwingie, numerous others. All came in as relatively unknown and either proved incredible value for money, or, in a few special cases, club legends.
At the same time, we seemed to specialise in picking up players with careers blighted by injuries and fixing them. Steven Reid, JayRod, Giles Barnes, again a few others came with a reputation of being made of balsa wood but our sports scientists fixed them and made them new. Kind of like gluing subbuteo players yeds back on.
Somewhere around Pulis, all of the focus changed. We either paid huge wages for over the hill 'names' such as Anelka or Greg or spunked absolute fortunes on players that even a cursory scout would have prevented such as Olly Burke and Brown Ideye. At the same time manager recruitment followed the same pattern - either tired and tested 'names' - Pulis, Allardyce, Pardew, Bruce - or wildly speculative punts such as Val on a 4 year deal. Whereas before we managed to make broken players better, now we seemed to have adopted a reverse midas touch, with recurring injuries becoming the norm.
I guess the point I'm trying to make in my search for catharsis, is that around 2016 we stopped improving year on year and instead started regressing. And so we find ourselves where we are now - those old enough will recognise the parallels from 1988/89 all too well. The really worrying thing now compared to then, is that at least the owners gave a shit. They were local businessmen made good and did things like ran solicitors or made sheds, but they cared. Lai appears to just be interested in asset-stripping.
I was talking to a dingle mate of mine on Wednesday and we got talking about the aftermath of the 5-1. By the time they got relegated the following season, I thought it would take them a generation to even get near where we were. Funny old game, as they say.
Living away and not being on social media (this here dump excepted), I can't gauge the mood about Lai very well. I do however remember barmy Bobby coming out after a home defeat to explain the rationale behind the Don Goodman sale, and walking over the brow of a bridge in Shrewsbury only to encounter half a dozen gadgies in undertaker garb and Albion shirts carrying a coffin in protest at the owners. I'm surprised Lai, Gourlay et al are getting away with so much now.
I guess the only bright spot is that the darkest hour is just before the dawn, as the saying goes. The worrying thing is that dawn is quite a way away still.
Hope I can sleep tonight now that's off my chest.
On Sunday, 7th May 2000, we beat Charlton 2-0 in the last game of the season to stay in the Championship. Since being relegated from Football League Division 1 in 1986 we had been mostly appalling, the nadir being the coffin party at Gay Meadow in 1992. However, IIRC, SGM had taken charge in March and had sewn seeds of recovery.
Fast forward 12 months and we were losing in the second leg of the play offs at The Reebok. We'd added some steel at the back, a method of playing, and a little bit of magic here and there with players like Jason Roberts. Whilst we fell short (and the fans that night still make it one of my proudest ever Albion moments). It did feel like something embryonic was starting.
As everyone who was there for all or the majority of the following season knows, 2001/02 was truly magical, the best season ever.
With one or two exceptions, the next dozen years or so saw us begin every season stronger than we finished the last. I was never a fan of Peace, seeing him as ultra-cautious, but we had a plan, we had key people in key positions, and generally we moved in the right direction.
Our recruitment policy for a while appeared as if we were using a real-life FM Scout cheat. Molumbu, Dorrans, Olsson, GMac, Brunt, Morrison, Odemwingie, numerous others. All came in as relatively unknown and either proved incredible value for money, or, in a few special cases, club legends.
At the same time, we seemed to specialise in picking up players with careers blighted by injuries and fixing them. Steven Reid, JayRod, Giles Barnes, again a few others came with a reputation of being made of balsa wood but our sports scientists fixed them and made them new. Kind of like gluing subbuteo players yeds back on.
Somewhere around Pulis, all of the focus changed. We either paid huge wages for over the hill 'names' such as Anelka or Greg or spunked absolute fortunes on players that even a cursory scout would have prevented such as Olly Burke and Brown Ideye. At the same time manager recruitment followed the same pattern - either tired and tested 'names' - Pulis, Allardyce, Pardew, Bruce - or wildly speculative punts such as Val on a 4 year deal. Whereas before we managed to make broken players better, now we seemed to have adopted a reverse midas touch, with recurring injuries becoming the norm.
I guess the point I'm trying to make in my search for catharsis, is that around 2016 we stopped improving year on year and instead started regressing. And so we find ourselves where we are now - those old enough will recognise the parallels from 1988/89 all too well. The really worrying thing now compared to then, is that at least the owners gave a shit. They were local businessmen made good and did things like ran solicitors or made sheds, but they cared. Lai appears to just be interested in asset-stripping.
I was talking to a dingle mate of mine on Wednesday and we got talking about the aftermath of the 5-1. By the time they got relegated the following season, I thought it would take them a generation to even get near where we were. Funny old game, as they say.
Living away and not being on social media (this here dump excepted), I can't gauge the mood about Lai very well. I do however remember barmy Bobby coming out after a home defeat to explain the rationale behind the Don Goodman sale, and walking over the brow of a bridge in Shrewsbury only to encounter half a dozen gadgies in undertaker garb and Albion shirts carrying a coffin in protest at the owners. I'm surprised Lai, Gourlay et al are getting away with so much now.
I guess the only bright spot is that the darkest hour is just before the dawn, as the saying goes. The worrying thing is that dawn is quite a way away still.
Hope I can sleep tonight now that's off my chest.
