West Ham attitude is admirable but here’s hoping for an Ewood exit

All hail Slaven Bilic, the West Ham United manager who would rather his team won the FA Cup than qualified for the European Champions League via a place in the Premiership’s top four. How refreshing to hear a manager putting glory before greed and silverware before pounds sterling — even if it’s a long shot that his Hammers side can make the fab foursome bracket this season. Instead Bilic sent out a near full-strength team in the fourth round home replay who overcame Liverpool 2-1 in a stirring last-gasp finish. Yet this week football’s rulers were rumoured to be contemplating shunting the once revered FA Cup tournament further into the shadows by staging its games in midweek minus any replays. This would give the money-grabbing elite of the Premier League more time to concentrate on their European commitments. It all goes around in one horrible cash-driven circle. Once upon a time winning the Cup meant an open-top bus parade through the victors’ main thoroughfare in their town or city applauded by their adoring and appreciative supporters — or in Chelsea’s case a slow crawl along Fulham Broadway. I couldn’t imagine the same fans’ response even if their team had clinched a top four spot. So as FA Cup weekend approaches with only 16 teams left, Bilic deserves applause for trying to re-establish some semblance of how the old order used to work in English football. European football bores me rigid. It’s the same teams every season, with the draw loaded in favour of the bigger clubs making it through from the group stages to satisfy TV demands — the bigger the club, the bigger the audience. Minnows need not apply. But how it can all backfire… The franchise known as Manchester United have had to settle for the second-class competition this season, the Europa League, cos they couldn’t make the elite Champions League. So how amusing this week to see the club with the world’s largest number of hanger-on fans humbled by a Danish team whose name I can’t even pronounce. If they carry on like this, with their befuddled and seemingly deranged Dutch manager in charge, they may soon be only the second best team in Manchester. So in the normal course of events I would wish Bilic and his East End throwbacks all the best in their Wembley quest. Alas they cross paths with Blackburn Rovers, who are taking a brief respite from looking nervously over their shoulders at the bottom of the Championship. The game is at Ewood on Sunday and live on TV in Oz at midnight. The Hammers have sold all 7200 allocated tickets so there will even be a crowd to behold as we tune in. I have always got along on with West Ham fans — ex-workmates Charlie Whebell, Dave Thomas, Chris Lightbown, Jim Munro and more. But sorry lads, the Cup distraction may be the highlight of our limp and lame season. So we may have to spoil your quest. But if it’s a replay our woeful record at Upton Park doesn’t auger well. I’ve seen us win there once in all my many trips — a 2-1 surprise in 1994-95. It’s usually just consolation ales in the Duke of Edinburgh pub on Green Street, the other side of the Tube station after events have unfolded. In 1997-98 we did things the other way round. We grabbed a replay with a 2-2 draw at the Boleyn then blew it in the replay with Colin Hendry missing the mark when it was his turn in the penalty shoot-out. Whatever happens the weekend promises to be a chance to turn the clock back to when the FA Cup really meant something. A good old-fashioned Cup upset would be even better. Sorry, Slaven…

 

Rovers escape strike by Jordan Rhodes — but they will soon cross paths again

At least Jordan Rhodes didn’t score when he came on as substitute for Middlesbrough last weekend against the team who he belonged to the week before, Blackburn Rovers. Surely somebody from the Ewood regime could have inserted a clause in Jordan’s contract specifying that he wouldn’t make his debut against Rovers. It could all have ended so horribly. Eventually we made off from Teesside with a point as the bottom of the Championship ladder still looms all too close. But Jordan is there for good. He may well earn promotion with Boro this season but the fact remains he is now living in a dump. The conurbation of Middlesbrough wins many folks’ vote as one of the bleakest, grimmest urban environments anywhere on the planet. Yet the drive there in from most directions is a paradox. Rolling hills and the dales of the North Yorkshire countryside don’t prepare you for the harsh concrete and chemical conglomeration of Middlesbrough itself. In winter under dark skies the flames from the various chemical factories can make the landscape appear like something off the set of a science fiction movie. Down the years I have never visited Middlesbrough or passed through it and seen the sun shine. Weird fact. My first brush with the place came in the late northern spring of 1974. I almost finished up as a student there. Bully Burkett, of Langho fame, and myself hitched to the North-East and stayed overnight in student digs ahead of interviews at Teesside Polytechnic. But Bully had also applied for plenty of universities. We both had a look round the town that night and decided it wasn’t for us. A student guide offered his advice: “If you come here you at least will be able to watch First Division football.” He was right. Jack Charlton had just taken Boro up to the top flight at their old home of Ayresome Park. It didn’t really sway me. Bully was okay though. He had plenty of options. I hadn’t bothered applying to universities so Teesside was potentially on the cards. Come exam results time, Bully semi-botched his A-Levels and I did well enough to land a spot at Birmingham University via the clearing house. For Bully it was destination Teesside. But I seem to remember he liked it. He must have done cos he was never heard of again in the Ribble Valley regions. Does anyone know where Bully Burkett is? Last heard of in the mid-70s… It’s one of life’s mysteries. My next visits to Middlesbrough were football-related. I did indeed finish up in the North-East at a later date on the sports desk of the Shields Gazette. Covering Newcastle United took me to Ayresome for a rather odd derby clash in the early 80s. The red contingent were frothing at their collective mouths over a visit from the Geordies, who in turn seemed to view the prospect with some disdain. I’m told the real grudge match is with the visitors from slightly nearer, Sunderland. Apparently it was the then Rokerites who christened the Boro followers as smog monsters on a account of the chemical industry connections and jokes about air pollution. Trips to Boro with Rovers down the years have yielded mixed fortunes at the old Ayresome arena and the new sleeker Riverside Stadium, which was opened in 1995. November 1982 brought a spectacular 5-1 rout by Rovers. The Blackburn contingent of Steve and Audrey Duckworth, Brian Haworth, Ian Drummond and Andy Turner enjoyed a fine weekend which included party time in Darlington on Saturday night after the game courtesy of Geordie host Ged Clarke, who was busy as a reporter on the Evening Despatch at the time. The following year saw another win — this time 2-1 — with me encamped back in the press box while virtually the same visiting personnel met me afterwards for more smiles and a Saturday night pub crawl around the west end of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Of course, it’s not all been sweetness and light. A soggy solo train journey back to London after a last minute defeat in the rain at the Riverside in the relegation season of 1998-99 was only made bearable by discovering a pub hosting a wedding do outside Darlington station that sold pints at a pound a go. Aye, some strange connections with the oddity that is Middlesbrough. And it’s not over yet for in a matter of weeks, on March 1, we have to face Jordan Rhodes again. This time in a rearranged fixture at Ewood. So our former hitman may yet have the last laugh for the smog monsters. But his new home will still be a dump.

Jordan Rhodes leaves Blackburn Rovers for life with the smog monsters

The protracted and rather messy switch of Blackburn Rovers’ prolific striker Jordan Rhodes to Middlesbrough was duly concluded on transfer deadline day this week. The deal was initially meant to go through over the weekend and it was with a heavy heart that I heard the news. Then Boro seemingly jibbed and baulked at the eventual cost when considering add-on implications. Once that happened I just wanted Jordan gone. Please, Boro, come back and try again… We don’t want someone at Ewood who doesn’t want to be there and should already have been sold. This they duly did, so Jordan has made his exit. In many ways, it’s a strange move, virtually sideways at best to a fellow Championship club who are never gonna be one of the powerhouses of English football, even with the good-intentioned financial backing of chairman Steve Gibson. But none of the Premier League contingent seemed willing to take a risk on Jordan, who has been in constant prolific form, except, strangely in recent weeks, where he went nine games without a goal before resuming normal service. “He’s been found out,” said my great mate Clive Charnley, a recent visitor to these Aussie shores from the homeland. “He never gets booked, he’s not hard enough, he’s not clever enough.” A bit harsh but Clive is now back in Blackburn, nearer to the action than me. Jordan must hope that Boro earn promotion otherwise jumping ship may prove a dumb move. I never understood how he signed for us in the first place. It was back in August 2012 and I had heard about him banging in goals for Huddersfield Town in the third tier. But even then, none of the big boys came in for him. Instead after the season had started, newly-relegated Rovers somehow splashed out 8million quid and lured him to Ewood. How we managed that with the deluded stooge Steve Kean still in charge as manager certainly made we wonder. Maybe Jordan thought we were gonna bounce straight back to the Premiership. Little did he know… But he has been a consistent scorer as Rovers have hovered in sweet nowhere over the past four seasons. In fact relegation has looked more of a likelihood than a return to the promised land so Jordan’s goals have been precious. My last live memory of Jordan was the exquisite turn and volley goal he scored at QPR when I was back home last September. That should have earned us victory but we were unable to hang on and had to make do with a point in the 2-2 draw. So he goes with my best wishes and it’s a hardly a defection on the Shearer scale of 1996 when it seemed my whole footballing world had caved in. Plus, I dunno if anyone has mentioned it to Jordan yet, but Middlesbrough is a dump. An absolute pit. I have nothing against the people who live there but every time I’ve visited over the years I have always expected to come across a sign saying “Twinned with the end of the Earth.” No offence, Boro-ites, but you are not called “Smog monsters” by Sunderland fans and others for nothing. I’ll own up and say that Blackburn town centre is not very pretty these days. In fact it’s not far off resembling a lunar landscape in places and devoid of pubs. The halcyon days of the Seventies when the Queens, the Peel, the Vulcan, the Courts, the Regent and countless other “left of centre” hostelries freaked out visiting student mates of mine are long gone but live on in my memory banks. But Middlesbrough is out on its own for the sense of urban nothingness. Then I got to thinking — what are the biggest five dumps I ever have visited? After a bit of pondering I came up with: 1, Middlesbrough; 2, El Paso; 3, Greymouth (New Zealand); 4, Mount Isa and 5, Bangkok. It will be fun dredging up some points of recall from those places so I will leave it until the next instalment. In the meantime, Jordan, all the best — but you have been warned. And guess who Rovers are visiting in their next game on Saturday? Why, Middlesbrough of course. You couldn’t make it up…