April 18 2004

Selhurst Park

Our 1-1 draw against Wigan (Apr 17) was disappointing. Jamesey tries to see the bright side of Selhurst life...you can't win 'em all, can you?

I gave my £2.50 to the programme seller.

"It's free," he said.

"Good. I replied and snatched back my coins.

"No, free squid, mate," he rejoined and grabbed back my money and a further 50p in one movement, depositing a copy of "SE25" in my hand.

Incidentally, I had not read "SE25" before and an article on Iain Dowie purporting to be about "Home life with the Gaffer" looked interesting. It transpired that the Gaffer actually lives alone in a Thamesside apartment, rarely sees his family who are still based in Oldham and actually has no home life at all. Nice try, "SE25".

On the train home after the game I flicked through the match programme and, a feature called "Let's Lift the Lid - Player Questionnaire" gave a strong sense of deja vu.

Could I warn more sensitive souls who find the mention of bodily functions offensive to avert their eyes and stop reading now?

Answering the query "Who would you refuse to room with and why?" Mark Hudson replied: "Tommy Black - because of the smell!"

This certainly rang a bell and I checked my programme data base interface in the pile near the waste-bin.

Well, blow me, if you'll pardon the expression, in the Gillingham programme Mikele Leigertwood (Feb 28) answers the same question with: "Tommy Black because of some of his personal habits".

In the Wimbledon programme (Jan 21), Tommy's room-mate, Danny Granville, answers the question about his partner's worst habit as "Let's just say it's never the freshest room in the hotel".

And even Aki says that Tommy is the "loudest player in the dressing room" and you can interpret that how you will.

In Tommy's own feature back in 03 (West Brom, Sept 20) he points the finger at his ex-room-mate Steve Thomson who "always picked his nose". Hmmm, seems comparatively inoffensive.

Could all this account for why Tommy Black has been "warming the bench" since well before last Christmas?

Email Jamesey with any of your comments to Jevans3704@aol.com

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