TimTort

When he was appointed I agreed with a post on here that expressed concern that we had appointed a novice manager to take the club not just forwards, but upwards. The post was disliked and criticised at the time, but I don’t think it was far wrong.

Spot on. Smith was sacked because he wasn’t seen as someone who could take this club to the next level. If we’d been happy to sit in mid-table for another couple of years, Smith would have been the ideal choice to remain in charge. But those who take the decisions opted to make a change to ensure the step up would happen sooner rather than later. At the moment, Gerrard looks like nothing the right choice. He’s got to turn this around quicker than rapid if his appointment is to be justified. Am I confident he can do that? After that second half, I’m not sure I am.

I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, but he’s got to be in trouble. This is just so flat.

So frustrating. Gets in some good attacking positions, but disappoints almost every single time.

Well, he knows the Premier League well enough, so you’d hope so. But I do have some fears. He’s cut his managerial teeth in a league where, as I said, at a club like Rangers you’ve won half the games before you turn up. We’ve started several games really poorly and not been able to recover. I really want to see him stamp his mark on the team and I haven’t seen any signs of that so far.

Hate to say it, but coming from a league where you only have to turn up to win half the games, he needs to up his own game… and quickly.

Apologies if this has been discussed earlier in the thread, but I do wonder whether Richard O’Kelly’s departure on the eve of the season might have been related to the fact that Dean was planning to switch the formation? The two of them had been together for a long long time and I wonder whether O’Kelly, who was presumably a key figure in implementing things on the training ground, just didn’t want to work with such a system? Pure speculation,, but possible.

My brother in law is a big Brentford supporter and he said that Smith and O’Kelly worked really closely at Brentford, even sharing a house in the area. They’d had a similar working relationship at Walsall and so assuming that continued here, I can’t for a moment believe that it was Smith who wanted to propose the U23 role.

I’ve said this before, but my brother in law is a Brentford supporter and I saw him this week (first time in months!). We were chatting about Smith and he said that there’s a massive difference at Brentford now in that their Head Coach Thomas Frank has a fantastic eye for detail and changes things quickly when necessary in games, whereas Smith rarely made changes other than the predictable ones. Having said that, he’s got a lot of time for Smith, as have most Brentford supporters, because he kept them ticking over and playing decent football, but he doesn’t believe Smith would have taken them to where they are now because he didn’t address defensive frailties nor did he react quickly enough to change the course of games. Most interestingly, he said that Thomas Frank’s tactical influence, even when he was the assistant coach, was crucial and he’s amazed Smith didn’t take Frank with him to Villa instead of agreeing to have John Terry in that role. Oh, and he also said that Richard O’Kelly is just Smith’s chauffeur!! lol

Of course, I’d love to share some of the stories but I wouldn’t want to cause any work or run the risk he might be disappointed with my offerings! But, your call really... and thanks.

Thanks, appreciate that.

It is very different. Police officers are viewed very differently and treated very differently. And that’s inside and outside the service. Some of the stories I’ve been given are remarkable. Nothing outrageous but the sort of things that would never happen nowadays.

Okay, fair enough.

In these tough times, my wife’s dad has been collecting and putting together some amusing stories about policing in the seventies and eighties. Times were so different back then it’s hard to comprehend. Some are good to post publicly, some might be better in private! But any interest in sharing a few? Or anyone able to contribute any to pass the time? Nothing anti-police, just a few smiles at things that happened.

I do like Dean Smith and I do think he’s the right man at this time, but we also need to be fully aware of what we are likely or not likely to see with his team. Since his defensive issues at Brentford have been pointed out to me, I have looked at their record a bit more closely and I read something very interesting this morning. When he left them they were leaking goals badly and in the next few games after he’d gone they were like a sieve. Scoring yes but conceding bucketfuls. I don’t know if their new manager (I can’t remember his name) took over straightaway or whether they had a caretaker in charge but the article this morning said the new guy has “completely turned around their poor defensive record and they’ve only conceded twice in the last five games in which they’ve been unbeaten.” That’s presumably with the same players that Dean Smith had, so it can be done. All I’m saying is that it might be unrealistic to expect any Dean Smith team to have a watertight defence. But hopefully we’ll see lots of goals at the other end!

I don’t post often but my sister is married to a Brentford supporter and when Dean Smith was appointed, he said exactly that to me - almost word for word. Although he was not happy when Smith left them he also made a few comments that I thought maybe were just an indication of his disappointment and they may well prove to be, but he said that whilst the open attacking style of Brentford was the best he had ever seen in his time supporting them, the defensive frailties of the team as a whole were never really solved. The defensive players who were signed kept getting better in terms of their footballing qualities but the defensive organisational side of their game never improved. I found this a really odd thing to say about a man who had been a central defender himself but my brother-in-law’s response was that when Smith joined Brentford, a Walsall fan came onto their forum and said they would see some fantastic attacking football because Dean Smith’s teams loved having the ball up top because they didn’t know how to defend. I'm not decrying Smith at all and I think he’s a fantastic appointment in comparison to recent managers, but it does worry me a tad.

There was a topic on another site about the drawbacks to letting a strange use your toilet or how often you’ve been asked by someone you don’t know if they can use your loo. One of the comical replies is copied below. How amusing! And intriguing! ——————————- Many years ago I remember my mum making tea or coffee for some policemen. Right opposite our house there was an alleyway and one day someone got attacked down there. It was quite serious and the place was swarming with police for ages and they put up tape to stop people walking past. My mum took them out trays of hot drinks and I was only a young teenager at the time but I remember that one of the police officers came over and asked my mum if he could use our toilet. He actually took his shoes off at the front door which probably wouldn't happen nowadays and he also left his police helmet on the table in the hall so being the inquisitive teenager and went and had a look inside it. There were straps so that it could rest on his head! Anyway, a while later I heard some more noise in the hall and when I went out there were three policeman standing waiting outside our downstairs toilet. They all seemed to be chatting quite calmly but one was gently but quite noticeably bobbing up and down. Suddenly, one of them called my mum and the next thing I knew was that the one who had been jigging around was being ushered upstairs by my mum, going in front of her and she followed right behind him. He was quite young, around mid-twenties I should imagine, and he was in his socks too. I never knew any visitors who used our bathroom upstairs rather than the downstairs toilet, even visiting family members, but this young policeman was up there ages. Eventually the others who had used the downstairs loo were back outside waiting by their van and my mum had gone up and down the stairs a few times whilst she also took the young officer's shoes upstairs to him, which I've never managed to fathom out why. There was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing and the conversation exchanges seemed quite serious but finally this policeman came back down the stairs and went straight out to the van and they all went, never to be seen again. When my dad got home from work, the moment he stepped in the door my mum took him upstairs and I remember going halfway up the staircase to see what was going on and he and my mum were standing outside the bathroom door, which was open and they were looking and pointing and talking for some time. It was as if she was telling him what had happened. Later that evening, my mum did some washing which was unusual because we had a lady who actually used to come in and clean the house and she always did the washing during the day so it was rare to hear the washing machine going in the evenings. Whether she was washing clothes or the bathroom mats or whether it was entirely unrelated, I don't have any idea unfortunately but it was a very strange incident and both my parents seemed very engaged in spending time in the bathroom dealing with something that evening.  I didn't really think too much about it at the time but when I look back now I do wonder what happened. Did the ones who were queuing for the downstairs toilet call my mum to ask her to assist the one who went upstairs? Why did she go with him, walking behind him? Why was he up there so long? And why did she take his shoes up to him? When my dad came home, why did my mum whisk him upstairs to look at the bathroom so quickly? And what did she wash that night? Or did my dad do some cleaning upstairs? I'll never know, of course, but it's open to guessing I suppose. Who knows? It's a long, long time ago now. But I guess my mum might have regretted letting the police officers in that day?

Maybe the play-off disaster should have been a thread of its own!!

Not worthy of its own thread but on Saturday I was at a wedding of a work colleague and after the speeches the groom persuaded the best man to tell his story of what happened to him at the play-off final. He was a funny guy and told it brilliantly so I can't really do it justice second-hand but here goes. I'm sure there was a teeny bit of exaggeration of some bits but it was hysterical and had the entire room in fits of laughter. The guy was called Reece and although not a big Villa fan himself, his dad has always been a devotee although some recent health problems have meant that he’s not always been able to get to as many games, so Reece decided to take him to Wembley and they got tickets and coach travel although not through official channels (whatever that meant!). Anyway, they set off by coach and during the journey Reece, who by the way is a copper (not that that has any real significance) needs a wee but doesn’t want to use the toilet on the coach so opts to wait until they get into Wembley. They finally arrive and eventually get into the stadium, find their seats and once his dad is settled, Reece nips to the toilet for his much-needed relief. But when he gets into the Gents he encounters an unfortunate problem – the tag on the fly zip of his jeans comes off in his fingers and he can’t get the zip undone. He struggles for ages and then realises it’s all looking a bit odd so he leaves, goes back to his seat, tells his dad what’s happened and decides to hold on until the game has started when the toilets might be a bit less busy. Sure enough, 10 minutes or so into the game he leaves his old man again and goes back to the toilet where he discovers that the situation is even worse than he’d thought! Somehow, and this seems impossible but he can’t explain how it happened, he’s somehow managed to do up the stud button on his jeans and at the same time catch some of the material of his pants in the stud opening, so he now can’t get the stud undone without ripping his pants. In the midst of an almighty struggle to free both himself and the underwear, he contrives to tear the pants and the stud gets caught in the thicker waistband between the two layers of the material and by hell or high water he can’t free it. Eventually he realises the only way he can resolve the problem is to break the stud off his jeans, but he hasn’t got a belt on and knows he won’t be able to keep his jeans up without holding them up and he needs to hold his old man’s arm and waist when they walk so he won’t be able to do both. He gives up, goes back to his dad and explains his predicament. His dad suggests that if he can wait, why not do so until they get back on the coach and he can then go in the on-board toilet, wrench open the waistband of the jeans and then return to his seat where he can sit with his jeans undone. Reece reluctantly agrees and so desperately hangs on for the entire game, hardly able to concentrate on the match because his need is getting so bad. The game finally ends and Reece helps his dad as they slowly wend their way back to the coach but his discomfort is so dire that he can hardly walk properly. They get on the coach, pull away and guess what? The driver announces that the toilet has become blocked and is unusable so it’s been locked! There are no plans for a scheduled stop but they’ll see if it’s necessary later in the journey. Half an hour further on and Reece is in the most desperate trouble and can’t wait any longer. He goes and asks the driver if they can make an emergency stop but the driver says he can’t stop on the hard shoulder but, if absolutely necessary he can pull in at the next services which are around another 30-40 minutes. In despair Reece goes back to his seat whereon his dad tells him, “Look I know it’s embarrassing, but just wet yourself if you have to. No-one knows you and we’ll deal with the situation when we get back.” Horrified, Reece realises there’s little other option. Resigned to it happening, he slips his trainers off his feet to avoid them getting wet and prepares to let go. But, guess what again? He can’t! No matter how much he tries to release his bladder he’s unable to. The more he tries the worse the pain gets but he just can’t start doing it! That goes on for pretty much the rest of the journey and when they approach the next services the drivers sails straight past in the absence of any further request from anyone. The coach finally arrives back at Witton station by which time Reece is doubled up in agonising pain but as he tries to get up, he can’t find his trainers which have presumably slid under one of the seats in front. Despite the arrangement, it’s his dad who ends up helping his son off the coach but to his horror he’s also discovered that somehow, someone has ‘snaffled’ his trainers and they’ve disappeared!! So Reece is in his socks! Most travellers have started to walk away from the coach leaving Reece and his dad standing on the pavement – just as about a dozen young lads in Villa tracksuits walk around the corner, quite possibly the under-18 team having just got off their minibus back from Wembley, and right as they get alongside the coach they are suddenly faced with… … 30-year old policeman Reece standing in his jeans and socks and torrentially wetting himself in the most spectacular fashion whilst standing on the pavement!! He’s reckons the trainees, who watched open-mouthed, were probably scarred for life by what they saw! His summing up was that the experience taught him three things: It IS possible for a bloke to piss for two solid minutes! It simply ISN’T possible for a sober bloke to piss himself sitting down! However bad Villa fans think things have got, there’s always someone else worse off! Anyway, just though it was worth a share if anyone managed to get to the end of it. As I said, he told it superbly.

Okay then!

What I meant was that it's not worthy of it's own thread and although I could post it here I don't want to hijack the topic.

I went to a wedding last Saturday and heard one of the funniest Villa-related play-off final stories I've heard in ages, told by the best man. But a) I didn't record it for sharing and b) can't post it here. It was lavatorial in nature and involved a broken zip fly. Why do the best stories get told in the wrong places?

Is he likely to be first-choice though?