Ballad Of A Sin Eater

Lambert's Lions gather pace, like a milkfloat rolling down a hill into a bank of scientists. The memories of the traitor Gorman's heinous departure to the hated Sixfields Meal Complex are fading now, as his replacement shapes the remaining players in to a unit more cohesive than Tetris. Ask yourself to make a judgement call:

Limping Joe Burnell or striding Anthony THE JUDGE Grant?

Flapping Frank Talia or Short Sleeves Batista?

Tino Easter or Diego Armando Easter?

There is, frankly, no real difficulty in making the right choice, and Wycombe look set to be involved in another promotion challenge, which in this absolute shitty municipal reservoir of a division is the least we can expect. The hope is there, however, that this time the team won't bottle it like a Iranian hatemob hunting a gay.

As time goes on it appears that Dishonest John pulled the greatest trick since I was convinced that the Devil was born in Stokenchurch with his The Project last season. It looked good, it tasted good but in truth it was nothing but slow acting poison, and we were all vomiting onto the pitch at Whaddon Road, the spring rain washing away the last vestiges of hope.

Now everyone is a year older, and scarred on the mucus membrane. But Lambert is a streetfighter with knuckles that reflect a Champions League medal and he will guide us to the promised land, even if ultimately it turns out to be as pointless as a CRM machine in a pet shop.

Memorize The City

Two Saturdays, separated by seven/eight days, three terrorist plots and a punch up in Marlow that left a broken window, two diametrically opposing rumours and a technical suicide in a popular barn near Widnes.

Saturday One saw Wycombe's attempt to break their unbeaten start to a season end with defeat in Will Scarlet's lethal manor, the Chairboys down to 10 men as The Judge was sent off for two offences that would have barely registered on a precious schoolboy's graph. No matter, unbeaten starts are nothing but an albatross round your neck, as last season proved.

You can dance on the beach in Grimsby with Norris McWhirter naked and wrapped around your neck like a wooly scarf but it doesn't make you feel any better buying milkshakes in the service station. Sometimes the quiet life can echo in your head like a machine gun in Cyprus.

Saturday Two saw Wycombe steam back to form in impressive style. Sergio was back, to everyone's delight, and the mid-ranged hair hero plumbed back and forth as the team cruised to their first clean sheet of the season. Subs win nuclear weapon contracts and we were all punching the air and muttering upbeatly when Jermaine Easter silenced the Drone Army and bagged a substitute hat-trick.

A question for the phlegm-soaked stat anoraks that leech off football like impotent wasps: when was the last time a Wycombe substitute scored a treble? Well, when was it losers?

Interestingly, there was a thread on the hated Gasroom last week about whether Easter would ever prove a decent signing. To no-one's surprise, the feeble Drone Army condemned him like a French prisoner and were proved wrong in record time. Some things never change, even when you pray with both hands clasped together like you've got superglue in your urethra.

A Century Of Fakers

The post arrives in Brill Hill very late nowadays, ever since the postman was indicted for delivering post to Enron. We all think he's innocent as his wife is fucking attractive but he's on rendition flight to Ghana, so out of sight out of...

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that our subscription copy of the Bucks Free Press has only just arrived and only in the last few minutes have I been able to peruse the letter sent to the rag from Wycombe Wanderers Director Brian Kane last week. (The Cutlet Krew from Piddington tell me that it is available to read online at COTN but in my opinion that website shot itself in the foot when it stopped doing match reports a few weeks ago. Let's just say silence can be bought nowadays pretty cheaply, and leave it there eh? Eh?)

Still, let's do some GCSE-level analysis of Mr Kane's letter, for I do feel it cries out for it.


RE: naming rights to Adams Park I read Mr Blacklidge's letter in last week's BFP regarding possible future naming rights of Wanderers' ground. while I understand his point, which is certainly praiseworthy if we were operating in an idealistic non-commercial environment, I think it is unrealistic in today's world.

Right, first off, Kane goes for the jugular, imagining Wycombe operating in the same exalted Bilderberg circle as IBM, Coca-Cola and Bayer (they're the ones that make proper headache pills) instead of treading water in the the fourth division. Delusions of grandeur can be troubling at the best of times, but especially when you slap them bang in the local paper. Do calm down Brian.

I was a director when the decision was taken to accept sponsorship for the Curseway Stadium name change. A decision I still support today. However, I accept the communication of the deal at the time was not done appropriately.

Immediately, Kane distances himself from the likes of Beeks: "I fucked up longways" (paraphrased), and Hayes: "Let the fans decide". We cannot state what the views of Mather and Blagbrough are as their strings got damp and frayed over the summer. Gerry Anderson has been called for some urgent repair work. Interesting that Kane views the communication as being the problem. Presumably "We've sold the ground name, here's a new striker" would have been better.

I believe lessons have been learnt and communication between the club, its fans, sponsors and customers has improved dramatically since. However I also know the money brought in through this deal was critical to the club at that time.

Kane believes communication has improved, but this is certainly not down to him. I had almost forgotten he existed until this letter came scuttling out of the woodwork. And was the money really important. It brought about 50k into the club in the same season that Wycombe Wanderers paid 130k to Reading for Nathan Tyson. Still he kept us up eh Brian? What memories!

I never had the pleasure of meeting Frank Adams, but if he was the astute businessman I'm told he was, then I believe he would've been supportive.

No, I doubt you did meet Frank, Brian, as he died in 1981, long before you took an interest in Wycombe Wanderers. Still, I'm sure that had you met you could have marvelled over this strange creature who gave something of great value away for free. I'm not sure whether that makes him an astute businessman but it does mean he had a soul and will be remembered forever, no matter what tawdry splashes of greed are drip drip dripped onto his legacy.

As a fan I want the club to be strong, perform well on the pitch and be a great place to visit. Sentiments that are in keeping, I hope with what Frank Adams would have wanted when he generously donated Loakes Park back in 1947.

I too am sure Frank would have wanted a strong Wycombe Wanderers, but then again, in 1947 things like prying Soviet CRM schemes would have been virtually impossible to envisage in Buckinghamshire. If you replace every part of a typewriter, is it still the original machine or has something been lost forever?

I believe there are options that recognise the generosity and name of Frank Adams, while at the same time do not close the door on sponsorship, if they arise.

Well I hope that you choose something that won't become ripe for sponsorship in a few years Brian, otherwise you'll have to remove Adams from that and shunt it onto something else. Still, I am sure it will be a tasteful and worthy memorial, whatever it is. The Frank Adams Car Park perhaps? Except when the car boot sale is on, as it puts off the Ebay crowd.

I feel it would be arrogant and short sighted in today's environment and possibly contrary to what Frank Adams may have wanted, to permanently close the door on stadium sponsorship options.

See, for me Brian, what is truly arrogant is to put words and issues into a dead man's mouth. That is almost indescribably arrogant. There would be rightful indignation if a director defended an on-field decision by the manager by saying "any unhappiness with this development is possibly contrary to what Mark Philo would have wanted", yet it somehow seems ok to do it with dear old Frank. Perhaps there's an acceptable time limit and after that anything goes?

If we close off the club from even looking at a stadium sponsorship option then what's next. Where do we draw the line?

There is no line Kane, there is no line drawn. Have you heard anyone say "Let's keep the ground name as Adams Park and while we're at it let's get rid of shirt sponsorship and fuck it, let's make all games free entry"? No, you haven't, because this is a single point issue and no matter how much you muddy the waters, you can't escape what you've sown. There is no line.

Do we turn down shirt sponsorship because we didn't have it in the past? Do we build a slope on our pitch like it used to be? Or does the club do what it its trying to do now, which is putting few restrictions on businesses and commercial proposals but soliciting input from key interest groups, such as fans when a sensitive area may be concerned. Just as the club is doing now regarding stadium sponsorship.

1) No, as I have just explained. No-one really thinks we're Barcelona. 2) You're really frothing at the mouth now Brian, foolishly forgetting that your sneering at sloping pitches is in essence an attack on the very gift that Frank Adams gave to Wycombe Wanderers Football Club. Oops! 3) But you're clearly opposed to fans input on sensitive issues Brian, as this letter has demonstrated. Your colours are nailed clearly to the mast and we won't forget this one.

My preference is to be supporting a club that's pushing for a Championship place, balancing heritage and commercial needs with realism.

My preference is for a football club that plays a vital role in the local community and is based on the sort of principles that are sadly lacking in most sports nowadays. I don't particularly care what division Wycombe are in, as long as I can identify with the club and feel proud of what it stands for. That is a realism that I doubt you'll ever grasp, as your enslavement to 'commercial needs' drives you and Wycombe Wanderers PLC further into the dirt. ps - I watched a game in the Championship the other day and it was rubbish. Nothing looks as good close up as it does in the distance. Fools gold is smeared on all of our hands Brian, but at least I'm trying to wash it off.

Brian L Kane
Club director

Tucker Chump
Meat Clinic

Blue Jeans

So, four days into the season and Wycombe have as many points, at this rate we'll have more than 250 points by next May and surely be assured of a playoff berth.

Saturday against the newly-validated travellers from Wrexham was disappointing but mainly because it was August 5 and the insidious nature of CRM PLC WWFC INC was starting to shatter the matchday experience. It was so hot that the ballboy manageress started to melt, well everything but but her cold stony heart, hewn from the very rocks of hatred.

Walking away down a deserted Hillbottom Road at 17:37 it was easy to imagine a nearly forgotten ghost army yelping and waving foam fingers in the depths of one's imagination; a stark contrast to the buckling summer heat that had driven even mad drones and Englishmen inside. I saw a sparrow without feathers and it was arrowing home at a speed unfathomable. No nest could have held it, but it was guided by voices.

Tuesday night saw the semi-usual win at Bristol Rovers, while Mooning Moonman Tom Tam Mooney made it two goals in two with a chip so delicate it could have been served with a Meat Clinic chump chop. The fact that it came in the western side's away kit made it even more special, like sleeping with your sister-in-law in a hatchback.

The early signs suggest that Lambert's Lambs are a tighter unit than the soldiers that made up Honest John's The Project. Two out and out wingers gives Super Kevin Betsy a chance to escape the shackles of the early part of the year and there's all to play for, albeit in a washed-out, faded, energyless PLC-era way.

Greetings To The New Brunette

Yeah, I' m back, back from the front, back from the rear, back from the trenches, back from the MUD OF FLANDERS. You can't parade a horse through the mud in flanders and come away without enlarged arm muscles. Human growth hormone, cortisone, testosterone, EPO, the works.

They've taken years off me, really they have but I still walk with an affected limp. The 2006 promotion campaign has left more scars than my gleaming butcher's knife but now we're in a new era. Oh yes, sweetness, this is 06-07, twenty years since Gane, Morrissey and Johnny Kerr. It's written in the stars and pissed into the summer snow.

Here's five things that need to happen to make 2006-07 a success:

1) Give Lambert some time. The lad's younger than most of the youth team and needs at least a season to make his mark. Sadly you know that senior members of the Drone Army have their warty fingers on the trigger, just waiting for a run of defeats so they can wheel out the "He's the new Tony Adams" banner they created six months after Adams was sacked.

2) The club need to winch their fucking necks in for 10 minutes and abort-abort this dreadful CRM nonsense. Rumours that you have to swab your own kidneys just to enter the car park sadly aren't unfounded and there will be weeping and gnashing when the attendances drop like a fucked up pie chart. We're not customers, we're believers.

3) The Wycombe fans need to transform themselves from plodding miseries into positive home bankers. There were times last season, with Wanderers top of the division and carving the opposition like Uncle Lenny on a Sunday, when the massed ranks of the Woodlands and the shimmering usuals in the Valley End were still complaining, still finding fault. The pitch was a giant mirror, reflecting their own shortcomings and by May it was tatty with mud and stains. Let's keep the green green grass of home in better condition this campaign eh?

4) The club need to reject any offer of sponsorship for the Adams Park name and keep the true ground moniker of respect for both Frank Adams and the fans who fell in love with a football club and not a PLC. The enduring silence of the supporters trust is akin to the silence of the British Communist Party when details of Stalin's purges emerged. The age-old chant of "You're just a fucking bun club" will ring out for the third successive campaign.

5) SMBU need to liven up their act. I agreed to write this column for a decent fee and a promise that the website would be moving into the 21st century. "We'll get bulky advertising revenue and I can guarantee we'll be linked on Newsnow," simpered that supine retard oily sailor 12 months ago. Well he's nothing anymore, concerned only with Stonebridge's conventional hair and the number of home wins Wycombe racked up in the Curseway era. If you want decent analysis of WWFC in 2006-07 you come to Uncle Tucker, he'll deal you some decent vowels.

Come.
On.
Wycombe.