Big Words (Stevenage Away)

 

One big thought occurred to me his week. I will not be needing separate tickets for matches next season. My season ticket sits like a virgin on the edge of my consciousness, waiting for the moment that is yet to come.

I may be using the box office to get tickets for away games (certainly hope so!) but otherwise as long as I can keep tabs on the blessed thing (mislaid my mobile phone a couple of times since the last post. Once even leaving it outside in the back garden with a couple of tea mugs)no need for the trying to fit in phone calls/card details.

I really thought about going to the game at Stevenage, but – in all honesty lacked the motivation. Spring is here, fine weather, work in the back garden, up at the allotment blah, blah blah …

Stevenage are relegated. Leaking goals like a colander in a monsoon Monday storm. Big, tough words in the local papers: about being professional, doing a good job, upset about recent lack of scoring/winning/making more of possession noises. Sound and printed fury.

On the day, came to nothing. Stevenage, perhaps playing for pride whomped us 3-2. Good luck to ‘em.  Sounded poor even on the BBC Radio WM commentary that was tearing in to Aston Villa who are having a hard time of it and were losing 4 – 1 at home. “the fans want change/expect better etc. etc.” Don’t quite like this conniving, sniping side of what is going on on my favourite –until now – local radio station. Banter? Yes. Humour?  Yes. This setting up of storylines ? No thanks.

It’s the end of a season that we are now playing. One last (home) game to go. Against Colchester. I will be getting tickets for this one. Hope that we get a good crowd, reflecting something of the start of the season that saw us looking for promotion. Also hope I can get tickets. I may be hosting some visitors from Sicily. Watch this space.

Meanwhile I am surprised that the government has declared (is this the right verb?) that natives of Cornwall will be a minority ethnic group in their own right (as are Scots and Welsh). I am confounded, amused  and indignant about this in equal measure.

Why? Is the obvious question. They have their own special culture. Of course they do. But only as much as people of Staffordshire, the Black Country, the Geordies and so on.

But also … when the much vaunted Olympic legacy seems to be being undermined by the selling off of local playing fields/facilities across the nation … how much did this Cornwall business all cost and wouldn’t the money have been better spent elsewhere?

Not with a bang but with a whimper eh?

Strikers … One Step Forward Please.

So, it was confirmed today. David Moyes, chosen by Sir Alex Ferguson among others as his successor is out of a job. The price of failure. The pressures of football management. Or maybe any kind of management when the stakes are financially or artificially high.

Seems a somehow disloyal decision to me, but then I support a local club that’s run, it would appear on completely different lines. They’re the “toffs”, we’re Alf Tupper on his way to training via Winton’s chippie and doin’ a paper round on the way.

Meanwhile Wolves are promoted as champions and Brentford also get promotion. The knock on effect of that is that Walsall get another slice of cash for Will Grigg (one of our key forwards last season).

He couldn’t agree a deal with Dean Smith and moved to Brentford in the close season, but we were due some money. The F.A. needed to set up a tribunal as the two clubs couldn’t agree on a figure. But the tribunal was (wickedly) late for we could have done with the money during the transfer window so as to be able to nab something that resembled a replacement. Not to be – and the authorities remain bullet-proof. Then eventually they got together and we were granted an initial £325,000 with additional clauses.

Now, with Brentford qualifying for promotion, we get an additional £50,000. Bonus. And we need a dyed in the wool striker! Dean Smith should get some of the money to spend. And he should be able to start looking soon (hint, hint!)

Craig Westcarr has been our season-long front man, but, with all due respect he is not an out-and-out striker. Sure, he can hit the ball, has vision, but lacks the aggression to get in where it might hurt and the killer instinct to put himself in the right places. Sawyers was worth keeping, but is inconsistent: a talented ball player but lacks application sometimes.

A year ago, losing the three doing-well strikers (Febian Brandy, to Sheffield Utd, Jamie Paterson – Notts Forest and Will Grigg, to Brentford), really knocked us back. But, after a surprisingly reasonable season, we need to be in the market. And we have money. Don’t we?

 

Gillingham: Home

Strange how days seem to merge and blur over the Easter break. With the game at Carlisle on Good Friday the day seemed like a Saturday with me typing on the computer, listening to the radio commentaries and actually expecting there to be a Match of the Day on TV (there wasn’t of course). Saturday seemed strange with Premiership matches going on (including Sunderland beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge handing Liverpool a good chance to establish a real challenge for the title in Sunday’s game (they took it, beating Norwich City fairly convincingly)).

And today’s bank Holiday home game against Gillingham adding to the confusion.

Or was it only confusing for me?

The people at the booking office have been great this season, courteous, efficient and helpful. I will not be needing this service next season as I now have a season ticket (apart from advance buying away tickets and – ooo-er – tickets for our –we can but hope – Cup run). My thanks to them all.

Bright, sunny journey. Birds singing, my car freshly cleaned inside and flowers springing up everywhere. Gossip on BBC WM is that David Moyes will be sacked by Man United (this is the way that rumours start, I’m thinking, start, build up credibility and become fact). I am deeply jealous of the resources that man Utd have (or apparently command) but aware that behind that is the spiral-drive for success and then success-plus. I had hoped that a club like United would stand against the trends. Moyes was reasonably successful at Everton after all and, in my opinion deserves a longer bedding-in period. Sir Alex Ferguson was always going to be a tricky act to follow; he managed the football and commercial aspects of the job well – the pressures too!

Meanwhile – it could all be rumour and supposition a la radio – in local place and time I am parked and marching to the ground, past loitering supporters on mobile phones and deep in desultory conversations I head for the seat that will have my name on it next season.

Westcarr’s back from suspension, Lalkovic recovered from his hamstring strain and Gillingham, on paper, poor opposition.

We start strongly, rattle the Gills defence then settle back a little tamely. Febian Brandy is, typically, keen to do well, so too is Lalkovic. They might both be playing to attract attention from Championship scouts, hoping to get deals for next season. I hope we can keep Brandy, but also sensibly think he may cost too much for our means. Lalkovic too.

Paul Downing appears to lead a charmed life today, the referee not penalising what looked like fouls and at least one penalty, eventually and predictably getting booked for a fairly innocuous one later in the game. No appeals from the Gillingham players either, who are starting to look direct and capable. Mal Benning meanwhile, playing at left back is raiding up the wings like a good ‘un, full of pace and ambition and tricky ball skills taking him into some good positions. He rains crosses into the penalty area. Too bad no Walsall player can get on to the end of them.

There is a good following from Gillingham, it’s a long way to travel (a hundred and sixty something miles, translates as three hours or so of travel) at this stage of the season, so fair play to their faithful (a.k.a. noisy) supporters.

Not so many Walsall supporters here. Busy gardening? Decorating? Lost interest? Out of money?

We talk about the November stag night. Venue fixed. Tallin. Flights and hotel to be organised. Leaving Stansted at seven a.m. doesn’t sound too bright but gives us more time in the city I guess. I am looking forward to it – fly out on Friday, back on Sunday … but hope there isn’t a home match that weekend.

Half time. Inside for a coffee. Talk about families, work. Almost forget we are at a football game and kick off has been taken and play is under way as we saunter back out to our seats. Nearby a man is scribbling notes on to a paper. I guess he is a scout for one of the teams we have yet to play. What an interesting task and I wonder how they actually do it? Some pre-arranged format?

Good open play from both teams, but Westcarr tried a couple from long range (unusual for Walsall this season) and from one of them the ball came back off the keeper’s outstretched hand to Brandy, running in to blast into the back of the net.

Some minutes before the end Gillingham are level. The umpteenth team we have helped avoid relegation in the last few weeks … and we have won only two of the last sixteen games. Good job we put a shift in early on in the season.

Elsewhere, tensions are still going on between Russia, the Ukraine and the rest of the world.

It’s Queen Elizabeth’s eighty eighth birthday. She celebrates with a rare “private day” at home with the family, while all over London there are military gun-salutes. We do pageantry so well.

It is also the fiftieth birthday of BBC 2.

Across the pond Boston is extremely security conscious about its annual marathon, following the harrowing scenes at the finish line last year, when terrorists exploded a bomb as runners were finishing. Dreadful!

We were in Boston in October of last year. Having been on an escorted “leaf Peeper” tour of New England and out in the rural parts for many days, Boston seemed intimidatingly cityish as we drove in, but soon took on human proportions as we walked out across the Common.

match images; saddlers.co.uk and Walsall Advertiser

Carlisle (away)

 

18th April, 2014

Met this guy today; a Liverpool supporter. We were walking across Cannock Chase together, along Oldacre Valley up to the Glacial Boulder and back again. He’s excited that Leicester City are promoted to the premier League, because it means he can watch his team play there: he’s not from Liverpool, so how he got to be a Reds supporter we never got around to.

But he knew we had Michael Ngoo on loan and we talked about how he wasn’t quite fitting into the system, hadn’t scored yet (but has a good record elsewhere, for example when he was on loan at Hearts) and for England Under-21s.

While we were walking we heard the cuckoo for the first time this year. English folklore has it that whatever you are doing when you hear the cuckoo you’ll be doing for the rest of the year. Funny that because some years ago in pretty much this same spot I was taking a mobile phone call from a friend in Austria when I heard (and saw) the cuckoo. She told me the Austrian tradition is to jingle coins in your pocket (or purse) for a year’s good luck.

Then, this afternoon, I’m working on the computer, listening to BBC Radio WM, where they had commentary on what turned out to be an exciting and up-to-the-finish Wolves v Rotherham match with Rotherham fighting back from 3-1 down to 4-4 and losing 6 – 4. With pitch invasions and, no surprise to Walsall fans a couple of Wolves players getting a little uppity.

But in the breaks in the commentary we get reports from Carlisle.

Walsall losing 1 – 0. Carlisle with a lot to play for; their League One survival being a big incentive.

Then Ngoo comes on as sub and scores the equaliser.

One all is not a bad result the way things are panning out but it means every last scrap of mathematically-possible hope of getting into the play offs is now gone.

So, relax and let’s give Gillingham a good pasting on Monday to put a bit of polish on a warm Easter weekend.

I’ve got my ticket.

Open Training Session

                            

Nothing to do (well, nothing to do immediately anyway) and the lure of an open training session at the Banks’ stadium. Free.

Enough said eh?

Driving through the lanes I noticed the hedges greening up; large sections of blackthorn blossom (“sloe winter” I think my grandfather would have said, with a smile). Past the arboretum. Talk on the radio is about the approaching Commonwealth Games (Glasgow, Scotland, The World Cup in Brazil: first game is England v Italy!) and the start of the cricket season (which doesn’t and never has particularly interested me).

Bright sun, inflatable have a go goals outside the stand, car park full.

First day of the Easter holidays of course. Well done to whoever organised the day, picking up local school kids (and their parents). About three hundred there. Young children, grandparents, teenagers (trying to look cool – and why not?).

Playing surface is remarkably good. In the stand where a couple of days ago, Bristol City fans celebrating managing to avoid promotion (and doing the double over us!) a couple of people are tidying up rubbish with brooms, gloves and plastic bags.

I have mentioned Stadium Disasters in recent posts (Hillsborough was followed quite quickly by a fire at Bradford). This fire was caused when a match or cigarette ash fell through the boards of the stand into piles of rubbish tucked “out of sight/out of mind” and quickly spread. People rushed – sensibly enough – to get out of the ground, but the outside doors were locked and people died in the crush: those at the front of the rush. And, rather morbidly my mind is taken back to that time.But then Dean Smith is being interviewed on the pitch by our, hmmm, let’s say portly stadium announcer.

There is a deep modesty about Smith here. He speaks well, quietly, no dissembling. He talks about this being a “routine, no-tricks, usual Monday training session”. He mentions the play-offs (“now it seems we can no longer make the play offs” …) and confirms we will be doing “our duty to the other League One clubs” by going out for results in the remaining games and goes on to talk about ambitions for next season, looking for players coming in, young academy players stepping up (for me Bakayoko is a great example of this happening already) and the success o Jamie Paterson and Will Grigg.

But, and I paraphrase here, he also says that while we are looking for players to do a job, we will only take on players if they can add something to the squad and are better than what we already have.

I am reassured. Then announced as on match day with the phrase

“… the pride of the Midlands, the Saddlers: Walsall Football Club” on come the players. They stroll, walk and skip to the centre.

Down below me there are three guys who strike me a professional types. I wonder, lazily if they are scouts. There are players here that have had a good season, should be attracting the attention of higher league clubs. Others, out on loan, Ngoo, Lalkovic (nowhere to be seen), Brandy well worth a look. It might be worth finding out about their attitude to training. They have books, folders and I try to sneak a look but am too far away.

I quietly fill in a form that might win me two tickets to the game on Bank Holiday Monday. If I try hard enough I can visualise myself winning. Can’t I ?

There’s an announcement that the day will be Family Fun Day, cheaper entrance, activities. Again, great local promotion. I hope it brings a few extra faces, young ones to the game. We need fans, that loyalty. This is one way to do it.

The “cleaners” have moved around and are now in the upper tiers of the Tiles R Us stand.

Exercises are intended to stretch the players, a lot of core work, getting rid of the effects, tensions and toxins from the game on Saturday.

Andy Butler is obviously aware of his physical strength; a shame he isn’t this imposing in every game, but shows his strength. The way he did in riding a couple of strong challenges early on in the Bristol game. Confident, relaxed: a captain.

The second training session alongside is run by Richard O’Kelly and is a series of game situations.

I take some photos (A lot actually), enjoy the sunshine, the lack of pressure because this is not a match day and, failing to win the free match tickets, creep away, passing Milan Lalkovic sitting in the stand; presumably resting his hamstring injury.

Carlisle away on Good Friday. Won’t be able to make that long journey (although it was where our first fight back against relegation under Dean Smith started (was that last season or the one before) when we won 3-0 (goals from Will Grigg as I recall).

Then at home to Gillingham on Bank Holiday Monday – have to get my ticket.

 

 

Bristol City (home)

I am just setting this down (or a first draft* of it anyway) after watching an absorbing second half of extra time in this year’s F.A. Cup semi-final between Arsenal and Wigan Athletic. Wigan, last year’s winners are in the Championship this year and lost in the penalty shoot-out.

I arrived at the banks’ Stadium with plenty of time to spare. Time to collect a ticket ordered and efficiently saved by the friendly box office team (thanks to each and all), time to get in and find a seat, take of my coat and ponder the Hillsborough disaster (25 years ago on Tuesday to be date-specific).

How would you cope with going to another football match if you had lost friends or relatives at that game? If you had been in the stadium, in that fateful Leppings Lane End yourself? I thought about this for a good twenty minutes (an, truth to tell, I am still considering it as I type). The terrible, terrible pressure and events inside the ground while it was going on. The attempts to save people, lifting them up to the higher terraces, passing children up the fence, straddling the fence to reach down …

All bad enough.

But the facts which have since emerged are, if it is possible, shades worse.

The attempts to blame (no other word will fit the facts now coming to light for me) innocent people who had gone to watch a game. To, at best, suggest they were bent on trouble, had done something wrong, tried to get in without tickets, were drunk, were badly behaved hooligans.

The changing of evidences given, the manipulation of times and timelines …

Said simply at the beginning of a minute’s silence (a mark of deep respect) at today’s game in the following words:

“Twenty five years ago, ninety six Liverpool fans went to a game and didn’t make it home afterwards …”

Poignant words, saying it like it was. I am not sure whether this was a scripted piece and the same words read out at every ground … but it was completely silent inside the stadium. I could hear the lorries growling their ways up and down the nearby M6. It seems these days I am more affected by these memorial silences. Perhaps it is a sign of maturity/old age, but in joining in with the “respectful silence” I was engaged with it. Those poor people, those poor families and friends – then and now. So may lives ended (shocking thing that: ended!) so many lives changed: immediately then and still now.

Ended by the referee’s whistle and the game began. Bristol City, in some danger of relegation had bought a big host of fans. Crowded in and noisy behind the goals. Some good banter across the length of the pitch.

Bristol City song: “More fans than you’ve got,

                                We’ve got more fans than you’ve got.”

Walsall reply; “More points than you’ve got …”

Sharp start from both teams in the bright sunshine. We’re a passing team playing shapes and passes like the Premiership clubs do and I love to watch the skill; the way Walsall players know where another one is going to be. It hasn’t always been that way. I am pleased that it is now. We’re even having some decent shots at goal.

Bristol City are struggling to stay in League One. But they struggle purposefully. They close down, harry and while we look confident they slowly but surely peg us back. Still fine passing but a long way from their goals. And, once or twice the defence looks under pressure and I’m thinking those “if only” thoughts.

“If only we had a way of scoring from our possession … if only we had a striker (be damned to the who-to-leave-out quandary) … if only we could give the defence some breathing space by netting early on …”

There’s some kind of nonsense across on the left wing. Ngoo, on loan from Liverpool, is fouled (apparently) and the big centre half who did it ends up on the floor. hold your breath. Is it a red card? Ngoo looks furious. but the referee is lenient and simply gives him a yellow card. the referee lets quite a few things go actually (dives (and there are a lot of those from Bristol City) and fouls) but it adds a bit of old-fashioned needle to the game.

And while I’m thinking Andy Taylor, befuddled by a stray ball in the box, tries to turn and clear (at least that’s what I think he was doing) and trips up a Bristol City striker. Did I mention it was in the penalty area. Sam Baldock stepped up and scored and their fans were delighted – and noisy. Who can blame ‘em. Getting themselves out of trouble, setting themselves up for another crack at us next season to, I shouldn’t wonder.

It’s a woeful traipse into the lounge. Nobody’s asking for season tickets any more.

Second half? How many times have we seen this? We’ve gone behind so we step up the pace, the aggression, the momentum.  Ngoo goes down in the box … penalty. Who is going to take it? Our usual Mr Football penalty taker is suspended, remember?

Ngoo had a crack at one way back and missed. Sam Mantom, like a twenty first century Alf Tupper places the ball on the spot. We’re happy with that. He’s got a powerful shot, scored some useful ones from outside the box. Steps up, places the ball (not power-blasting it) and the goalkeeper has time to make the save look effortless.

Heads go down.

Brandy is everywhere, Baxendale looks sharp, but cannot get forwards, Sawyers is his usual irritatingly talented but casual self.

McQuilkin comes on, plays with ferocity and determination and it’s furious, furious, furious. Another long last minute.

Nothing will of nothing come and Cully’s been saying “pointless” all game. A good prediction. We are! And, almost certainly out of the play-off stakes now.

BBC radio WM informs me on the way back in the car that we have now won fourteen games, drawn fourteen and – you’ve guessed it – lost fourteen. Consistent or what.

Elsewhere, Wolves have beaten Crewe (away) to clinch promotion. Good luck the them, Kenny Jackett has turned the club around (no easy task).

*Actually I let most of it stand as I typed it: a few typos to tweak and punctuation errors. Oh and I did just say something good about Wolverhampton Wanderers and let it stay in.

Photos courtesy of Bristol Post.

 

Port Vale: Away

Written on 6th April, 2014

I drove to Bescot to get the tickets for the Vale game. Burslem is not one of my favourite places in League One, though I have been there many times: it’s not so far to travel and there is usually fierce, not-quite-derby tension that brings excitement and skill out in both teams.

Driven in by my brother – cheers mate – and picking up Cully and Drew en route. Back lanes drive was a new way to get there for me, passing none of the landmarks and roundabouts I would normally be looking out for … and that’s not so easy from the back of an Alfa Romeo. Great parking spot and, hey there really was an oat-cakes shop (though it was closed) near the ground.

Brisk stroll; the ground looks so small and bodged together, with a patchwork ethos and stands that do not match. The roof of the stand we were in is apparently from Chester Football Club and so low it holds the sound in. The small-ish Walsall choir were buoyant, deafening (great support!) and, frankly discordant.

Grabbed a bite to eat at the café*: two coffees, two ciders a pie (only meat and potato) and a Mars bar. The cider was sticky and overly sweet.

That passion I was expecting (way back in the first paragraph)? No signs of it in the first half. Vale looking dangerous. Walsall looking a little lost and Ngoo in to replace suspended Westcarr didn’t quite work. The kid is talented, confident but doesn’t somehow fit in. Long legs like a young giraffe, very willing. Maybe just not enough match practice yet? Brandy looked tired and short of pace. James Chambers, unusually, was both out-paced and out-thought by the Vale winger, but we were hanging in there when the half time whistle went.

Playing towards us in the second half we seemed to have a better grip. Play was undoubtedly rougher – scuttlebutt going round the ground was that the teams above us (that we needed to lose to keep our remote play-off chances alive) were actually losing. Both teams here could capitalise on that – if they could win.

Some dubious refereeing decisions given both ways. Some harsh tackles: both ways, some diving: both sides … but when our centre half Paul Downing and a Vale player, Tom Pope, got tangled up in the penalty box – penalty.

Scored!

Cue substitutions: Brandy off for Lalkovic, Ngoo off for Bakayoko and Baxendale (largely ineffective) off for Hewitt.

Cue the traditional weekly last throw-down frantic paced everything and the kitchen sink and his wife and gundog melee as we hammer the Vale defence to get an equaliser and – in our eyes a shred of justice. Equaliser? Hell no; lets win the game!

I can never quite understand why we need to go one down before we start to play properly. Indeed there is a suggestion in the car as we drive back that we should hypnotise the team before the game, trancing ‘em into thinking we are one – nil down. Light the blue touch paper, stand back and watch the fireworks.

It’s history now, we don’t manage it. But there was a spirited first performance from Bakyoko, young but not afraid to get in with the big boys and their flying boots.

Elsewhere, the long-running saga of the Hillsborough Disaster continues. During my life there have been a number of football disasters, this being the worst of them. I cannot begin to imagine the torment the families of the ninety six people who died at what should have been a marvellous occasion have been put through. I salute their grit and determination to have genuine justice. It cannot have been easy.

Brighter news is that Birmingham City Ladies will be playing in the UEFA Women’s Champions League semi-final after beating Arsenal. Women’s football is booming at the moment, credit to everyone who has made it happen. Can we get a team at Walsall please?

And more international matches will be played at Bescot. My guess is that it is due to having the national training centre (St George’s Park) at Rangemore, because the games will be shared with Burton Albion. They are part of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship Elite Qualifying matches and will be played in May.

A horse from just down the road in Worcestershire won the Grand National while we were struggling to overcome the Vale and today Oxford hammered Cambridge in the Universities Boat Race.

*Oh yeah, the name of the café?

Would you Adam and Eve it ?

 

Something We Didn’t See, Something We Did …

An intriguing – and well-judged piece – from the Express and Star this week; written by Martin Swain in his column “The Daily Swain. While it is based in what was going on at West Brom and Walsall Football Clubs it is also about human nature.

See what you think eh?

“One of the curious features of the weekend was that we all know something we didn’t see but still nothing about something we did.

A fracas behind the dressing room’s closed doors at the Hawthorns is back page news thanks to someone who shall remain nameless but clearly has an agenda. But the most dumbfounding sending off in the history of the universe, committed in full view of the Banks’ Stadium’s patron, remains a total mystery.

The fact that a punch or punches appear to have been thrown and Saido Berahino was on the end of one is no surprise because Albion’s internal fury was clear as they left the pitch on Saturday.

But it seems that we will have to wait for the book to discover what on earth rattled the normally calm and controlled demeanour of Walsall’s Craig Westcarr that he should leap from treatment for a nasty shin gash to head butt Shrewsbury’s Sam Foley.

Three, four days on and we are still none the wiser. “Unfathomable” our Walsall man Matt Maher called it and equally confounded club officials, obviously fearing something truly untoward had kicked off, have been unable to glean any further information from the culprit about his sudden, out-of-character Pardew impression.

Sadly, with the saddlers reviving for one last shot at the play-offs, and one of their players of the season back among the goals, Westcarr’s inexplicable loss of discipline seriously blemishes his terrific contribution.

Whether it will carry more serious implications for the player remains to be seen. He is out of contract again this summer and now might not be the best time to knock on Dean Smith’s door and ask for a new one.

Westcarr’s team-mates will be equally annoyed – even more so if Peterborough continue to leave the door open to League One’s sixth spot by slipping up again this evening when the y meet Colchester.

The man himself must now sit out three crunch games.

That is only 270 minutes but it will feel like an eternity for Westcarr and the Saddlers fans still bamboozled by what on earth it was that sentenced their leading scorer to such purgatory.”

How often being a football supporter is like taking a part in a Shakespeare drama.

Next up ?

Port Vale, also on the edges on the play-offs.

Image taken from Shropshire Star (and yes it is from that game…)