Super Tuesday? Really? Whisper It At Bescot Please!

Super Tuesday – At Bescot? : Scunthorpe at Home

I’m feeling rather optimistic (if you’ve read any other entries in this blog you may spot the somewhat-inevitable, optimistic- football fan pattern) .But why not? My team made the League One leaders look less than ordinary on Saturday – at their ground. OK, OK we failed to win, but looked far superior (yes, we failed to win, don’t bring that up again … please).

And this no-win streak can only go on for so long can’t it? The runes have got to be for us at some point: surely?

So why not the home game on Tuesday against Scunthorpe?

Yes optimistic indeed.

I hear on the radio that medical researchers are up in arms and trying to get “the tackle” banned from school rugby. Citing it as an unnecessary element of a game that is, by its nature, contact and confrontation. I have no opinion one way or the other. I went to a grammar school too late to be sucked in to the sport but on the other hand have had some seriously riotous nights out with rugby players.

My game is with the properly shaped ball; I have little to say about either of the two forms of the Rugby code.

Meanwhile Adam Johnson ( sacked by Sunderland) is found guilty of sexual offences involving a child. He had shown real talent as a footballer, but got carried away by the fame and, almost doubtless, the money. Footballers nowadays are akin perhaps to the rock and roll celebrities of the 1970s: young, rich and pandered to. Just without the drugs and alcohol.

Brighter news is that eh World Track Cycling Championships starts this week; Sir Bradley Wiggins and Laura Trott amongst others will be doing their respective things round and round the London Velodrome.

 

And, across the Pond people in the good old U. S. of A are in the excitement and hoo-ha of democracy: seeking to choose candidates for each party who will represent their parties (Democrats and Republicans) in the nation’s presidential elections.

Donald Trump, successful yet abrasive businessman seems to be winning for the ; while Hilary Clinton (wife of former U.S. president Bill Clinton and a career politician seems to be getting the votes for her side.

 

It is kind of interesting to see a different type of political system in action> In the U.K we vote locally for party candidates who have already chosen their party leaders. First past the post polling means the party that gets the highest number of Members of Parliament wins control in the House of Commons. We do not vote for a Prime Minister in the way the Americans vote for a president. Which system is better? Both are equally good, perhaps and at the same time equally flawed.

So Tuesday evening comes around. I’m still optimistic. Reasons as detailed above – oh and a good week at work helping out too. And the fact that Saddlers Widow was good enough to drag herself to Bescot Ticket office on the first morning of season ticket sales to nab my season ticket for next year.  I would have had one anyway I think, so why not take advantage of the Early Bird discount –and get a free Walsall at Wembley: History in the Making book at the same time. The joke at work is that the first thousand to buy season tickets get one free copy of this souvenir book (souvenir of a day that was brilliant until the first whistle, then went swiftly downhill) – and that anyone else who buys a season ticket after that gets two free books. Cannot beat that football-fan irony can you?

My bro has to join the queue for his ticket but I breeze through the savoy Lounge entrance, a bit of banter with the two always-friendly front of house attendants who laugh that, after all, there are only another six homes games left aren’t there?

Do they know something I don’t.

We are fourth as I walk past them. Play off places. That will mean at least one more home game.

Or we finish first (yes please!) or second and get through automatically … or seventh and don’t need to be at Bescot again until the friendlies see us off to another League One season.

I meet Cully in the Lounge. He’s a bit rueful: mentions he has already got his season ticket and Savoy Lounge Pass (this is being offered only to existing pass holders and on a first come first served basis. I smile and tell him I also have my season ticket, but not my Lounge Pass yet.

We sink a beer, then head out to join my brother. Same team as Saturday: keeping faith. And we look good for all of ten minutes, then are pushed, bullied and lacking in authority as Scunthorpe with s few loyal fans (credit to them!) turn the screw. Neither team doing much seriously to threaten the other’s goal, but neither team looking very fluent either.

It is frustrating. I start getting annoyed with the tiniest, least relevant of things. Sublimating, I suppose yelling negative comments at my own team, whose performance is so much below the standard I was expecting. Bad day at the office syndrome maybe, but this is yet another bad day: we need to clock up some wins. At half time results were going for us: Burton drawing, Wigan not winning, Gillingham the same. We could be picking up points and places. But we look jaded. Tom Bradshaw is manful as always, people running, Downing looking positively Brazilian as he runs the ball out of defence and plays us in to a chance. But overall we are just running on the spot.

There is a round of applause to celebrate the life of a Walsall fan who was murdered while on holiday in Tunisia. So, it was a terrorist attack, but the guy was murdered; let’s just get it straight eh? Two other members of his family were also tragically murdered in the cowardly attack.

Full time drags itself around and we have a second consecutive clean sheet: yippee for that then!

But, somehow have crept up the table to third place.

Desperate after the ordeal we have suffered we decide we need a beer (well, that’s what we tell ourselves) but are caught in traffic and the first pub we try has stopped serving.

But the good old Royal Oak (Norton Lane) is in Tuesday night quiz mode and we down a couple in there.

Barnsley at home on Saturday. Got to get a win then surely?

Getting a striker is an entirely different matter.

“VOTE PIES” Blackpool Away

30th August.

Home

 

Picked up some vouchers at the Brighton game. Fill ‘em in and get free tickets for the England under 17s game on Friday evening. England playing Turkey in the St George’s Trophy (yes, never heard of it before either). But if I’m doin’ a lot of nothing else on Friday, why not?

My brother is up for it.

And Saddlers Widow has never been to an international (well, come on it is an international isn’t it?) … and never seen a game at Bescot Stadium.

So we gang up, park, unnecessarily in the traditional place and walk the what quarter mile? More? To the ticket office. Presenting the vouchers there is a computer check. This is football in the twenty first century I guess. Getting data into the system, the chance to e-mail information/ opportunities/ junk to new contacts. I’m already in the system; the staff could probably tell you what I like for breakfast, my usual tipple and that I like sugar with my half time coffee.

We wander in, through the turnstiles. The lounges being for “corporate” but we’re near enough to spit into our usual seats. And there is a reasonable crowd. Big moon hangs in the still sunlit sky (perigee this weekend) as the teams line up and the flags are paraded.

 

England are sharper in the first half (only forty minutes long) and go two goals up. Second half Turkey shade it and the England goalkeeper is exceptional. Steady drive back, feeling patriotic and wondering what my Turkish friends would have thought. Perhaps they will read this (hey guys), nod quietly.

Saturday begins with family matters: mother, preparations for a wedding somewhere on the periphery, daughter and partner are at home when I get back and we saddle up for the Blackpool adventure. All of the Walsall tickets have been sold but it is not all ticket. M6 is queue after queue, one speed limit after the other. The matrix signs become boring: same old information – and really how necessary is it to tell people there is a queue when they are sitting in a queue. We wonder if maybe some wannabe comedian should be hired to write a running joke (maybe one of those knock-knock ones) on the signs. Be much more entertaining than the repetitive ones we are seeing. Maybe even a web-site where you could vote for your favourite joke. Crazy but marvellous the things you talk about on journeys eh?

Oh, that and the intriguing “VOTE PIES” graffiti on the side of one of the bridges. First noticed it on the way up to a match last season. What is it all about?

Big motorways and wide roads lined with hanging posters about the attractions of Blackpool (Legends on the Sands ( Leg Ends on the Sand?) Tommy, Elton John, Waxworks … and CATS!). But almost believing we are driving onto a commercial estate we have to pass through a ridiculously narrow railway arch before popping out into the warm, sunlit but tacky town itself. Find the nearest car park, impressed by the shining white stadium: my first visit and the lure of the prom. Easy enough to get tickets and cooked to order fish and chips. With enough time to wander to the wide expanses of promenade, the tram tracks, Cinderella carriages drawn by horses and the civilised gulls that wait to be fed rather than raid your hand held lunch.

The Tower, the Pleasure beach, the piers, expansive clean beach (low tide obviously) and throw back donkey rides. And the sun is friendly, beaming down. Never quite realised that the football club was so close to the town centre.

So we stroll casually towards the shining ground, past some random front garden party with middle aged-plus men wearing Rastafari hats and artificial dreadlocks, past the disinterested protests of the Blackpool fans making a fuss about owner Karl Oyston (some serious financial tomblaggery by all accounts – but, hey either give the club your money or ship out and support somebody else!

Seriously over-egged stewarding, passing through three ranks of hi-vis vested worthies all making the same request:

“Can I see your ticket mate?”

Seriously? First we’ve never met before so I am definitely NOT YOUR MATE and what is the point of having three layers of people asking the same damned fool question; presumably if I didn’t have a ticket I would not have got past the first line.

But once inside it is clear to see the extent of the boycott.

Walsall faithful rammed into two stands at the corner, floor to rafters: singing, waving, all the regular chants being aired. The rest of the tangerine seated stadium dotted with one or two random, stoical real Blackpool fans. My respect to them. The front four rows of chairs in the “home” stands covered with tarpaulin – to prevent fans sitting there and invading the pitch, apparently.

But, down to the game after riotous reception for saddlers. Lalkovic not starting. Slow paced beginning, but even after ten minutes, when a right wing Blackpool attack breaks down their players are pointing accusingly at one another. And (sorry Rico) tiny Walsall wing back henry is bending former Premier League centre half Emmerson Boyce every which way.

Twenty minutes or so gone and we get a break. Sawyers, free to run onto pass, casually turns it with a toe and it drifts oh-so-slowly into the goal. Honestly I thought it had missed and was going out: no desperate chasing back from a tangerine shirt to clear it off the line.

  

We have a good view of the field, although the goal is scored at the far end (our ticket says “Restricted View” but actually no more restricted than our standard Walsall seats).

Second half Walsall are genuinely in control. Henry running down the flank hooked a low Bradshaw bound cross into the box. It was intercepted by a defender, Aldred, who promptly nodded it into his own net.

Then on the opposite wing Demetriou who was energetic all game pulled a high cross to the back post where Sam Mantom powered a header in to the net. The Blackpool keeper just sat in despair on the ground.

It got worse for him; just as I was heading to the loo Romaine Sawyers – cracking game from him today -smacked a powerful shot-from-nowhere into the net. Four nil!

We are swiftly back in the car, pulling out across traffic and, pleasingly surprisingly home by 7 o’clock. Much faster getting home – the difference a 4-0 win and Bank Holiday queues make!

We are taking our eldest daughter out for a birthday meal. What do I order?

I vote pies of course: Guinness and steak pie: very tasty end to the day with a couple of pints of a pale ale whose name I cannot recall – so busy re-running the goals!

Morecambe away next (Johnstone’s Paint Trophy) – up the same old stretch of M6, but may not make that one.

Nineteen … and Twenty! Oldham at home.

Funny how your mind works. Standing on the raised decking at Landywood Railway Station (en route for London) I notice the little unmanaged patches of “benign wilderness beside and alongside the track and platforms. But also the rubbish that accrues there, dropped mainly by passengers and “swept” by the wind into neat little piles. It reminds me (as I watch a pair of courting goldfinches) of a time when Cully and I were at an away match, and he pointed out similar, but larger, stacks of chip papers, crisp packets, old tickets and posters underneath the seating areas. A time, coincidentally when football grandstands and seating were largely of wooden construction – and painted. He said something about a fire risk and we went on watching the game.

This weekend is actually the thirtieth anniversary (if that is an appropriate word to use) of the Bradford Fire Disaster (when that same stadium did actually catch fire, fencing and unmanned, locked exit gates prevented safe exit for the fans and fifty six lives were lost.

But we’re on the train, passing what is now Morrison’s supermarket but was once Fellows Park: former home ground of Walsall. Past Bescot Stadium. Change at New Street and into reserved seats for the comfortable ride to the capital.

Oyster cards and tube to Gloucester Road to meet, for the first time in a long time, Cornelia.

After a coffee  we decide to walk the sights, eventually reaching (via a wandering snail route that took in Harrods’, Knightsbridge, Green Park, the Wellington Arch,  Downing Street (massive security in evidence there), the Cenotaph, St James’ park (the BIrdkeeper’s Cottage traditional garden and pelicans), Buckingham Palace,  Horse Guard’s Parade, Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, that impressive statue of Boudicca and the Thames Embankment).

 

Too soon we are struggling with rush hour commuters on the busy, impersonal underground again and bidding Cornelia a fond farewell. We make our connections all the way back to Landywood, sharing this train with what I guess is a typical Friday night mixture of types.

Saturday morning and I turn on the TV and there on the screen are the places we walked around yesterday: the Cenotaph. The Queen is laying a wreath and there are processions of soldiers and veterans commemorating the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. The campaign which ended the dominance in that area of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and, arguably set up the Middle East in almost its current form (Israel/Palestine being the notable exception). So that’s what all of the cameras were setting up for: that and Sunday’s London Marathon.

Saturday morning: our last home game of the season (and only Bristol City away to go) for the first team. For this fixture last year another teacher and her “team” are coming to the game (see https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/not-with-a-bang-colchester-home/) but today is today: Oldham, managed by Dean Holden who earlier this season was one of our player coaches are the visitors.

It is warmer than predicted and we are having showers, but I get parked up and make that familiar walk. Cully and Andy are already seated and the scout from Wigan is back. May be a bit worrying. We have decent players who are soon to be out of contract (Tom Bradshaw, Richard O’Donnell and Kieron Morris).  Wigan might just manage to hang on in the Championship, they have Wolves at home today.

By the looks of it, this is Oldham’s last away game: that tradition of “fancy-dress-for-the-last-away game” has pirates, Where’s Wally characters, clowns, Bedouins and ghosts in the away stand. Credit to these supporters: sticking by their team to the end. Faith doesn’t come into it sometimes, you just grit your teeth and get on the bus!

Before kick-off (and this is happening at all League and Premiership games this weekend, there is a respectful minutes silence in memory of those killed in the Bradford Fire. Nobody expects to go into a football ground and not get home. Oldham fans properly join in – as they should.

But their team lack ideas, while we have seemed like a different team recently. We are far more positive, playing into and keeping the ball in the attacking end of the field. A new system?  Certainly Kieron Morris has made a difference.

O’Donnell is on the bench today, reserve keeper Craig McGillivray getting a well-deserved debut.

We look purposeful. Bradshaw who has publicly revised his goals-for-the-season tally to twenty, is on the prowl. He has bulked up and retains pace and is skilful when he has the ball. But we are not pumping long balls up for him to chase. We place passes, long and short, make ground steadily. Hiwula and Morris playing well, linking up well. At left back we are playing Mal Benning. He’s fast, and always looking to go forward, but can be quite manic at times.

After eighteen minutes we break out of defence, good understanding in midfield, ball out to Hiwula and a long, confident ball into the path of Super Tom, who, clinically measures the gentle pass into the net. His nineteenth goal!

“Pay no attention to him, “ I tell the scout, wishing I had Jedi powers, “he’s just been lucky nineteen times!”

Still on the attack (Oldham are doing little to prevent it) Benning zooms forward, exchanges neat passes with Bradshaw and is tackled in the box. Looks fairly innocuous but, surprise, surprise the referee points at the spot. Penalty? We confer, deciding that this is the first penalty we have had at Bescot this season.

Bradshaw has the ball in his hands before the whistle has dropped form the ref’s lips. He’s after that twentieth!

Short run up: goal. This is Tom Bradshaw, was there ever a question?

He is subbed in the second half and we control the game, seeing out the time.

At the final whistle fans ignore the P.A. request to stay off the grass … but I am heading for the car.

Sunday morning: a gentle lie in and watching the superb BBC coverage of the London Marathon. Every participant is  a hero, running for charities and causes and there is Jane Sutton, mother of local teenage hero (in every sense of the word) Stephen Sutton (see https://saddlersfan.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/youre-only-supposed-to-blow-the-bly-doors-off/).  Like her son a resourceful and inspiring role model. Mentally I wish her luck. Blind Dave Heeley, from the Black Country, not content with running the gruelling Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert is also in the 38,000 runners somewhere.

The wheelchair racers likewise are inspirational, but credit to all the runners, whatever their times, whether or not they complete the course and whatever wacky get-ups they choose to carry on their frames.

Ricoh Anyone ?

I’ve been tidying up in the  back garden. Cutting down some pyracantha – and it is savagely thorned and well named “fire thorn”… and, having tidied up the resulting debris– some cut as logs for the fire pit, some crammed into the green garden-waste recycling bin (last collection of the year on Monday) – I am late getting in and putting the radio on. Main commentary is the Burnley Villa game, but the report from Coventry’s Ricoh Arena says that Saddlers are nil – nil and dominating the game.

 

Four minutes to go until half time and Villa take the lead with a Joe Cole goal.

While I am listening I am suddenly struck by exactly how many games I have been to this season, rather than, as in previous recent years, I sat and listened to the local BBC radio commentaries. This game at Coventry was eminently reachable  but the extremely poor performance at Shrewsbury is still fresh in my memory and I need to save at least a little money. The Who concert is next week and after that Status Quo and the ICAD sponsored game…

“So far, so good” is the half time comment on the Walsall game; still goalless. I am not even sure of the line-up and wonder who is playing up front and also wondering – if the game has been as bare of “highlights” as some of the games I have been to this season- how the BBC man at the Rich finds anything to say at all. But I’ll happily take what he says on trust – and hope we get at least a goal to win the game in the second half.

Elton, sorry, Sir Elton John will be playing at Bescot next summer. The news came out this week and the gig has apparently already sold out. Some press reports are saying it will be all reserved seating,  that the playing surface will be covered and seats put out.  On most levels this is marvellous news. It will be the second concert – in my memory – held at Bescot. Local band the Wonderstuff, having linked with comedian Jim Reeves in  a version of the Kinks song “Dizzy”, played there (just after Walsall moved to the ground (from Fellows’ Park). Clearly there is money being made by holding the concert at Walsall: will any of it filter in to the playing side? I certainly hope so!

 

Five minutes to go … Manset has been put on in the Walsall game, Baxendale coming off.

In the Villa game, short of something to say the commentators are reflecting that Villa have won games away from home (Stoke and Liverpool) by one goal to nil … could they win this one by the same margin … and there’s a penalty for Burnley … which is scored!

The “goal horn” is then quite active, sending the thoughts spinning: will it be a Walsall goal? A Coventry goal? No, well, not yet any way.

Meanwhile at Turf Moor, unsurprisingly, Burnley are inspired and on the attack! Hitting the post!

Wolves –in a downward spiral at the moment are three nil down at Brentford.

Blues get a controversial penalty (given apparently by the fourth official) , they score and take the lead against Notts. Forest.

Sadly and bizarrely Australian cricketer, Phillip Hughes died after a bowled ball struck him and caused a brain injury. This is weird because I had – totally wrongly – assumed that batsmen’s heads were fully protected by the helmet they wear. Obviously not! Of course I feel for the family of the man – who would have been twenty six this week, but also for the bowler. How must he be feeling?

 

 

“Cricket wraps its collective arms around the family” is a marvellous quote from a cricketer on the incident.

The Burnley game has finished.

Full time at the Ricoh: familiar story:

“Walsall looking solid at the back, but not able to put the Coventry goal under the pressure needed to score a goal that their play perhaps deserved.” Is a paraphrased version of what has been said by the reporter in an incredibly tiny piece of feedback – suggesting how little there actually was to talk about. Far more to reflect on, of course. What do we want for Christmas?

A striker of course! And the money and sense to get one in, rather than the somewhat prideful muttering about our current crop being “a work in progress”.

En Route to Brazil.

There’s a part of me that thinks this post ought to be about a couple of “warm-up” friendlies England have had en route to Brazil and the World Cup finals. But, to be totally honest, while I want us to do well, I feel genuinely – sadly – far removed from the players, team and their progress. I am enthusiastic about football, but the connection between me and the England team becomes more tenuous by the year. Disenchanted and becoming more so.

Roy Hodgson has my respect. I think he is an excellent coach. Like his public persona, his quiet determination, his self-deprecatory attitude, the sharpness with which he deals with some of the inane and ill-considered juvenile questions put to him by the likes of Adrian Chiles (ITV).

But the games – as games – were wholesome, but largely uninspiring. A reasonable enough 3- 0 win against Peru at Wembley.  2-2 draw at Wembley against Peru, an unconvincing 2 -2 draw against Ecuador in Miami, fairly swiftly followed by a 0 – 0 draw in a Miami game interrupted by an electrical storm. Good refereeing to take the players off during what appeared to be a Biblical scale thunderstorm: everything’s bigger in the States, right? (I didn’t watch the rest of the game (live on TV here at something approaching midnight.)

 

But a new complexion has been put on our opening game by happenings at the local reading group. First Wednesday of every month we get together at the local (Great Wyrley) library to discuss a chosen book. This time it was Beneath the Blood by Val McDermid (which got a lowly three out of ten marks from me: overly complicated plot, too many obvious red herrings – is that possible? – and writing devoid of detail). But the library is running a world cup themed competition. Choose a book on a sporting theme (I chose one about Bradley Wiggins) and you get a sealed bag with a book featuring one of the nations taking part in the World Cup finals. Me? Wouldn’t you know it; got Italy.

Meanwhile BBC properly extensively covered the commemorations and celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of the D-Day landings with a lengthy report and interviews from the French coast. All very stirring stuff: so important that we remember this occasion, the braveries and sacrifices and the fact that days and destinies were changed from and on that day. The production was  accredit to the BBC. There were markedly different-in-style speeches from Barak Obama and Prince William. The first reminiscent of a Shakespearean actor, delivering well practised words and raising the voice, pausing for effect and engaging the audience in an almost rabble-rousing style (except that the “rabble” were veterans and families and politicians.  Prince William, English, modest and under-stated, quiet and firm, resolved and gentle. He laid a simple Royal British Legion poppy wreath.

Both speeches had dignity and integrity: just opposite sides of the Atlantic coin.

But amongst the world-leader pieces: the Queen visiting a cemetery, President Putin, Angela Merkel being welcomed to the scene were interviews with veterans. It seems that this will be the last of these events for the Normandy Veterans association. It is, sadly, the way of things: they are getting older, fewer and less able to stand up to the demands of travel. This has to be a shame, with no blame attached to the men who actually ran up the beaches, piloted the aircraft, crewed the ships (and all of those behind-the-scenes, behind-the-day wizards). Can we do nothing to keep the obvious spirit burning? There is one example, much vaunted by the media, of a man from a residential  home going A.W.O.L. from the home to attend the ceremonies. Heart-warming in one sense, though certainly not for the staff at the home I imagine. And in their interviews, these men were cogent, coherent, modesty incarnate and young-of-mind. There is such candid, disarming honesty in their recollections, which are not “big-picture” revelations (the fate of the free world, duty and for the good of the nation) but about an infantryman who, in being seasick on the way to the beaches, lost his dentures, that one man had never, in all of his years attending this event met any of his colleagues. The veteran who charmingly began to “chat up” the interviewer (and her rendered unable to interrupt to make the all-important switch back th the studio. But, unusually the accents were very local, not only Midland but Staffordshire and the Black Country.

And the one who mentioned Walsall Football Club. He lives not far from Bescot, he said, where they play now, but this soing back to the old place … Fellows Park. We all stood up in them days. And at half time, I looked around and a bloke behind me pointed at me and says “I know you!”

“Yes, says I and I know you an’ all” he was from the same mess on the ship I was on going to the beaches.”

Ending the interview, his friend said “ I dunno what we did …. We’re like some kind of heroes. I suppose we might have been.”

And it brought a lump to my throat, that modesty.

So, really:

England or Italy in that first game ?

Got to be England eh?

After all, those were warm-up games weren’t they ?

 

Images: Hodgson: thesun.co.uk

Cahill goal celebrations: mirror.co.uk

Normandy veterans (one of many I could have chosen!): independent.co.uk

 

 

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.

 

(Leyton) Orient … Home

22^nd March, 2014

Started off the day with a shopping trip. Sainsbury’s. To pick up a few things that will help me next week in Austria. I am going to take something I will call an “English Easter” to a school in Upper Austria. Long story behind it breaks down into my work in two previous European Union funded education projects and a lasting friendship with a teacher there. She became a head. Her sister works in another school and asked if I would do something similar at her school. There is something I find relaxing about the scenery and people there. Pace of life is steady; people take an interest in you and the children are keen to learn … and – at least – pretend to understand my rarely spoken German.

Now I am not famous for going back to places. Cromer and St Johann/St Peter and Walsall Football Club being the notable exceptions.

There is, of course, some trepidation in me. I will be travelling alone. A flight from Birmingham to Frankfurt and on to Linz. A small airport in Upper Austria about which the locals say staff know your name if you use the place twice. Don’t laugh, it may well be true. The arrangements are over. I have some Power Point presentations on a memory stick and I am ready to give it a go. “To keep your heart young and fit, “ it was said once on BBC Radio 4 you should do something each day that scares you. Maybe this will qualify. New school. Teachers I do not know (yet) and flying.

No replies to my texts asking if my brother would be going to the game today and while, coincidentally bumped-into-and-talking with another former European-schools project partner (mid-aisle, Sainsbury’s) Cully rings.

We arrange for him to pick me up and we’ll go get a beer. Then another call. My brother. Sorry, can’t go, but will get the tickets for next Saturday (home versus Shrewsbury).

Cully needs to borrow a coat, he’s driven across the sleet and hail storms on Cannock Chase and thinks he won’t be warm enough. No worries. He happily borrows my “avalanche coat” – the one with a transmitter that’s activated by (I am not quite sure, but) avalanches, being buried perhaps, so that tracking teams can find, can find, can find – well the coat obviously … hopefully with me inside it, warm, unbroken and laughing off the battering.

A pint at the Wheatsheaf, Great Wyrley: scene of many over-the-years pre and post-match beers. We talk about comics, football, how would you design a house from scratch (well – go on – how would you?), lighting fires, evolution, did I mention football ?

Good companionable talk and then climbing into the car and zipping to the game. The weather is so changeable: by the time we can see the field the skies are blue and the playing surface looks marvellously green: credit to the ground staff. A mutual friend, Gerry is there.

Leyton Orient. Where do clubs get their names from? Why Orient? Best guess is that it is in the East End of London. I know that the stadium is not so far from the enormous Olympic Park that was constructed on contaminate, completely undeveloped ground for the 2012 games. West Ham will be buying the rebuilt ground where the stadium is although there was some typically-bullish talk about Leyton Orient taking it on. In the end, and sensibly, they just couldn’t afford the financial commitment. Also intriguing is that, early on in the First World War over forty players and staff from the club joined a local regiment. There was – kind-of – farewell parade which followed the last game of the season (20,000 people attended the match).

As of twenty-first century now, they are well placed to be in the play-offs, might even sneak automatic promotion –and they are playing at Bescot today.

We kick off and it’s straight down to impressive business. Busy, probing. My eye is taken by Lalkovic and Brandy, but Sam Mantom is back from a three game suspension. We take the upper hand quickly. Sawyers looking relaxed, Westcarr, as usual at the moment, seems a little off the pace. We mount attack after attack and, as is often the case we are wondering aloud how they can be in such a good table-topping position … and we are not! I guess every supporter of every team knows this feeling.

We are kicking towards our own fans, full back Andy Taylor getting forward often and effectively. We’re overloading their right back, pushing up. Passing well, finding players. Neat, tidy. More shots than usual … Lalkovic, Brandy, Sawyers and our earlier talk in the pub about being “found-out” as a one-strategy team seems like wasted words. The Orient defence are under pressure. The ball screws in to the middle from a corner. It seems like slow motion: the ball spinning slowly almost still on the spot and everyone, everyone just gawping at it. Then Paul Downing is there and batters it into the net! Time catches up with itself and we are on our feet, cheering, predicting three – nil wins and composing imaginary text messages to those who are not here.

Inside for a beer at half time, still the persistence to look at season tickets continues. The stewards I am sure are only doing what they are supposed to do, but I cannot understand it.

 

Back out for the second half and, somewhere below us pitch-side there is a small drama as a spectator seems to collapse. I was watching the game, so do not know whether he tripped on the stairs or had a seizure or similar in his seat. The medical team and stewards are there very quickly and he is escorted in to the lounge area. I hope he was and is all right. Well done to the stewards and staff.

But Orient are a different proposition in the second half. Their manager, Paul Slade has said something to them in the dressing room that has wound them up and they tear into us. Once again we lack the penetration – Brandy excepted – to break away and make it count.

And under the pressure a low-danger going nowhere shot is deflected off Paul Downing into the Walsall net past Richard O’Donnell who is diving the wrong way (to cover the original shot)!

Furious energy from both teams then, seeking the winner, but a draw it is at the end. Unsatisfactory in the scheme of things for both teams – moreso for us I fear.

We are playing at Bradford on Tuesday night. I will be ensconced in Austria, hoping to get a text that says we are back on the victory trail again, but certainly not missing the match.

Shrewsbury at home ?

Now there’s a prospect!