Guest of the Sponsors; Barnsley at Home.

Been working in Burton. Usually it’s a half hour drive, but Friday evening there’s a lot of traffic. A mild spell of weather, but going dark – the way it will in central England heading towards the year’s shortest day (21^st December). Surely too early for the Christmas exodus: to airports and warmer climes, to relatives, to the coast. So I am not too fussed. But my headlights aren’t too grand. Maybe covered by all the muck lifted off the road by other traffic?

Then my local radio station informs me the east bound side of the A5 is closed. Road traffic accident. I am puzzled … I am going west, and if the other side is closed my side should have  a far easier ride of it.

Fifteen minutes later I’m still puzzled and in heavy traffic, but feel blessed as I hear news that Air traffic in southern England was thrown into complete chaos this morning when the air-traffic control computer centre in Swanwick went somehow off-line. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton airports! No flights leaving, few landing, diversions to other airports. The knock on effects of planes and crews being in the wrong places was still going on as I sat there.

 

Up reasonably early on Saturday. Got to Bescot at around midday. Met the head of I.C.A.D., the building company sponsoring the game and the other guests and went into the Bonser Suite. I.C.A.D. have a wonderful history of both building well and satisfying customers and sponsoring a Christmas-nearly home game. My thanks to them for the invitation.

Mick Kearns, former Walsall, Wolves and Eire international goalie is soon there to see if we are settled in, who wants to go on a tour and what needs to be said in the introduction to the public he will give shortly.He is very personable, speaks directly and honestly (even when on radio his comments may be aimed at Walsall and the players) – and that is to his credit. He leads the tour. We start pitch-side, go down the tunnel, turn right into the home team dressing room. Shirts are hung out and Michael Cain is there. I shake his hand. It is explained that all professional players are contracted to report to the club, by 1.20 at the latest every Saturday – playing or not. I had thought the turning up on Saturdays was a voluntary thing – but of course not. The logic had escaped me.

 

The warm-up routines of players is explained but along with the comment that players “back in the day” when Mick was playing ( 1973 – 79 for Walsall and Eire) suffered no more injuries than players today, and we sweep on into the manager’s office where we learn the team hasn’t actually been notified who is playing yet. A few pose for photos with Dean Smith who appears relaxed and friendly, Richard O’Donnell and Jon Witney (physio). We end up singing a rather ragged version of “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and move on to the weights room.

I am surprised by the unexpectedly small scale of the rooms, especially the home dressing room. I am trying to think why they didn’t design the ground with a bigger space. The ground was built from scratch after all: why not give yourselves a bit of luxury?

Back in the Bonser Suite the banter is good and the food better. I had visions of a beer or two, but am driving to the Status Quo concert in the evening so stick with one Coca Cola.

 

Then out for the game. The whole experience is so much different – neither better nor worse, just  different – when you have had  sit-down meal before hand.

Barnsley. Similar position in the middle table as Walsall. Ross Turnbull (wasn’t he Chelsea goalie a while ago?) in goals is a name that leaps out.

Business begins. But they score first. Against the run of play perhaps, but a good goal when the centre half escapes his marker at a corner and heads in.

Walsall stream into the attack. Convincingly, dare I say it – for a change.  We win a corner. It seems to have been wasted, but Jordan Cook is quick. Running away from goal he pivots and smashes a tremendous volley into the back of the net. It is a superb goal!

 

A commentator on TV will later say “I wonder why he decided to make scoring from a corner even more difficult …” smiling as he said it.

There is actually a better view from the allocated “corporate seats” – no girders blocking the view – and the football is much improved too.  A few minutes later Cook turned provider, jinking a tasty ball forwards for Tom Bradshaw, back from his “ballerina injury” to clinically lift the ball into the net. Rico Henry a young left back plays well all game. In the second half – after complementary coffee and cakes – we rule the pitch, although O’Donnell still has to make some smart saves. This will make him our choice for man of the Match.

Late on a good interchange of play sees Manset (on as sub.) carefully and methodically set up Cook for the third and final goal of the day. It rounds off a splendid team performance. But I cannot stop for the man of the Match presentations. I am on the road, picking up and dashing – once again – to the Barclaycard Arena. Almost remembered the way there from last week, but traffic was not heavy and parking in the South Car park easy enough. Box office to wait for tickets to be printed, then in through the hospitality zones and into the darkened arena Chas an’ Dave on stage. Ham-cockneys to the hilt and rather good at it with hundred per cent enthusiasm.

Seats at the end of a row and next to our seats the hall curtained off. Plenty of room.

Quo on – “Caroline” as per usual to start the show, then professional music to the strains of Bye Bye Johnny. None of the sometime-pantomime engaging chatter between songs from Rossi – who took something of a back seat to re-formed, reconstituted Parfitt this evening. But an excellent show.

Status Quo? It must be nearly Christmas!

Oh – and the headlights ? A bulb had gone – all good now it has been replaced (thanks Halfords!).

Packwood House and Rotherham (Away)

15^th March

Had bangers an’ mash (sausage and mashed potato) for dinner yesterday. Bit slovenly, eating them of a tray on my lap, while watching TV (the mysterious disappearance and no-traces found of a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane).

Bangers ‘n’ mash needs pepper right?

So fetched the pepper mill off the dining table and left it on top of a pack of playing cards by my left elbow. Coming downstairs at around 6.30 to get a cup of tea I realised the portentous error. Rotherham (a.k.a the Millers (pepper mill get it) and the pack of playing cards is one from a sponsored match (thanks I.C.A.D.) at Bescot. An omen ?

Still not travelling to the game today so decided to go to National Trust’s Packwood House, about forty minutes pleasant drive away. Last time we headed to Packwood it was closed and we went, instead to nearby Baddesley Clinton (very charming with some humorous scarecrows).

The banks of the roads are alive with brilliant yellow daffodils. Hedges neatly trimmed and in one case well laid, looking pristine in the powerful, warm spring sunlight. A bit windy too.

Arrived, parked, membership (oh yes indeed!) cards scanned and a brief walk around the ornamental gardens; verdict being they will probably look good in summer. Outside introduction to the house given by a volunteer wit h a Scots accent. Very informative, great history. In a way quintessentially English. A farm leased after the Reformation, Bought and improved, passed through the ever-expanding family. Heirless neglect. Bought by a rich industrialist for his fifteen year old son, Graham Baron Ash, who re-invented it (and massively added to it) as a “Tudor manor”. The cow barn converted into a great hall and a “Tudor long gallery” built between it and the house proper in faithful-to-the–period style, with authentic furniture “saved/rescued/salvaged” from other properties during the Depression.

            

The kitchen walled garden brought back memories for me of Little Wyrley Halls’ walled garden, though was nowhere near as grand. The one at Little Wyrley hall has been turned over to grass – and, last thing I knew was a paddock for a pony. A well-spent morning, not thinking about the game: away at Rotherham, who are well in the promotion/play off place hunt.

Set out on the return journey with BBC Radio WM on in the car. Commentary of the Swansea v West Bromwich Albion game on. But every now and then the “goal horn” going off when scores came in from other games. Nineteen minutes (or so) Rotherham nil, Walsall 1 came in. Lalkovic scoring his “sixth goal of the season” and the – somehow desperate statistic that “in the last fourteen games Walsall have never lost a game they have been winning”. Can you believe the research that goes in to these things? I have been impressed by Milan Lalkovic since the first game of the season: he’s energetic, skilful and hard to knock off the ball. His Chelsea contract runs out at the end of the season, and, good as he is, I don’t imagine Chelsea will keep him. he has made loyal noises about coming to Walsall, but my guess is he will go to a Championship team – and our chances of that are running out.

Back home, unpacked the car. Radio on upstairs. I’m checking Facebook, getting the bulletins. With seventeen minutes to go, our defender, Ben Purkiss gets sent off … and some seconds before the final whistle, Rotherham equalise.

Down at mom’s half an hour later, the TV news is bringing the latest latest about the Malaysian airliner MH370 and the Russian delegate vetoed the U.N resolution that would have had tomorrow’s referendum in Crimea registered as unlawful.

Watched, as promised in an earlier post, some of the winter Olympics ice sledge hockey: the final between the U.S.A. and Russia. The two main protagonists in the Crimea/Ukraine scenario. Actually, while it takes a lot of skill (naturally), energy and guts to compete it wasn’t actually as brutal as the trailer seemed to suggest. Less so than the standard ice hockey where there’s further to fall and body slams into the wall are common and bruising. The U.S. triumphed … and in Sochi, Russia too.

Meanwhile, closer to home the Express and Star meanwhile is bewailing the fact that Walsall could do with bigger crowds. No joking? But it’s often the Express and Star that, in spreading rumours and refusing to give us fair publicity, banjaxes our potential. To whit the over-egging of the “racist” stuff during the Wolves game, giving former Wolves goalie Matt Murray a platform to report his feelings as fact, and making it seem as if Bescot is a dangerous place to go.

Now I realise that the E and S is printed in Wolverhampton, but we could ask for a little more positive coverage couldn’t we?

Also coming to bear, of course is the expense. This is an expensive month to be a Saddler’s fan, with the Football League adding the Coventry away game to our fixture list.

A small point too: why oh why can only season ticket holders go into the bar in the main stand? The story given that it is to stop those eating in the restaurant is too, too feeble. The corporate bunches – come and gone – are separated and have their own dedicated bar.