Walsall blog: Dicky’s top 10

Just in case Richard Money gets tempted by the bright lights of Coventry, here’s my tribute to the man with the top ten Dicky Dosh moments so far, writes Walsall blogger Mark Jones.

(Alternatively he might stay with the Saddlers and we can start dreaming of an away Premiership fixture in Kabul or Outer Mongolia in 2011.)

1. July 2006 Albion home in Ian Roper’s testimonial.

This is a one that might be unique to me and it came in the first proper game of his reign, I had tickets for upstairs for a change, giving me the perfect opportunity to view how we defended the first set piece of the DD era as the Bag-ladies got a corner.

We put one player on each post, one on the penalty spot and everyone else picked up a player.

In other words, textbook defending of the kind that hadn’t been seen in WS1 since the glory days of Ray Graydon.

It filled me with confidence that we’d got ourselves a manager who clearly wanted to sort things out on the training field, and knew how to do it.

Our promotion was subsequently built on our defensive record last season. It’s not too bad this season either.

2. August 2006 Rochdale away.

A gritty but deserved away win that put down a marker for the rest of the season.

At the end of the match, Dicky was on the pitch applauding the superb away following who were already chanting his name.

It did feel like the start of something big and we were getting our Walsall back.

3. August 2006 Lincoln away.

For 60 minutes we were dreadful, deservedly 2-0 down but at least we’d weathered an aerial bombardment.

Then we started to pass the ball and try to play through the Imps defence. It looked like we’d come away pointless, but two late goals made it feel like a win.

Psychologically this was a massive result and it felt like we were the real deal.

4. September 2006 Peterborough home.

After our first defeat of the season at Grimsby, this was a test of how well we could bounce back.

With the sad loss of Matt Gadsby at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the boys produced a fine tribute with a 5-0 win.

This kicked off thirteen matches unbeaten as we built up a healthy lead at the top of the table.

5. September 2006 Mansfield home.

0-0 at half time and not even firing on one cylinder, DD made the bold tactical decision to take off a striker and go for a kind of 4-1-4-1 formation.

It worked perfectly as we pulled the opposition’s Fourth Division defenders all over the place.

They hadn’t got a clue whether to sit back or come out, we exploited the gaps and ran out 4-0 winners. Very clever, very bold Richard.

6. March 2007 MK Scabs away.

The start of the final run-in, we’d got over a poor run of results in February and the loss of our leadership to Hartlepool to hang on to second place.

But the Monkey Boys had won at Darlo and Swindon had won at Lincoln before we kicked off in front of the cameras and defeat would have seen us drop out of the top three.

Despite playing well, the man in the black was determined to deny us anything.

Two perfectly good goals from the on-loan Trevor Benjamin were disallowed, a spot of GBH on Martin Butler was ignored and insult was piled onto injury as the diving McLeod put the phoney club in front.

I spent most of the second half thinking how we’d cope with the anti-climax of the play-offs but Dicky refused to give up, brought the injury ravaged Wracky on and, as if by magic, he popped up with an equaliser.

Four straight wins later we were up with the added bonus that we’d denied the scabs enough points to go up themselves.

7. April 2007 Notts County away.

The sun shone, thousands of us were there, Kevin Harper scored a beauty, it looked like we were to be denied and then Big Trev notched with 10 minutes to go and we celebrated, job done.

In less than 12 months the DD revolution had achieved its first objective.

8. May 2007 Swindon away.

Topping Meadow Lane took some doing but you sensed that Money wanted the title too.

Hartlepool wobbled, then we did, then they did again, we held our nerve superbly to beat Wrexham and put ourselves in the driving seat.

Then the ‘Pool wobbled again and it was in our grasp, it was all too much for the usually composed Money who lost his cool for the first time all season and got sent to the stands.

No worries, Deano lashed in THAT goal and the words Champion Walsall were put together for the first time in 47 years Get in!

9. October 2007 Doncaster away.

Ok so the summer didn’t quite go the way a lot of us wanted and we found ourselves bottom of the league in shambolic style by September 22nd.

All managers make mistakes, the better ones are those that recognise this and do something about them.

What exactly went on in the dressing room after the Oldham game is probably x-rated but it turned our season round spectacularly.

Out went Sonner and Butler, in came the experienced Jimmy Mullen as Dicky’s number two, in came the unlucky Dwayne Mattis and some of our promising kids.

Ten days later a quality performance at Donny saw us come from behind twice to deservedly beat one of the division’s top teams and we were on our way.

10. December 2007 Leeds home.

I could have picked any one of a number of games in our fantastic unbeaten run but this was the game where the boys showed everyone (themselves included) that they could compete with the ‘big boys’ of League One.

We didn’t pick up the win our performance deserved but DD’s faith in his young players shone through on that day.

It made you feel good to be a Saddler again. Cheers Dicky.

Bonus number 1. His first day in the job

The retained list showed there was no place in Richard Money’s plans for a certain S.Osborn. There was much rejoicing in Jones Towers that day.

Bonus number 2. Available on Youtube

My only face to face meeting with our leader came bizarrely as I filmed a video clip for a mate’s wedding (hi Swill) on the club car park.

Either he was having a bad day or he’s a miserable sod most of the time.

If I had the choice I wouldn’t swop him for any other manager right now though.

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