Saturday marked the visit to another ‘Pool 25 years to the day as Walsall blogger Mark Jones recalls in the second of a two part-series.

I was in my last year at school and me and my mates finished early – so as to be on time for the coach obviously – and were forced to spend the afternoon in some of the town’s finest establishments.

Everyone of them was packed with Saddlers fans ‘preparing’ for the trip to Merseyside.

Various estimates put our following at anything from 12,000 to 15,000, but I do know we filled all of the seats behind the goal and on the side up to the halfway line, as well as the dangerously overcrowded corner terracing.

Walking up to the ground about five minutes after kick off, there was an almighty roar which we all assumed had to be the Kop celebrating their opening goal, as it turned out it had been our fans as Ally Brown had headed into the side netting.

The famous Kop turned out to be a bit of a let down as they were comprehensively outsung for 90 plus minutes, although to be fair they did applaud our boys off at the end of the game.

Ronnie Whelan did put the Scousers in front twice, but it was one of those nights where our boys would not lie down. The first equaliser came right on half time and in front of the Kop.

Mark Rees closed down Sammy Lee on the edge of his box, he panicked and played the ball back to goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar. Richard O’Kelly intercepted and slid the ball along the goal-line and under the dodgy-tached and, as we found out years later, dodgy all round) Zimbabwean.

With Ally Brown about to pounce, there was panic on the streets of Liverpool, as one member of the best defence in the country Gary Gillespie contrived to hit the ball straight off Phil Neal – another member of the best defence in the country – and into the back of the net.

If you’re not used to standing at football nowadays, it’s hard to understand the sensation of being lifted off your feet – and I’m six foot three – to swept up and down a terrace by a mass of people celebrating a goal.

It was only years later, in the aftermath of Hillsborough, that I realised how unsafe we all we were that night. The dark irony that this was at the home of Liverpool has never been lost either.

The second equaliser was from substitute Kevin Summerfield, put through by David Preece, coolly lobbing Brucie from the edge of the box, minutes after the Reds had gone 2-1 up.

From that point on, you knew it was going to be our night. Mark Rees caused veteran left back Alan Kennedy immense problems with his pace and almost scored a winner when he rounded Grob but took the ball too wide.

The final whistle, when it eventually arrived, was greeted with a noise I’ve only really heard at Cardiff since. The 12 players, Buckley, his assistant Garry Pendrey and the boys in the now-famous blue Deeleys Castings shirts were given the rapturous ovation they deserved.

Their exploits had already made them heroes but that night they became Walsall legends. Well, apart from the Buck who was one anyway.

For the next seven days Walsall made plenty of headlines – front and back page – everyone regaled those who hadn’t gone with their version of the Anfield experience and exchanged stories with those who had.

All the annoying little plastic Liverpool fans who’d loved to take the Michael out of those of us who actually went to football and actually supported their local team throughout my time at school suddenly discovered an affection for the Saddlers.

Likewise local journalists suddenly realised the town had a football team and those who had smugly mocked the ‘Ninety Minutes from Europe’ advert featuring the team the previous year spent the week furiously backtracking.

The Football League did their bit by very quickly pointing out that away goals didn’t count double at the semi-final stage, as they do these days, so those pesky lower division scoundrels better not play for a draw.

We waited for the return leg, not quite knowing what to expect. As it turned out there was no fairy story.

Greame Souness returned and grudgingly you had to admit he ran the game. Ian Rush, kept quiet in the first leg, scored early and Whelan added another in the second half. Reesy wasn’t fully fit, we’d swopped the side around to play Summerfield from the start and we never quite matched the exploits of the previous week.

I can remember Fellows Park being seriously packed, I can remember standing in the Street End, I can remember the small brick wall at the away end collapsing when Whelan scored.

Souness didn’t wade in and rescue a young child with his bare hands. A kid, supporting Liverpool the cheeky little so-and-so, had fainted in the Cowsheds, got passed to the front and a St John’s ambulance bloke had walked onto the pitch and plonked him in Sourness’s arms.

But I don’t look back on that night, arguably the biggest ever game played in Walsall, with any real affection.

This was probably because, even though everyone knew that it was inevitable the run would end and that the Scousers were likely to be just the guys to do it, there was still a huge sense of anti-climax.

Things were not helped by the fact that, as any Walsall fan of that era will tell you without any bravado, the other two semi-finalists Everton and Aston Vile would easily have been put to the sword by Buckley’s boys.

I have mixed emotions looking back on the Milk Cup run now. The team never reached its full potential we dropped out of the promotion race.

We finished sixth, something we repeated in 1985/86, inevitably just before the play-offs were invented.

We signed a giant useless donkey called Dave Bamber, we had a miserly chairman who was more interested in the land the club occupied than what happened on the pitch and Alan Buckley eventually became the innocent victim of the 1986 Terry Ramsden takeover.

There is also that nagging feeling that no Walsall side could ever again match the achievements of their 1984 counterparts and reach a major semi-final, although Wycombe, Barnsley and Burnley have all done this recently.

Of course two of the squad are sadly no longer with us. RIP David and RIP Ian, thank you for the memories.

On the other hand the football was fantastic, the games were unforgettable and we were all proud to come from Walsall. Happy days – I am glad I was there.