No rivalry can match the ferocity of that the Saddlers share with Crewe ahead of the team’s meet at the Banks’s Stadium tonight – explains Walsall blogger Mark Jones.

Some people say it’s easier to moan than be constructive, so here goes: -

How come some teams can’t buy a win week after week, yet never seem to drop a place in the table, whereas the mighty Saddlers go loads of games unbeaten, never once budging an inch upwards in the league, then lose one measly game and all of a sudden we’re in the bottom half? It’s just plain wrong.

Sometimes you have to hold your hand up and accept that the opposition have the edge over your team in a game. At Southend on Saturday was one of those days.

The opposition’s danger man, a Premier League performer of the recent past, ran the game from the middle of the park influencing everything that went on for the whole 90 minutes.

What a pity that the said individual was the referee Rob Styles.

Our striker Michael Ricketts should know better than to slap an opponent, but as Styles seemed to have given up blowing his whistle for lent, maybe he thought it was just gonna be a free-for-all for the rest of the day.

Seriously though, if a supposed top ‘referee’ can let a handball, a foul and a disgraceful two-footed lunge by Alan McCormack all go unpunished in the build up to a red card incident, what chance have we got of getting to see a decent game?

But back to Ricketts, hopefully he’ll know he’s let the team down again, both at Roots Hall and over the next five games. He’ll have no doubt spent Monday morning outside his manager Chris Hutchings’ door waiting to offer a grovelling apology.

For future reference, it’ll be interesting to see how Chris and his assistant Martin O’Connor deal with acts of ill-discipline. Not exactly their first managerial test, maybe more of a quickfire quiz question.

The next three games, all at home, see us taking on teams who came to Walsall at roundabout the same time last season and went away with valuable points. We definitely don’t want a repeat of that this week, especially our next opponents are Crewe.

As my mate Evo has quite correctly pointed out, we haven’t beaten Dario’s boys since Boxing Day 2001, which is far too long. In addition to this, five straight wins on have lifted them out of the relegation abyss.

I, for one, would love to send them hurtling back towards it.

But some people might wonder why so many of us have got a hang up about Crewe. Well obviously the 1993 play-off nightmare has left a lasting impact.

Hopefully all Saddlers not old enough to remember the miserable wet Sunday afternoon at Gresty Road, and the eventful but ultimately frustrating second leg the following Wednesday, will have been regaled with tales of goals out of the blue, for them, kamikaze defending, by us, injury feigning, reverse pitch invasions – you had to be there – and much much more.

The lack of good grace and respect for our club that has consistently emanated from the mouth of a certain Mr Gradi has probably been the biggest factor in getting on our collective wicks over the years though.

Like a lower division Arsene Wenger, Gradi seems to have developed a view that his sides – and only his sides – are the purveyors of pure football, therefore he feels slighted if anyone else dares to, thus rendering him incapable of paying anyone else a compliment.

Furthermore any defeats or setbacks for his Railway boys have always been put down to bad luck or dirty tricks from his opponents.

Over the years this whinging attitude seems to have permeated every aspect of the football club – fans, players and backroom staff. Yes Crewe teams always like to keep the ball on the floor, but their players seem to like to throw themselves to the floor too.

In a 3-2 win there in January 2000, a penalty was awarded against Saddlers legend Chris Marsh after a blatant dive. Dario’s response? To witter on about giving the referee a ‘bit of help’. I’d call it cheating.

Crewe have built up a reputation for their feted academy. Yet this hasn’t always been deserved, for every Dean Ashton – who’s from Crewe anyway – he might have signed for them there’s been a Gareth Whalley or a Seth Johnson. The latter probably being the most over–inflated player of all time.

For a more recent example look at the money Crewe received for Nicky Maynard, think of the meagre amount we got for Matty Fryatt, then ask who you’d rather have playing up front.

A lot of the more successful players they’ve ‘produced’ – Neil Lennon, the Villa-baiting Robbie Savage and David Platt have actually been cast-offs from bigger clubs, just like Daniel Fox and Anthony Gerrard.

So it’s hardly revolutionary stuff, many lower division sides have to produce young players to sell on. Most just don’t have the advantage of Crewe’s geographic location – situated in the middle of a triangle of three densely populated conurbations – the West Midlands, Manchester and Merseyside – and close to other bigger population centres like Stoke and Derby.

But games against Crewe have produced some cracking moments down the years. Charlie Ntamark taking us into those play-offs after five barren years in April 1993, Martin O’Connor tackling like a man possessed even when we were 9-3 down on aggregate in that defeat a month later.

The grin on Kyle Lightbourne’s face as he ran the ball into an empty net in the 2-1 away win the following season with their play-off final having ended in defeat – probably as a result of the rough ride MOC and the boys had insisted on giving them even in the face of a crushing defeat in their previous game.

The aforementioned Mr Lightbourne scoring a last-minute winner as we came from 2-0 down to win on a brass monkeys evening in 1996 and the aforementioned win in 2000 courtesy of three mighty fine strikes from Tom Bennett, Kevin Harper and the troubled Mr Ricketts.

But the main reason why so many of us have got a hang up about Crewe is simply because – we just have, OK?