Blog: Walsall reaching the big time in 2013

A successful club in England brings unwelcome distractions and the glare of the media spotlight – welcome to Walsall in 2013, writes blogger Mark Jones.

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It’s fairly obvious that the phenomenal achievements of Dean Smith’s team were not going to stay under the radar forever.

In the last week and a bit, we have seen 'the Ginger Mourinho' on Late Kick Off and as a summariser for the Yeovil versus Swindon game on Sky Sports.

We have also been featured on national radio and in a national newspaper and, last Saturday, we even had that bald bloke off the Football League Show turn up to do a special report.

And what a fantastic finish we gave them, just as everyone was about to accept it was going to be one of ‘those days’ up popped Jamie Paterson then Will Grigg - and what a cross from Andy Taylor, too.

And, if Ashley Hemmings’ fine effort with the last kick of the game been a fraction lower, then our landlord would probably have had to be forking out for a new roof to replace the one that would have been blown off.

Naturally, local radio were only really interested in their favourites.

If they want to waste time on expensively-assembled but failing teams just about scraping home wins against the worst sides in their respective divisions, that’s their problem really.

What struck me about the media attention was how well the club presents itself these days.

Be it the manager’s philosophy and ambition for how he wants us to be playing or the chief executive talking up our pricing structure and attracting the next generation of fans.

A few years ago this would have been unthinkable, so well done guys. Sure, the press releases are never likely to mention a suspected £2 million worth of debt and the huge amounts of rental payments that leave us every year.

Rest assured, I will keep on doing that , but to hear positive comments about what’s happening on the pitch as well as off it is a real step in the right direction for the club.

We have also indirectly attracted a bit of attention thanks to Carl Ikeme's bizarre injury at Wolves last weekend.

His problems has resulted in Aaron McCarey having to return to his parent club and, therefore, ushered in our seventh change of goalkeeper this season.

I know, contractually, there was no alternative to Aaron going back but surely we ought to be compensated in some wa.

Maybe Mr Ikeme could spend the rest of the season putting his good hand to good use cleaning out the toilets at Essington or something!

With David Grof leaving the country this week, it left yet another vacancy for that Purple Jersey.

As a result, we welcome England under-19 international Sam Johnstone from Manchester United no less.

We have done pretty well with our loan keepers so far, this one could be the most crucial of the lot.

There’s clearly a lot more to the Grof situation than we know about and there doesn’t seem to be much point in speculating about it.

Things haven’t worked out for David and he has the chance to move on and make a fresh start, so good luck to you 'Groffy.'

Also leaving us with our best wishes is Nick Mashiter. We come to expect bigger clubs trying to snap up our young starlets, but not our reporters too.

I always felt a bit sorry for Nick that his time at the club seemed to coincide with a fairly dire period on the pitch.

It’s typical that he should be moving on just at a time when things are really taking off for us.

I also think Nick had a good grasp of what went on behind the scenes at Bescot and who the good guys are.

Good luck to you Nick, let’s hope the season ends with your team reaching the Championship!

Comments for: "Blog: Walsall reaching the big time in 2013"

Pete

What always used to irk that the so-called naysayers who raised the issues about the rent and so forth always used to push the agenda over growing crowds. Its good that finally the club have caught on that talk about "financial probity" is never going to get kids through the turnstiles.

Maybe they will listen to the rest of that so called anarchic and destructive agenda now.