Walsall blog: The Anti-Climax
Walsall blogger Mark Jones prepares himself for another uneventful climax to a season, but wonders - 'is it all that bad?'
As we Saddlers celebrate the delights of a nothing to play for end of season, we wonder - what will happen first?
Will we be mathematically safe from relegation before its mathematically impossible for us to make the play-offs, as automatic promotion went out of the window weeks ago, or vice-versa?
The season's climax is building up to one really boring conclusion. So boring in fact that I'm having to think of other football related issues, just to keep me focussed through the run–in.
Serious issues, like who will be the latest company linked to taking over the Saddlers with a view to making a killing?
Or the more light-hearted, like how funny would it be if Sheffield United won the next five games?
How much more po-faced will Rafa Benitez get before the end of May? Will Crewe finally walk the plank? And why do Shrewsbury always stay seventh when they never seem to win?
To be fair, laughing - or more precisely hoping to laugh - at others is a luxury Walsall fans have not had too often over the years.
By my reckoning we've been in a promotion or relegation scrap, either from the fringes or in a full-blooded battle, for at least 20 out of the last 25 seasons.
The rare exceptions being the first season after promotion under then-boss Chris Nicholl, before we sold Martin O'Connor and the manager lost the plot, the two dreadful years at the beginning of the Kenny Hibbitt regime and the successive relegations from 1988 to 1990 when we never looked remotely like making a fight of it.
But is the way 2008/09 petering out the worst thing in the world?
Three years ago, as we slid into oblivion under Kevin Broadhurst, with seemingly endless defeats against moderate opposition, we'd have killed for a mid-table finish.
The desperate end to Jan Sorensen's reign, where we survived mainly because the teams below ran out of games to catch us, was another slump over the finish line we could have done without.
With a limited squad of players that could best be described as developing, an ever-increasing number of disillusioned fans and a wasted six months with a manager in Jimmy Mullen whose sell-by date had long expired, mid-table for this season was always going to be as good as it gets.
Whilst I'll never say never again if we're stuck in the bottom four this time next April, i'll put up with a dull end of season just this once, but let's not make a habit of it, right?
