Walsall Blog - One Night in Heaven

Found this old diary entry, seems like only yesterday. To wit: -

Saturday 28 August 1999

Into town early, met up with the lads – Daz, Al and Steve – decided to pay a visit to the Imperial. Saw plenty of others in there – Evo, Swill and Chante, Canada Dave and plenty more. Some of the younger ones were asking questions.

'Have you been before?' 'Yeah, a few times, was a right tip, changed a lot now, never been beaten there though.'

Noticed how confident everyone was, this self-belief is what Sir Ray Graydon has given us now. Then it was off to the station. Got there to be greeted by the local branch of MENSA.

'He's ad a few, ay he?' - To a disabled bloke. 'That's inaccurate actually, my good man' - edited from the original response.

Enquired about the League Cup draw. We got a trip to Sunderland, they didn't seem to have a tie, which seemed to upset the locals for some reason. Found a hostelry serving Guinness, persuaded the kid behind the bar to draw a swift on it – nice one.

Next it was off to the ground, saw their fanzine bloke and gave him some stick - good natured of course - he must've been having a bad day.

Got inside, saw plenty of familiar faces, Stubbsy joined us, the away end was buzzing.

Near to kick off, they play one of 'their' songs - the crappy 1960's singalong one - turning the sound down at the appropriate moment, only this time there's 2,500 voices with a different version, sung with real feeling. I prefer ours. This is real our town versus another town stuff.

I just hope the players are as up for it as we are. Two minutes in and we found out the answer, Marshy let 'dangerman' Sinton know he was there - just below the knee. They do!

Why did we doubt it? These are Sir Ray's boys. Adrian Viveash, Tony Barras and Andrew Victor Rammell are all hard as nails, but not dirty of course.

Goalkeeper Jimmy Walker, Chris Marsh, captain Neil Pointon, Dean Keates and Darren Wrack can all mix it too. Jason Brissett was surely only picked for his short fuse, a good way to sign off before moving on down the leagues.

But we can play a bit and we never know when we're beaten either.

And then the ante was upped - by about a million per cent. A corner from the left and up rose Tony Tony Barrass in the air. 1-0 to the Saddlers, GET IN!

Pleasantly surprised to see pockets of Saddlers celebrating in other parts of the ground too. The home fans had other things on their minds, they were on their team's backs, wonder boy Robbie Keane had gone, Jermaine Mcthingy's knocked them out of the cup and now 1-0 down in a Black Country derby and being outfought.

Colin Lee under pressure, love it, he'll never make manager in a million years. It couldn't last, 35 minutes and Carl Robinson made it 1-1, now we're up against it. We need half-time.

Then it was upped again, this time by a zillion per cent. By the two least likely lads and all, Gabor Bukran's ball into the box, Mark Robins flicks it on and 'Rambo' causes panic in the goalmouth.

Millions of pounds of their owner's money and this lot can't defend to save their lives. 'The Ram' smashes the loose ball into the empty net with a real venom, runs to us, sliding in on his knees, fist pumping, loving it every bit as much as we are.

And it's 2-1 to the Mighty Saddlers! Half time and the away end is rocking, I've seriously never known anything like this at football before.

Pity CCTV and modern day stewarding can't be used to sort out those residents of the top tier who can't hold on to their loose change though – morons.

We had to be strong in the second half, sticking together for the longest 45 minutes of our lives - and that was just us fans.

On the pitch, we were holding up well with the odd scare. New kid Colin Larkin went through one-on-one, only for 'Wacka' to make a firm but fair challenge from the goalmouth.

What happened next is unclear, I was too busy contemplating 30 minutes with 10 men and Carl Emberson in goal, I think Jimmy got away without even a yellow - just like Marshy early on, his mates must've loved that. Was it a free- kick? Was it a throw? Did it even go our way? Never mind, still 2-1.

Substitute time, off with Brissett and on with Tony Daley – a three-month deal for this physio's nightmare. I suspect we've only signed him just for today, purely to annoy our opponents who wasted £1.5million on him a few years back, which was £1.5million more than we did.

Funnily enough he didn't get a great response. Well apart from our side of the stadium obviously, bet he never realised he was so popular.

On with Ian Roper too, Sir Ray's trusted 4-4-2 ditched for once. When you're 2-1 up behind enemy lines and the clock is ticking, albeit in light years, 5-4-1's fine by me. 8-1-1 would've done.

And then it happened - the greatest final whistle of all time. Celebrations galore, cheers, some tears. We are the Pride of the Midlands, 2-1 in your cup final etc.

Out of the ground and up to the town centre, an absolute joy of a journey - one idiot home fan trying to act the hard man apart. Saddlers' fans everywhere being easily identified by our beaming faces.

Home fans off to protest about not being as big as they were in the 1950's or something, before heading back to Stafford, Telford and Leominster.

Into the hostelry, one local confirming all known stereotypes by calling us 'gloryhunters' - seriously - and 'crying' offside as the screens showed Rambo's clearly onside winner. Sorry George, we don't care about you or anything you say, never have, never will.

The celebrations went on well into the night and Steve took the prize for the best line of the day. On the way back to the station, spotting a bloke in a yellowy-orange top walking out of a newsagents with the Pink in hand, he enquired.

'How did Wolves get on today, mate?' 'Lost 2-1 to Walsall.' Yeah I know, it was flipping great wasn't it?'

Defeat was just never an option. And one day we will return.