Walsall Blog - Up for the Cup

Come on, be honest, did anyone actually believe when it went to penalties that we were actually gonna go through on Tuesday? There was a depressing inevitability about the Johnstone's Paint Trophy defeat to Bury that just about sums up the mood at Bescot these days.

Equally predictable was that Sam Parkin, brought on presumably just to take part in the shoot-out, would be the one to smash his kick into the post, which was to ultimately bring about our demise.

So just before 10pm on the September, with barely a whimper, the Saddlers are already out of two cup competitions and looking to concentrate on the league. Or, to put it another way, staying out of the league's bottom four.

Some might say our season is over already.

Adding more insult to our injury, we've been knocked out by two teams from the lower reaches of a lower league in supposedly 'winnable' fixtures.

Pile on the home losses to Luton and Darlington last season, the early 2007/08 knockouts - we lasted right up to September 4 that year - track back to the Slough horror show via that dismal defeat at home to a previously winless Macclesfield in the first Richard Money season, and our recent cup record is nothing short of pathetic.

And there's absolutely no excuse for it.

Walsall have always had a good cup tradition, regardless of our league placing, financial status, the players at the manager's disposal or even who occupied the manager's chair. I'm not necessarily talking about the glamour games or the big cup runs either.

From as far back as I can remember in the early 1970's, we were always good for more than the odd cup win in a season and first round FA Cup defeats were few and far between.

Losing to a lower league team was equally as rare and, if anything, it was the 'bigger' teams that wouldn't fancy drawing us out of the hat, rather than the other way round.

So how can we explain what's gone so drastically wrong? Well we have half a new side and a different management team from last year, which in turn had different personnel from previous cup catastrophes.

You can't continually blame bad luck or dodgy refereeing, however much we might want to. It would be churlish - even for our biggest critics - to point the finger at us fans, as Tuesday's crowd was half-decent by Trophy standards after all.

So what does that leave us? What possible, single, consistent factor about Walsall Football Club is there that could explain our club's current cup - and non-cup for that matter - malaise?

What could possibly be driving this era of stagnation and missed opportunity that seems to be leading the club towards professional football oblivion?

Off the top of my head, I asked myself some direct questions, but then ignored them naturally. I Bonsered some ideas about, but couldn't think of an answer for love nor rent money, so I got a bit board and gave up. What a Whalley I must be!

There might be some readers who think I've neglected the FA Cup, a tournament we remain very much involved in until at least November.

Personally I love the old competition, but at this very moment I doubt very much our ability to get through two rounds - or three given our woeful luck in third round draws - against anyone.

And how utterly depressing and demoralising it is to have to write a sentence like that.