Can you hear Kavanagh sing?
Walsall blogger Mark Jones tells the tale of exactly why the hardcore Saddlers couldn't help but snigger at Graham Kavanagh in his return to the Banks's Stadium.
If you wanted evidence that many of the stayaway Walsall fans are those who could once have been considered as our hardcore, it was there last Saturday. Not necessarily in a conventional sense, but I noticed it.
Graham Kavanagh turned out for Carlisle and an outsider would not have had a clue that this individual had previous with the Saddlers. By rights he should have been receiving shed loads of abuse, but too many people who would remember the Ray Graydon glory years weren't there to dish it out. How sad is that?
For the uninitiated, Mr Kavanagh was once a player with Stoke City and, back in 2001, he made a complete fool of himself in the decisive second leg of the play-off semi-final.
At the time Graham was probably their best player, ironically he was the kind of cultured ball-playing midfielder who Stoke have now managed to do without in their subsequent full-frontal assault up the leagues.
Missing a penalty in the league meeting a month earlier had obviously been playing on the grey-haired one's mind. He'd been anonymous in the goalless first leg the previous Sunday and had hardly been in the second leg with half-time approaching and the deadlock yet to be broken.
Then he struck, admittedly with a superb volley from the edge of the box, before unleashing something even more horrific on the unsuspecting Walsall public. His 'celebration' was a stupid kind of slow motion half stepping half skipping dance complete with a finger-to-the-lips shhh motion. In short he looked a right idiot.
Within a few short steps he'd put himself right up there with Steve Bull, Barry Fry and Steve Hayward as a figure of hate for Saddlers fans everywhere.
Now I've no problem with any player giving a bit of stick back to opposing fans if - there's a history between said player and said fans, they've been on the receiving end themselves - see Martin Butler - or the team you play for aren't about to be overwhelmed by Sir Graydon's mighty Saddlers.
Just over half an hour later, Graham and the Stokies were well and truly dead and buried at 4-1 down. The crowning glory being the fourth goal where Kavanagh, inexplicably dribbling the ball back to goal in his own penalty area, played a suicidal ball across the six-yard box, leaving his team-mate with no option but to smash the ball against an incoming Pedro Matias and on into the net.
At that precise point, thousands of Saddlers were baying for Graham to do his funny little dance, but he'd suddenly gone all shy on us. Bless.
There is a brilliant footnote to this story, one which I have not made up, simply because you just couldn't make it up.
After the match I was in the Saddlers club downing a few fermented vegetable juices when after about half-an-hour I realised that, as a responsible adult, I really ought to be getting my six-year-old son home.
As home at the time was also on the way to a lock-in at the Oak, I hurried the lad back past the Bescot just at the point that the despondent Stoke team were trudging back onto their team bus.
Obviously there was plenty of sniggering from Jones and Jones Junior as we very loudly discussed our plans for the Millennium Stadium. Then I spotted a grey-haired figure leaning against a wall with his back to us, being interviewed for Radio Clay or some such station.
How good an opportunity was that?
I crept right round until I was in Kavanagh's eyeline and, ignoring the protesting interviewer's 'do you mind?' plea, proceeded to give him a massive shhhh!
His face was a picture - a picture of a bloke condemned to another season in the lower leagues who'd made a right prat of himself. Happy days.
One day hopefully we'll be able to once again see opposition players being unmercilessly taunted for previous misdemeanours. Then, and only then, will we know things are on the up.
On Crowdwatch, just over 3,000 home punters made it the lowest of the day in League One and lower than some in League Two and the Conference. No Roy, the long-term 'whinging at people and cross your fingers that something's gonna turn up' strategy isn't paying dividends just yet, is it?
