Walsall owner didn't clear it all up

Walsall blogger Mark Jones gives his take on the club's owner Jeff Bonser breaking his media silence to clear up - not a great deal, actually.

A serious article about Walsall Football Club, written by a fairly well-known sports journalist, appearing in the Guardian, and featuring an interview with a certain Jeff Bonser?

I must admit, I had to check the date when I first heard about it.

But I thought the article was well-balanced, with David Conn obviously having to paint a picture for the masses uninitiated in all things Walsall and the goings on down Bescot way of the last two decades.

It was good to see some of the issues that many of us have been concerned about for what feels like an eternity being raised from the outside as it were.

Jeff's response was fairly predictable, comparing us with this week's crisis clubs - Stockport and Bury were mentioned in the article if anyone was running a sweepstake- while using phrases such as 'an ordinary fan sees' and the quite remarkable 'the fans will appreciate what they had with me, when I have gone.'

It's the kind of thing we've been hearing for years, so I don't ever expect there to be a Road to Domestos moment.

And, as usual, we only get a partial explanation of events. Like the fact that Jeff was already on the board from 1988 onwards.

There was no mention of how Suffolk Life came on the scene in 2003, something which apparently does have a fairly straightforward explanation, or why the pension fund couldn't have bought the club in early 1990s.

'Walsall Football Club won't find another landlord to invest in it like we have.'

Maybe we will, maybe we won't, maybe Suffolk Life could even sell the freehold back to the club and then we wouldn't ever need to have a landlord ever again.

So it would be renting – end of.