Walsall legend Chris Marsh set for day at Wembley after sepsis battle

“I wasn’t going to miss this one, was I?” chuckles Marsh, the Walsall legend who since 2018 has been kit manager for the Sky Blues and has witnessed first-hand their remarkable renaissance under his former Saddlers team-mates, Mark Robins and Adrian Viveash.

Considering how the past few weeks might have played out, the first and best news to report is Marsh is very much on the mend and sounding like his old self.

He admits to feeling just a little lethargic, partially the result of a seriously strong course of antibiotics given to treat the infection. But any weariness is easily overwhelmed by excitement at a first trip to Wembley in a professional capacity, for someone who came close to reaching the national stadium three times as a player only to fall short on each occasion.

“I played at Old Trafford and Anfield but Wembley is the big one and I never quite made it,” says Marsh. “To be going now as a staff member at a professional club is the next best thing. I honestly never thought it would happen.”

Yet the fact Marsh will be at Wembley tomorrow, or even still around at all, owes much to the diligence and persistence of Coventry club doctor Ganeshan Ramsamy.

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It was Ramsamy who on May 7 persuaded a reluctant Marsh to attend A&E for a lump which had appeared behind his ear to be assessed and then, unsatisfied with the initial diagnosis, insisted he return for a second opinion the next day.

“It was serious anyway but it could have gotten mega serious if it wasn’t for the doc,” says Marsh.

“When I first went to hospital they diagnosed a soft tissue infection. I was sat at home, still not feeling great when a few of the lads video called me from the dressing room after we drew up at Middlesbrough and qualified for the play-offs.

“Then the doc appeared and asked me to send him a picture of my neck. By then it had started to blister and straight away he came back on and said: ‘Mate, you are going back’.

“He was right. They had given me the wrong medication and discharged me too early. I went back in and ended up spending two nights in there. I was released after more tests and put on the strongest antibiotics possible.

“I was lucky. I’m your typical bloke. I just get on with it. It was all about the doc getting it in time. If he hadn’t been there, I would have left it another couple of days. Then maybe it is a different story.”

It is the second time in recent years Marsh has been indebted to the attentiveness of others. Shortly after Christmas 2016, his wife Sabina’s insistence he receive treatment after days of feeling unwell saved his life when it emerged he had suffered a slow bleed on the brain.

A little under two years later, following his recovery, Marsh left his job as a lorry driver to join Robins and Viveash’s backroom team at Coventry.

By then the pair had already guided the Sky Blues to one promotion. A second followed in 2020 and they are potentially now just 90 minutes from a third to complete the rise from League Two and Premier League.

That achievement would be remarkable enough in itself, before you even start to factor in the club’s much-publicised off-field problems which included two seasons spent playing home matches at Birmingham City, during which time they won the League One title.

This season could hardly have begun worse. Problems with the CBS Arena pitch caused by hosting the Commonwealth Games led to Robins’ men playing six of their first eight matches on the road due to a glut of postponements. They didn’t record their first win until October 1, by which time they sat bottom of the Championship table.

“They haven’t just swum the Channel. They have swum the Atlantic, there and back,” says Marsh. “What they have done this season is some feat, it really is.

“Mark and Viv have done an unreal job. They work unbelievably well together. Both work a bit differently but as a pair, they are brilliant.”

Standing in their way tomorrow are opponents looking to write a fairytale of their own. Just as Coventry were written off, nobody was picking Luton as promotion candidates before a ball was kicked, even less so when boss Nathan Jones departed for Southampton in early November.

Yet his replacement, Rob Edwards, is a reminder of why young managers should never be judged too quickly.

Many Telford supporters would have questioned whether Edwards was really cut out for management after he led the Bucks to a 14th-place finish in National League North five years ago. There were certainly moments during his one-year tenure in Shropshire when Edwards appeared to be pondering it himself.

But rather than lose all heart at the experience, he has learned from it, gaining more experience in charge of Wolves under-23s and England’s youth teams before winning promotion from League Two 12 months ago with Forest Green Rovers.

Even a short spell earlier this season at Watford (is there anything other?) may have been beneficial, putting him on Luton’s radar when Jones left.

“Rob’s a brilliant guy,” says Marsh. “He and his assistant Paul Trollope, who I played with at Northampton, came in after they drew 1-1 at Coventry back in February.

“I guess you could say the path of both clubs has been similar, coming through the divisions. Both are massive stories.

“If you are a betting man, there is no way you’d have put either of us in the play-offs. We know we are going up against good players and good management people.”

Like most kit managers, Marsh’s role in reality is about much more than making sure equipment is all in working order. A constant presence in the dressing room and around the training ground, he also acts as an unofficial liaison officer, confidante and friend to players.

“You forget how young they are. They do need looking after,” he says, before adding with a smile: “I always say to them: ‘There ain’t nothing you have done which I haven’t, believe you me!’

“If they need any advice, they only have to ask. I enjoy that bit of the role. They are great guys.”

Marsh has taken time this week to tell stories from his own career and the three Wembley near misses with the Saddlers: The 1993 Third Division play-offs and the consecutive Football League Trophy Area Final defeats to Bournemouth and Millwall in 1998 and 1999.

“I tell the players not to have any regrets,” he says. “You just never know whether you will get the chance to come back.

“I thought I’d never get to Wembley in a professional capacity. Now I have, I am just so grateful.”