A very, very cold day on the terraces at Craven Cottage, and the Saddlers returned to Bescot pointless despite some encouraging signs in a 2-0 defeat. Darren Wrack had a good second half, causing Fulham some problems – and perhaps returning slightly to last season’s form. Ian Brightwell looked comfortable at the back, and apart from the odd lapse, made some good overlaps.

But the defeat still leaves us in deep relegation trouble. Kevin Harper looked to have put us ahead in the 24th minute with a brilliant volley – unfortunately he was offside. On the stroke of half-time we should have been 1 up but Darren Wrack put his shot wide. And in the 61st minute, Andy Rammell, who’d just come on, someone shot over from less than 3 yards out. Other reports are attributing this to a brilliant Coleman tackle – but judge for yourselves. From where I was standing it was an amazing miss.

The Fulham goals came on 53 minutes. Darren ran into trouble on the half-way line, Lee Clark ran down the wing, crossed, and Terry Phelan scored his first goal for six years. He played quite well against us when he was at Palace earlier in the season – perhaps he likes facing the Saddlers. And 5 minutes from time, Lee Clark danced through a few tackles on the edge of the area before slotting home. Not as good as Freedman’s goal last week, but not bad all the same.

Andy Rammell came off just before the whistle – hopefully just a precaution. Most amusing incident in the game was when the lino fell over (“twisted ankle”) and was stretchered off – after just 14 minutes.

Next week the Saddlers travel to fortress Maine Road. Few expect us to pick up anything, but the real crunch comes in two weeks time against Grimsby. Surely that is the time to put the recent defeats behind us and start building momentum again. Word from Bescot tonight is that we may well have a few new signings for that Grimsby again – Lavin expected to sign early next week, along with that Greek winger from Portsmouth.

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Thank you very much to the 70+ people who have emailed me over the weekend following Mr Whalley’s comments in the match programme on Saturday. Please see the message board for the latest on this.

I have this morning faxed Mr Whalley the following letter, and await his response with interest:

Dear Mr Whalley

I attended the Forest game on Saturday, along with three friends, and was interested to read your column in the match programme at half time:

“Any other websites covering Walsall FC are unofficial and dependent upon news from secondary sources. One such site we have investigated is produced by Steve Roy. This guy lives in London, has absolutely no known connection with Walsall FC, and does not even attend our games! Therefore, such news that he produces is plagiarised, merely copied from
other Web-Sites.”

I have run the unofficial Walsall pages for over 3 years; it was one of the first Walsall sites on the internet. Over the years it has built up a sizeable community of Saddlers fans from around the world. But aside from that, can we address the factual errors in your article?

The obvious irony in this is that if I don’t attend games, how come I was reading the match programme? For your information I have supported Walsall for over 10 years, have attended 15 games so far this season (it would be more but for work commitments at weekends), and have family who have lived in Walsall for over 50 years. But you would know this if you had indeed “investigated” the site I produce. Something you clearly did not do.

I work in the internet industry, for one of the UK’s leading web agencies. I am therefore familiar with the nature of unofficial club sites. My site is no different from any other in that it pulls its news offering from a variety of sources; supporters who visit the message board, other unofficial sites, the local online press, Walsall sections on Teamtalk, Sky Sports, and Sporting Life amongst others, and ideally, via the official club site. On which there is no news service at the moment. Therefore I’m pleased you are committed to redeveloping the existing Walsall site at www.saddlers.co.uk.

There are several unofficial Walsall sites, of which I run one, which are produced by committed Saddlers fans from all around the globe. These people do not work for profit, and put many hours into what in effect are free advertisements for Walsall Football Club. Their efforts should receive support from the Club, not nasty attacks in the match programme.

I await your response to the obvious inaccuracies in your column with interest,

Regards

Steve Roy

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A brave display by an injury-hit Saddlers side today, but despite a spirited second half performance Walsall lost 2-0 to Forest. Defender Ian Brightwell made his debut and had a good game considering he hasn’t played much first team football recently, but in truth Forest were well worth their victory. Their second goal was a bit special from Douggie Freedman.

My own enjoyment of the game was spoilt at half time, when I read the match programme. Announcing that the club’s official website is being completely revamped in the next couple of weeks, this is what Commercial Manager and Secretary Roy Whalley had to say in his column “Bescott Buzz”:

“Any other websites covering Walsall FC are unofficial and dependent upon news from secondary sources. One such site we have investigated is produced by Steve Roy. This guy lives in London, has absolutely no known connection with Walsall FC, and does not even attend our games! Therefore, such news that he produces is plagarised, merely copied from other Web-Sites.”

Having just got back from the 280-mile round trip to Bescot, I was disappointed to read these words, of which a number are libellous. I would welcome the views of Saddlers fans who have used this site over the last 3 years, either post them here on email me at steve@steveroy.com

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