The club has announced a special offer for all fans for the forthcoming tin-pot trophy Quarter-Final against Luton. In a truly magnamimous moment, Walsall FC again displays it’s concerns for the equality of all fans, season ticket holders, part-timers and potentials.

Those wanting to go will be able to watch the game, the third of the trio of homers for the club at the end of the month, for a discount price – tickets are a only tenner (even for season ticket holders, who’ve already got a heap of discounts, free beer and a cup tie ticket to boot), or a fiver for crusties and kids. This is a great offer for everyone, as you don’t get something for nothing these days.

It’s hoped that the move will boost attendance at a time when the club’s struggled to engage the fans consistently and gain new supporters, who’ll no doubt be suitably impressed at the bumper crowd and atmosphere now keenly anticipated by the management.

In another move guaranteed to impress, we understand the club has gone for a nostalgic feel for the night. You can watch the match from within the confines of what was the original Bescot Stadium, as the Floors2Gone extension has been closed for the game.

This is a wonderful gesture from Walsall FC, and shows that it truly listens to the supporters and recognises them as the lifeblood and heartbeat of the club that they truly are.

As many of you will remember, before the last Focus Meeting, we asked on the message board for ideas people had to improve the marketing of the club in an attempt to increase attendances. Following the apparent positive response at that meeting, a Group consisting of members of the Trust and members of UTS got together to out together what we considered to be the ten best ideas to be presented at the Club’s regular, internal “Fans For The Future” meetings.

Those ideas were, briefly:-

1 – Season Ticket Seat Exchange & Seat Upgrade.

Season ticket holders to have the flexibility to move seats and also upgrade.

2 – Maximise Advertising Through Current Sponsor Banks.

Home fixtures on a monthly basis to printed on Banks beer mats during the season. .

3 – Advance Tickets for Groups & Families.

Review of the family ticket/group ticket scheme to encourage more families and groups to attend.

4 – Singing Section.

Move away fans into side stand, allowing home fans to use unreserved seating behind the goal with entrance by cash turnstiles, advance ticket or by season ticket allocated to a seat in another part of the crowd.
could we increase the entrance charge/increase revenue?

5 – Transport by Train/Bus

Have dialogue with rail & bus companies to explore the ideas of:-

A £1.00 match return ticket from anywhere in West Midlands. Ticket only sold if season ticket or match ticket is shown
Season ticket holders being able to pay £20 extra when they renew to obtain a travel card entitling free travel to all home matches.
Trial a free bus service for Aldridge, Brownhills areas which do not have rail links to the ground.
Any special buses to use Wallows Lane which could have a manned, removable barrier fitted to allow access by buses. This would allow rapid access and exit from ground.

6 – Leaflets/Flyers

Encourage fans to volunteer to distribute Leaflets/Flyers at places of work, to family & friends etc. Literature to be downloadable form club website.

7 – Asian/Ethnic market

Develop ways of encouraging more non white English fans to attend matches by: -

Arrange pre-season friendly with a touring Asian or Polish team
Marketing material in languages other than English, i.e. Urdu, Hindi, Gujarat, Punjabi, Polish etc
Creating links with local temples and mosques
Offer the ground and facilities for Asian football tournaments, hockey and Kabbadi. Get ethnic minority groups used to actually coming to the stadium.

8 – BBB – Beer, Bet & Burger

To encourage people to get the ground early, thus spending money on food/drink items, the club could get the bookmaker back and do a deal for a £5, for which you get a beer, a bet (£1) and a Burger.

9 – Un-used Season Ticket Stubs

To encourage an increase in season ticket sales, introduce a scheme where at the end of the season ticket holders with unused ticket stubs can return their books to the club and obtain a slight discount (Up to £30.00 max) against their new season ticket.

10 – Lapsed Season Ticket Holders

Using the historic data at the club, identify all fans who have purchased a season ticket over the last 5 years but are no longer season ticket holders.
Contact them to establish why they no longer want an ST and then subject to the reason, discuss what would make them purchase again or re-attend matches if not going to matches any longer.

These ideas were sent to the club some days ago, care of Dave Storr, the Stadium Operations Manager and Safety Officer and a well known as a friend of this site, who has said that they will be raised at the next meeting (although he himself has problems with two of them – moving supporters to the WBBS Stand – cannot do this because there are season ticket holders there and it would have to be discussed at the Safety Advisory Group anyway – and the unused season ticket stubs, which may be open to abuse so it may not work.

We will await developments with interest and keep you informed on progress as it happens.

Walsall’s good run came to an end with a bump on Saturday with a deserved 2-1 home defeat to big spending Peterborough. Conceding in just 64 seconds, it was always going to be a tough ask. Phil the Saddler summarised his thoughts on the message board:

Combination of poor performance from us, and them being an excellent team. A great example of what a little investment in your team can do. Boyd, Makail-Smith, Hyde, Mclean all cost money, but not anything earth shattering.

Agree with what others have said, our squad is still painfully thin. With our first choice 11 on song we will play well, but its unreasonable to expect everyone to be performing excellently week in week out, and we’ve got little room to change things around when players do play poorly. Ricketts for example was very poor at Hereford, and again, very poor against Pboro, but who have we got to drop him for? No one.

Pboro were a good side, faster than us, stronger than us and more clinical.

We need a striker to put pressure on the two we’ve already got, a proven winger and an experienced defender. 3 players of that ilk would make us so much more consistent.

Posh. I loath Peterborough United. Who can forget the ignomy of us failing to match their offers for Martin O’Connor, only for them to treble the peanuts they gave us for him a short time later?

Granted, they don’t have a lot going for them. Let’s face it, their most recognisable manager is the loathsome Barry Fry and their most well known supporter is the even more loathsome Adrian Durham, from Talk Sport. Tell me again, Adrian, how much higher were you going to finish than us the season before last? You know, the one when we were Divisional Champions? My God, they’ve even got Fergie’s nipper for a manager!

Jimmy Mullen’s choices for tomorrow will first of all be whether to bring back Rhys Weston, following his suspension. Weston was beginning to reach the heights he did last season before the sending off at Brighton, so I’d have thought it was odds on. Expect, in the continued absence of Clayton Ince, a defence of Gilmartin, Weston, Roberts, Gerrard, Boertien.

Ricketts and Iberhe pick themselves up front, so the other choices will surround the midfield combination. If Hughes is fit, Taundry, Mattis, Hughes and either Reich, Nicholls, Demontagnac or even Zaaboub seems to be the favoured option.

Peterborough Manager Darren Ferguson’s squad has been decimated by injuries and international call-ups. No fewer than eight players are unavailable for the clash while they are also sweating on the fitness on two others.

Missing will be Craig Morgan and Gabriel Zakuani due to international call-ups, but England under 21 goalkeeper Joe Lewis will be available.

Jamie Day (back), Shane Blackett (shoulder), Aaron Mclean (elbow), Dean Keates (knee), Chris Westwood (calf) and Sergio Torres (knee) are all expected to miss the match while Tom Williams missed training on Thursday due to a knock to his knee. Shaun Batt was back in training on Friday after nursing a sore shoulder following an aerial challenge against Dagenham and Redbridge on Tuesday evening.

In effect, they are missing virtually all of the first choice defence, plus a few others.
Ferguson said: ‘I will leave it late before finalising the starting XI because I have no idea at this stage who will be fit!’.

Predictions?

I don’t care that they have a rich sugar daddy, which has allowed them to have an overpaid and overblown squad, no team at this level can afford to be without over 50% of their starting eleven, including virtually the whole of their defence. They have good strikers, but anything other than a win, given the circumstances, wouldn’t be disappointing, it would be unacceptable.

The Saddlers safely overcame the first obstacle in their quest for Wembley glory this season by taming 2-1 Cheltenham in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy last night. PJD was at the game – share your views on the message board:

Just got back from the match which was an excellent away trip for many reasons – I was back home by 10.30, it only cost a tenner to get in, the entertainment put on by the local inbred morons was fantastically funny, the facilities and legroom at Whaddon Road were excellent, the linesman and referee failed to spoil the match despite both making their best efforts to do so, oh and Walsall won in a game they were losing – always the best way to win I think.

It was an excellent performance by the lads, Jabo and Ricketts caused their defence problems all evening, Hughes was excellent and Mattis was even better, Taundry, Gerrard, Boertin and Palmer were all solid and the latter’s dead ball delivery was superb and Roberts despite having a mare for their goal was also otherwise solid.

The two odd men out were Gilmartin, who literally had nothing to do all night (apart from pick the ball out of the net after Roberts error gave him no chance), but still contrived a “calamity James” moment after which he went to pot and Nicholl’s who was the worst outfield player by a country mile. Sorry to say he barely seemed able to control the ball or make a pass to a Walsall player. Once he was replaced with Ishy our attacking threat increased massively.

I am not sure what the shots on target totals were but I would guess they were about 6 to 1 in Walsall’s favour. Cheltenham looked like a Martin Allen team, lots of huff and puff, but carried very little threat. Their two best chances both came from Walsall errors.

Once again special mention has to go to the three Cheltenham fans that were thrown out, especially the little fat one wearing a Man Utd top – they were absolutely priceless. I doubt if they had a brain cell between them.

A 0-0 draw against lowly Hereford disappointed many Saddlers fresh from three straight wins, but a point gained nonetheless and the unbeaten run continues. Phil The Saddler gave his thoughts on the display via the message board:

A poor performance. Hereford played 5 across midfield at times, and as with other teams that have done the same to us this season, we struggled to play any decent football. Ricketts didn’t look interested, he could be 100 times better if only he tried that bit harder. We failed to adapt our game all afternoon, Hereford were woefully slow at the back, and all we had to do was utilise the pace of Jabo and Ricketts to break them down, but we didnt do that once.

Taundry and Nicholls fluffed 5 good chances between them against Hereford. Taundry is technically a very good player, but lacks the mobility [pace + movement] of a good winger. Nicholls has the mobility but struggles to cross or shoot well. I really think our team would be stronger with Ish and Zaboob in there, especially now Jimmy seems to have sorted out our defence. Both Ish and Zaboob have the mobility and the technical qualities to cross and shoot well, which in tight games like at Hereford mean the difference between winning and drawing.

It’s a return to Edgar Street tomorrow, one of my least favourite of grounds, as the first time I ever went, I was ready to celebrate a win, thanks to an Alan Buckley goal, when some local, more used to driving a tractor, ran into the back of my car leaving the car park. Never liked the Bulls ever since!

This has to be seen as a chance for the Saddlers to consolidate their League position as being real contenders. After a run of three wins, two away from home, we are away to a team rock bottom of the Division and who are already starting to see a gap develop between them and the rest. At full strength, we have a team as good as virtually any in this League and tomorrow is the perfect opportunity to prove it, as the lack of reported injuries means we will only be missing the suspended Weston and Sansara.

Jimmy Mullen’s favoured line up is the most likely to appear, with Palmer in for Weston. Expect:

Ince, Palmer, Roberts, Gerrard, Boertien, Nicholls, Hughes, Mattis, Taundry or Reich, Ricketts, Iberhe.

The Hereford line up is anyone’s guess.

Their last game was a 0 – 1 defeat away to Leeds, where the team was:

Randolph, Jackson, Broadhurst, N’Gotty, Rose, Hudson-Odoi, Johnson, O’Leary, Diagouraga, Done, Chadwick.

Subs: Samson, Beckwith, Smith, Ashikodi, Taylor

However, that was a line up consisting of a massed defence (marshalled by former Blues French International, Leicester loanee Bruno N’Gotty) and we’re unlikely to see the same tactics used.

Amongst the familiar and unfamiliar names, however, two will be of note, should they both play. One is former Saddler Kris Taylor, on as a sub against Leeds, and the other is our former trialist, Nick Chadwick.

Predictions?

They don’t concede many goals at home, but they don’t score them either. They are rock bottom, short of confidence, only having 4 points in total (all gained at home with a win and a draw). Quite frankly, if we have pretentions of getting anywhere this season, this is a game we must win. No excuses. Away win.