I had the book for Christmas and am now 3/4 of the way through it. It is very well written and, as well as providing the memories it does reveal so much about the Buckley style and how the club was run.
One thing that surprised me, simply because I had forgotten, was how poor the gates were at the start of that season, around 3,000 much lower than we get now for league games. And all the players said how tough Peter Hart was - they all seemed to be afraid of him. One thing I did remember was that originally he came in as a midfield player but I had forgotten Brazier did too. No wonder we were able to play out so well well from the back.
There are so many good stories - like Mick Kearns actually working at the Aldridge CC on the day of the Highbury game - but the overriding story is the camaraderie and team spirit. They were a small group but no one has a bad word to say about anyone.
We lost our first two home league games, and also lost 8-1 at Bolton and 6-3 at Oxford, all before the end of September, and we sold one of our two brightest youngsters to Watford. Iāve made the point before, but if the interweb had existed then, any Saddlers websites would have melted. So the season didnāt start especially well.
Talking of crowds, the season before, 82-83, I would guess something like half our home games were watched by fewer than 3,000. We had an excellent second half of the season and crowds picked up, but I reckon I wonāt be far out, somewhere between 10 and 13 matches I would say. Maybe someone has the records and the patience to work it out and can prove me right or wrong. I know the league crowd at home to PNE, who we played thrice in ten days or a fortnight, was just 2,060, a record post-war low at the time.
Remember the 82/83 season was when we introduced all those young players; David Preece, Craig Shakespeare etc. I remember we were in the relegation zone, maybe even bottom leading up to Christmas but we were starting to play some tasty football without getting the results. Then something clicked and we finnished the season on a high.
Lee Sinnott replacing the hopeless Julian Marshall at centre back made a difference, and Iām sure the upturn in form coincided with Kevin Summerfield arriving, although we lost him for a few weeks of course before signing him permanently.
The second half of that season was some of my favourite football Iāve seen from Walsall, just as good as in 83-84, but without the excellent Ally Brown leading the attack.
Yes and the players we had lacked quite a few of the so-called essentials that people insist upon these days. We were a short team, particularly in midfield, we had no ātarget manā and no real ball-winner. We just had a good team.
The book mentions the 2 defeats that Jumbo talks about - itās interesting top see the players views on that
We averaged 3.243 in 82/83 and 5017 in 83/84 which is pretty low when you consider we were top of the league for some time that season and only faded badly in the second half of the season. We also had some pretty big gates if I recall rightly leading up to the Liverpool games, and one league game where you got a voucher for the second leg if you attended.
Youāre right, the average doesnāt seem that high, but it takes a while to build up I suppose. The voucher game was Bolton, I think, and I know there was a big crowd when we played Southend (4-0 win, Mini scored with a header) on the Saturday in between the two Liverpool games. Looking at your link, the bigeest crowd of the season was obviously the Oxford game, and the smallest at an educated guess was Wimbledon, who were in the third division with us and who we played early on.
For 82-83 the smallest crowd would be that PNE game I remember, 2060, and the biggest they mention, 5,369, would, again at a guess, either be Sheffield United, who had a huge away following, or the Boxing Day game against Lincoln.
Crowds were low then for a lot of clubs, not everyone will be old enough to remember those times, but the recession was biting hard, and in industrial areas like the Black Country unemployment was very high.
The 83/84 season wasnāt my first season, Iād been going to home games a few seasons then but it is the first one I have real memories of the football, I mean it was pretty exciting. My Dad also started to take me to some away games that season. I avoided Bolton thankfully, he went though.
I do remember there being some tough times. My Dad was a bricklayer and had some real hard times during the 80s. He always seemed to find a way to get to the games somehow though, such was his passion.
Simon Turner also cites the crowd violence as a factor in keeping people away.
Also I think he says in the book that the entire gate receipts for a season were about Ā£100k and, apparently, despite the fee being the same, there was a net cost of Ā£50k to bring Buckley back from the Blues.
Alan told me at Walsall when he signed in 1973 he was on Ā£25 a week basic plus Ā£15 a game win bonus. He quipped, āIf ever there was an incentive to score and help win Walsall games, it was this!ā And at Blues in 1978 was on Ā£325 a week basic. Some fans wondered why he moved to Blues in a struggling side. So over that five year period his basic wage was quite a jump.
I think he did join at the same time as Kev (the first time) but didnāt play much, and Iām not sure if it was a loan spell and he returned to Blues, or if he was injured.
Yes, Summerfield went back, Iām not sure about Hawker. If he wasnāt recalled then either he was injured or the Caswell/Mower/Sinnott/Hart back four was too good.
I think we started the season with David Arthur at right-back and Julian Marshall at centre-back.
I just canāt find any appearance stats for that season. Given he could play midfield as well, itās possible he was sub a fair bit- still one sub then, so a more important role than now.
And if youāre looking at the same images as I am, on the top row with Lee is Kevin McDonald in Leicester strip, Trevor Christie (Notts County), Kevan Broadhurst (Blues), Tony Godden (West Brom) and Paul Culpin (Leicester). Spot the odd one out.
He was always a useful sort of bloke to have as a sub with his versatility. I suppose he could have been on the bench a lot, I think he only started a handful of games.
I think he was more than useful. I think he was class, especially at centre half. Didnāt score many, but there were some great ones, particularly in the promotion season.
A lot of versatile players seem to get underrated. People see the versatility, rather than the ability in each position. I probably underrated Paul Jones from that time for the same reason.
Tommy Coakley was a great fan of Paul Jones. I confess, I did not rate him highly but whether that means I underrated him is a matter of opinion.
Another reminder from the book was how we only had one substitute in those days. The point was made that putting Summerfield on the bench at Anfield was a real statement of intent. But, generally, people such as Hawker were useful as subs due to their versatility.
So the season didnāt start especially well.
