A Ray of Sunshine

Anybody else rather emotional after reading that ?

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I remember the Bristol game the most. Pouring with rain and at the end when we were walking out the players where warming down on the pitch . I went back to praise them and just remember them looking back with smiles . Think we both New that something special was happening.

I think what was so significant about the Bristol Rovers win, was it was on the back of a 4-1 defeat at Fulham. Many teams after losing 4-1 the previous weekend, would have folded at 3-1 down. Not this bunch, to come back and take a point would have been great, to actually come back and win, I think you are right, we knew at this point it was something special. The way we bounced back after a set back, time after time, was what kept the points continually coming in. Never allowing time for doubts to set in, or moral to drop, not that I think Sir Ray would have let that happen anyway.

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Randy camel’s header against stoke absolute folklore

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Seemed like he was in the air for about two minutes before he connected with Pointon’s cross.

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Superb article, brought back many memories, thanks for sharing yours.
As for that Stoke home match they were top at the time and won 6 or 7? They thought they were nailed on for promotion even at that stage. That win and I started believing, although always thought the wheels would come off. Unbelievable togetherness and atmosphere throughout that season.

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Thank you for all the positive feedback, much appreciated. Put a lot of work in to it, I’m not a writer by any means, I know it’s not perfectly written, but I hoped it would get over the emotional side of it. I don’t crave likes or need approval, even if it is nice. I like writing about things I am passionate about, and if it touches a few people then that’s great. A nice man stopped me going in to the Peterborough game, and said how much he had enjoyed reading it. I’d never met him before in my life, although I recognised his face from Walsall games, like I talked about briefly in the article. Made my day it did, was over the moon with that.

I plan on writing more articles, that capture the reasons why we all still follow Walsall , no matter how bad things get. I think it is something that is getting a bit lost, especially on the younger generations, no disrespect to them at all, they are the future. If it was just about what 11 players did on a pitch every week, I am sure a lot of us would have been lost many years ago. The emotional attachment, in many cases passed on through generations in a family. The people you meet and spend time with, are really important, to me at least. And all the bad times on the pitch you go through, make the good times even more special. My next one is likely to be the emotions of the night when we finally booked a place at Wembley, wont be too much to write about the actual game, but I have plenty to write about it, never known the Town buzzing quite like that night.

Thanks again

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Yes that’s a very good point.

The reason why I enjoyed the article so much is because it gave me the opportunity to share it with my Dad and bring back those memories and moments that we shared together, the same sort of memories that I want to make with my son which, as my only enthusiasm wanes due to various goings on at the club that I don’t want to hijack this thread with, I fear I may not get.

I’ll still take him to games as I have done already, I just hope he enjoys it to the point where it can reignite my love for the club at the same time.

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I take my two boys, 6 and 8 years old. It’s tough at times, they’ve never really seen good times on the pitch, and in this day and age, football is so available on TV, it’s a far more difficult task than when I was a kid to get them in to it. All their mates wear all kinds of different tops, from Barcelona to Man City, and living in Cannock it is full of Wolves, although I didn’t see a Wolves top for about 3 years !

I obviously want to recreate with them what I did with my Dad. Took my oldest to Doncaster this season, he was brilliantly behaved, even though sitting on a coach which he finds especially difficult, for 2 hours, then another 2 hours at a club, although he had fun there, only to be 2-0 down inside 3 minutes, it’s really difficult to get the point across to someone of that age. We were beating Arsenal and drawing at Anfield when I was his age! He did say to me when we got home, thanks for today, I think he is beginning to recognise the time spent with me is equally as important, I have hopes they will both be life long fans.

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There’s only one way to tell this story:

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For all those that witnessed the miracle of 98/99, what was the difference with the 15/16 version? Played better football but maybe just didn’t have the resilience/mentality to see things out in the end? Also of course Smith leaving mid season probably hurt in the long run.

Edit: Also having to say Sir Ray getting the team straight back up to 1st division at first time of asking in 00/01 (and through the play offs) must be close an achievement as that’s a pretty hard thing to do.

If Smith had stayed, I am 99.99% certain we’d have gone up. You only have to look at how results improved once Whitney took over. Something went very wrong under O’Driscoll, it’s questionable if we would have made the play offs had he remained until the end of the season. Smith would have got us over the line, I’m sure.

The difference? Firstly, Smith spent 5 years assembling a team good enough to challenge, we had a couple of decent half seasons previously, but he had the time to do what he wanted to do, something not many managers are given the chance to do. He also had Richard O’kelly for a good time of it, a very much underrated piece of how it all came about.

You say we played better football, that is open to interpretation though I think. Certainly we retained the ball far better, wore teams down, because we had so much of the ball. Not to say it’s better, sometimes not even better to watch. I touched on it in the article, that we were very direct under Gradyon, and Rambo was the perfect battering ram. However, there aren’t many better sites than a clinical counter attack, and the way we broke was something special, the speed the ball got up the pitch, and not with big hoofs either, was amazing, and the way the players bust a gut to be part of the attack. You also need to take in to account the difference in quality in the divisions. That 98/99 had some real quality teams in it, not just Fulham and Man City either.

What is clear, both teams had a clear plan of how they wanted to play, and that goes a long way. Graydon’s 00/01 promotion winning team was probably better on paper than 99, but there was just something about that 98/99 team that made them better, everything just slotted in perfectly, it’s quite difficult to explain in words. If you played the 98/99 team v the 00/01 team, forgetting the fact there were some of the same players there. The 98/99 team would have picked them up, chewed them and spat them out in my opinion. Another one of those occasions where the opposition felt hard done by, but the truth was, they were just so determined, so focused, so well set up, and most of all, so clinical in what they did.

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Very good post…the loss of Smith was very sad for us as a Club.I often wonder how things would be if he had stayed. We would have been promoted for certain in my view. Certainly the last 2 seasons would have been very different.
The “Graydon” promotions were both wonderful experiences the best since the double promotions of 59/60 and 60/61 which set me off on giving my wholehearted support to the club. At the moment we are in one of those dips which occur from time to time although I am worried that the way the game is going with more and more money going to the top of the game clubs like Walsall will find it more and more difficult to climb up the leagues. It is going to take a lot of investment in players and a great uplift in support if we are ever going to get to the second tier and stay there but there is hope, there is always hope and as a supporter I have that to cling onto.

My personal view was, that Smith would have had a chance of keeping us up too, or at least a management team of Smith and O’Kelly. It can’t really be underestimated the importance of good staff too. I think if you take a look at the decline of Liam Roberts since Cutler left us for an example, when we had previously seen Keepers come to us, and get better. Smith got good people around him, learned from them, gained from them, and then added his own touches to our identity. What he also did, that the managers since have failed to do, is protect the players in the media. People often complained about Smith blaming everything from the ref, the pitch, to global warming, but he protected those players and dealt with things privately. Whitney and Keates were always so willing to hang the players out to dry. When you look at the clear lack of team spirit in our current crop, it’s hard to believe it didn’t have some affect. With his ability to find young players and mould them in to what he wanted, I think we could have surprised a few had we gone up, and of course we wouldn’t have had the mass exodus of players we had after failing to go up.

Personally, I don’t crave to be an established Championship club like some do. It is fast becoming a second Premier League, with more money going in to it, fixtures being moved for TV without any thought for the fans, and ridiculous prices to watch it at some grounds, not capped like it is in the Premier League now. You feel we would always just be fighting to stay up, and in the end that becomes as mundane as what we have had the past 10 years or so eventually. I wouldn’t turn it down having said all that, but it’s not a must, what is a must is that is actually the aim of the club, I don’t mean just saying it, but actively pursuing it. Whether we had come straight back down or not, had we managed to do it, it’s those promotions that live with you for a lifetime, no one can ever take those away from you.

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Agree the size and wealth of the clubs in the Championship would be too much it would be nice to get there though . Having said that I would happy to be an upper league 1 club with good cup runs

Spot on with your comparison between Smith and the other two…he is doing the same at the Villa.He has developed into a really good manager. I wish him well despite my disappointment when he left us.

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Great post and welcome back on here mate. You’re missed.

I agree that Smith would probably have got us up and kept us up. I think many of the players who left us that summer would have stayed and I think Smith was shrewd enough to know the weaker links in the side.

I also think that like the Buckley side of around 83/84 that the style of football would have been more suited to the higher level where often you get a bit more time on the ball.

I’m pleased for Smith though. A genuinely nice bloke who looked after us when my son was mascot up at Preston one year. It must be unbelievable for him to hear his name chanted by 40,000 people from the stands he used to occupy as a fan himself.

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24 years ago today we did the unthinkable. Seems a long time ago yet in some ways still so fresh in the memory.

I had intended to tidy the article I wrote up as there are many mistakes but I am having some problems logging into the account. I don’t think it takes away too much from the content which is my take on my favourite season following Walsall.

I know I posted it some years ago now. I just read it again and it still tugs on the heartstrings.

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Just reading the ada and marshy recollections in the match of my life. They sounded calmer than me when Oldham got a goal back