Big match revisited

I think the Pompey match was on ITV ( Southern) Geordie. I seem to remember the goals being shown on Star Soccer ( Tony Macken screamer for the first!).

1 Like

Wasn’t he in Confession of a . . . Series?

1 Like

And an episode of Benidorm, still looks good for his age

Given today, an unexpected defeat 41 years ago shouldn’t be a surprise. I’d forgotten how ugly Jimmy Williams was

Got to be honest - he was the one name I would never have come up with for our 79/80 promotion winning team. Yes, vaguely struck a bell when I saw him - but wouldn’t have recognised him otherwise.

ITV hub adverts were doing my head in (teaches me for getting rid of adblocker) so I’ve recorded the game and uploaded to youtube - Big Match Revisited - Walsall v Peterborough - March 1980 - YouTube - currently downloading the show if anyone wants the full show uploaded, let me know.

4 Likes

Peterborough had some good players, Micky Gynn as mentioned earlier, Tommy Robson of course, Billy Kellock, Mickey Lambert, Tony Cliss, and Phil Chard who was manager of a horrible huge bunch of kickers and cloggers at Northampton in the early 90s. I didn’t notice Robbie Cooke or Trevor Quow who were both good. Bit of a surprise they didn’t go up, or the next year. Or for the whole decade in fact.
The Buck could play a bit though, even when he wasn’t putting the ball in the net, he was still a class act.

2 Likes

Enjoyed that. Memories flooding back. Such a shame the way we threw the championship away that season. Remember it was two points for a win so even after that defeat, we barely needed to stand up to win the league.

On Walsall fans in the away end, we always had fans in there until it essentially became illegal or at least a civil offence for home fans to go into a section marked “away fans only”. Some went in there as they were old railway/laundry enders and that was their “bit”. But many more, or at least I’ve spoke to many more, people it was handy. The old Saddlers Club was about ten yards from the away end turnstile whereas to get round to the Hilary Street was a bit of a walk.

We’ve always had fans who take their drinking right up to and a little bit beyond kick off. And if you drank in the Saddlers Club and didn’t want too much to get in the way of your drinking/football then slipping or staggering onto the railway end made sense.

2 Likes

I’m old enough to remember swapping ends at half time. Don’t remember much trouble apart from one match against Preston, I think it was, when we arrived down the Laundry End just as it kicked off. I do remember, being only a boy, a couple of fans formed a protective barrier to stop it getting near me. I have a feeling they were away fans.

I used to go to Telford sometimes, later on in the early 90s, and one of the big attractions was, again, being able to swap ends at half time. They stopped that a few years ago. I did, however, go to watch Forfar v Clyde a couple of seasons ago and it was refreshing to be able to watch from anywhere in the ground.

1 Like

We swap ends at Marine unless it is a big game (“big” equals more than a thousand people in). Swapping ends with pint in hand is really quite nice.

3 Likes