Bizarre Walsall matches

Another bizarre incident, when we played Ipswich in the FA cup 1996, i thought that we would do it in style, i booked the EXECUTIVE coach from bescot, we were on the same coach as Whalley and Steve Parks, i booked one of the box’s at Ipswich, and again we were with Steve Parks who was one of our directors at the time, we had a lovely meal lined up with all the trimmings, so we sat there waiting to get stuck into the chilli and rice, when parksy threw up all over the table, it went everywhere, needless to say we didn’t eat, steve was taken away by roy and later on he came back to apologise for steve’s behavior, it turned out that he had been on a strict diet, and had nothing to eat on the day, but took full advantage of the free wine on the coach, drinking 2 bottles, by way of apology he came back into the box and offered us free entry to HIS box at the next home game which was Burnley, but it was called off due to a frozen pitch :tired_face:

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At the Stoke game seem to remember they put a commentary on of the Leeds match, we all booed so they switched to the Wolves match commentary and we all chanted ‘we want Leeds’. Won that match 3-0 and Stoke fan outside ground said ‘we were lucky to get nil’

Let me tell you about a bizarre Walsall match I’ve been too.

It was a relatively warm winter’s day in February 2019. Walsall were on a run of something stupid like 1 win in 12, and we faced a Bradford team that were close to us in the relegation dogfight.

On this day, our leading scorer got a straight red on 6 minutes leaving us to play the remainder of the game with 10 men.

I know what you’re thinking, that’s not really bizarre. Wait for it…

Walsall actually won 3-2. Imagine my shock.

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Remember a testimonial match in 70s , against Leeds. Think it was for Nick Atthey. Leeds had a european cup final coming up shortly.

Not that that bothered Bernie Wright ,who, early on clattered Terry Yorath.

Yorath walked off, making “psycho” gestures , and tapping the side of his head, towards Lord Bernard .

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I remember a match at fellows park when Brian Caswell had been fouled and the ref didn’t give anything, and played on, with the play going on up the pitch, Brian just rolled onto the player and punched him about 2-3 times around the head, just got up and left him there :rofl:

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Does anyone remember Walsall away at Ipswich in around 1995 I think? They had Ian Marshall up front and we had a Sky kit (Barcelona stripes if memory serves me correctly)…

Anyway, I went up on the train and the game was postponed about 2 hours or so before kick off due to a sudden flurry of snow.

I was amongst a group of supporters who expressed our discontent outside the ground and the Ipswich chairman, David Sheepshanks, came out to apologise!

He then took us to Alan Brazil’s pub in the town centre and got the 20 or so fans who had hung about a free drink!

It ended up being a lock in with all these Ipswich fans buying us free drinks all night for our wasted journey!

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I happened to be at Uni at Norwich at the time. They saw my Walsall top and assumed that I had been on a 3 1/2 hour train journey.

Suffice to say I had a brilliant night though memories of it remain very blurry!

The following week, I went up again for the rearranged game and I think we lost 2-0!with Jamie Snowcroft putting us to the sword.

The game was rubbish but the first game that wasnt was both bizarre and brilliant!

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Got me thinking, and not sure if this really happened. Played Chesterfield in around 1977 at Derbys Baseball ground in the F A cup. Sure we won 1 0 and went on to play Man Utd in next round but could all have been a dream.

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It did. About 2 days before Christmas. 1-0 ,Bernie Wright, I think.

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Brighton away about 2009. Won 1-0 with nine men. Ludicrous.

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Went to game st Swindon in mid 70s and we lost 5 1. Bizarre thing was i think the ref gave 5 penaltys. They scored 3 missed 1 our goal came from a penalty as well.

Oh yes, I remember that Cambridge match vividly. We could have scored about 25, let alone 5. We missed at least two open goals. I was so disappointed to see a policeman go and have a word with enthusiastic Cambridge fan.

As for some of others:

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Any one remember the freight rover trophy mid 80’s at home to derby
Club called for help for snow to be shovelled off the pitch !
Crazy game too , snow piled high behind the goals and mark Rees jumping into it after scoring one of his 3 goals that night .
Game ended 5-3 to us I think

Oh yes I do:

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Ian handysides such a skillfull player , gone too soon

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Does anyone remember when the theme music to Crossroads started playing on the sound system in the middle of a match at home? Around 2005 I think - can’t remember the opponents.

Do remember that game mate , Mark Rees was pictured in the back of express & star next day with the matchball… hit the headlines even more because it was the perfect hat-rick ( left foot,right foot and header )

More bizarre games around mid to late 80’s

Midweek match at home to Cardiff 6-3 to us I’m sure Steve Elliott got a hat trick .
And if cause FA cup match vs Preston and the wizard willie naughton hit a treble against his old club as we won 7-3!!!

Also not forgetting early in the season with reading winning there first 6 games I think , they came to fellows park and we duly dispatched them 6-0 !!.
The days of walking round to the cow shed when we kicked towards the laundry end we’re great !!

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I remember one away game (Preston I think) and Rees was brought on as a sub after a lengthy injury lay off. I started the chanting “Pyscho is back” to which loads joined in with … only for him to go off injured about 5 minutes later!

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It must’ve been early to mid 90’s when we played away at Scunny. Four of us travelled up in my mates knackered old Fiat Panda.

It was hammering it down all the way there, the motorway was like a river. We kept saying “I hope this isn’t called off”.

The carpark at the ground was like a lake. We kept saying “I hope this isn’t called off”.

At half time the score was 0-0 but the pitch was like a quagmire. We kept saying “I hope this isn’t called off”.

25 minutes in to the second half we were 5- 0 down. We walked out to make an early start home whilst shouting at the ref “This should’ve been called off, you can’t paly football in this weather” :smile:

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If you could get past the police at the fence.

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