"Half a League, Half a League, Half a League downwards
Into Division IV drop Crewe Alexandra"
R. C. Churchill (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
After the excitement and elation of F A Cup weekend it’s back to the grind of League 2 as we welcome the Alex. The two clubs were founder members of League Division II in 1892, but regular meetings became a thing of the past after the formation of Divisions III (South) and (North) except for the odd seasons when we were shoved into the Northern section purely for geographical logic. Back in the 1950’s when I first started supporting Walsall, we were the “Cinderella” of Division III (South) while Crewe were held in similar regard in III (North). Indeed, they managed to finish bottom of that table in the three consecutive seasons prior to the creation of Division IV referred to in the opening quotation.
Crewe’s fortunes saw a huge improvement under the management of Dario Gradi, who steered them to the heights of what is now the Championship in the late 1990’s. One of his most astute signings was Clayton Ince, who forms the basis of a strong goalkeeping connection between the two clubs. It’s interesting to note that he reportedly only signed for Crewe after a successful trial with Wrexham, but Wrexham couldn’t afford to offer him a contract - how times change! He made 123 appearances for Crewe and went on to feature 152 times for us. The other goalkeeping connection is “masked marvel” Freddie Barber, who has been Crewe’s head goalkeeping coach for the past 9 years.
Looking at Crewe’s current League 2 form it should be borne in mind that they are 5th in the table only 2 points behind us, so this could be far from easy - they’ve only conceded 12 goals in their 13 League 2 games so far (we’ve let in 14, but much of that was down to the Fleetwood blip)…
28 September Newport County (A) LOST 2-1
5 October Gillingham (H) Won 2-0
12 October Doncaster Rovers (A) Drew 1-1
19 October Salford City (H) Drew 1-1
22 October Fleetwood Town (A) Won 0-1
26 October Tranmere Rovers (H) Won 3-1
A home win in this game will obviously keep us in the automatic promotion section of League 2, although we can’t get back to the top of the pile just yet as we’re 4 points behind Port Fail (but we do have a game in hand). However, Fail are away at current basket case Gillingham, and it’s about time the Gills started playing again!
Prediction? Our ability to score goals this season has been very comforting, and in the light of the fact that we’ve scored 10 more goals than the Alex (26 against 16 for them) I reckon a 2-1 win isn’t far removed from a realistic fantasy!!
UTS
