What was the Malcolm McDonald quote from before the match? Something condescending I think which backfired on him.
Ah yes I think Mr Gobby did say something condescending pre game but canât find anything in print. I have a couple of those football specials from the Walsall observer and E and S there are a few quotes but not from SuperMac. Remember those specials? Like a 4 or 8 page overwrap that sadly are not given out in the local papers these days.
Remember being worried because Bennett was out , injured or suspended , and wouldnât be there to mark mcdonald.
But Jon Saunders , i think , came in and did a job.
2 Likes
A story if i may with a personal touch about the Newcastle game.
My old man was a proud Geordie and as such a football fanatic and you can imagine when we drew Newcastle his loyalty was somewhat split.
But what i am getting to was when he walked down our entry in Bescot st, Palfrey to go to the match a car full of Geordies pulled up asking directions to the ground. Well you can just imagine his and their reactions when they all heard each others accent.
Anyhow they somehow squeezed him in and gave him a lift to the ground, watched the match, met up again, took him out to a pub, paid for every drink and bought him home in a right state, and drove off into the night.
Never forgot it and neither did my Dad, and what a lovely chance coincidence that life sometimes throws up.
14 Likes
Brilliant Alan. As you rightly say a lovely coincidence.
1 Like
Never in doubt! 
George did well to jump, his boots must have had half a ton of mud on them. What a fantastic game it was.
2 Likes
Iâve had this at the side of my bed for a few weeks after my dad found it amongst some of my old papers back âhomeâ.
Itâs from my first full season as a Saddlers, having been taken to the games immediately after the Man Utd replay win in January 1975 in order to get vouchers so we could get tickets against Newcastle in the next round.
Apart from the price, and the cover photo being black and white, the main point of interest is it features the Holy Trinity of Bernie, George, and the Buck giving a goalie and his defence hell - but another is that according to the record books, we didnât have a game on 1st November and instead played this fixture on 2nd December. Anyone know why it was moved?
2 Likes
AndyWTaylor - Same with me, dad took me to my first full match against Bury to get tickets for Newcastle. I was hooked after that. (Just to explain first full match thing - if we were visiting my grandparents in the Pleck when there was a midweek match, on the way home my dad would park outside the houses on Wallows Lane about 9 pm and we would sneak in to the enclosure and watch the last ten minutes under the floodlights before dashing back to the car at the final whistle to beat the rush. And make sure you donât tell your mom!
2 Likes
Grimsby was my first, then Bury - and Newcastle the following week. Won all 3 and I thought it would always be like that. 
2 Likes
[quote=âAndyWTaylor, post:309, topic:4002â]
Programme1381Ă1798 839 KB
@AndyWTaylor it was abandoned after 27 mins due to heavy rain.
1 Like
@AndyWTaylor and a few weeks later, our home game v. Gillingham on 2nd Jan was abandoned after 32 mins this time due to high winds that damaged parts of the main stand and a kiosk at the Street End had its roof ripped off. This was later played on 27th Feb
1 Like
Tony Richards was the best header of the ball, and not just in comparison to other Walsall players. In 1966 (when George Kirby was playing for Walsall), Richards Port Vale team mate and experienced Scottish international Jackie Mudie gave his opinion of Richards heading ability to Nuneaton Borough manager Dudley Kernick: âJackie Mudie told me that he had no equal in the air today, and certainly some of his headers are like shots.â
No contest.
2 Likes
I might be imagining this but werenât they (the Sheff Wednesday & Gillingham games) the only ones to be abandoned in the whole Football League that season? I went to both and was mightily â â â â â â off at the time as I was away at University so didnât see too many games in 75/76.
Not sure about that but I guess it is possible. Those two are the only games Iâve ever seen abandoned at Fellows Park in over 50 years of watching. The fact that they were within a few weeks of each other was remarkable.
Derek Haycock was the only reason I continued supporting the Saddlers!!!
As a young kid in the 80âs and growing up in Boldmere I was surrounded by Villa kids.
I got on the 356 bus after school wearing my Walsall flat cap and was set upon by a bunch of Villa supporting kids as soon as I got upstairs. They started to kick the crap out of me⌠Then the bus stopped and through the thick smoke appeared the bus driver Derek Haycock. Fag in mouth, grabbed hold of one Villa youth and kicked him down the stairs and off the bus. He then came back upstairs and warned the rest that if anyone laid a finger on one his lot heâd kick their teeth in.
After he told me to come find him above the dugout at home games⌠I did and from 82 I would always go and stand with him. He pretty much taught me all the swear words a young kid needed to know back then. A real colorful character who I looked up to although he probably had no idea.
If he was behind the dugout today, especially after tonightâs performance, Iâm sure DC wouldnât be able to handle him.
9 Likes
Of his era I agree. No contest. Not old enough to have seen Dixie Dean but apparently he was pretty good. Sad to say but the art of the diving header which was a Richardsâ speciality has largely died out since the unmentionable Andy Gray. He would have scored the one for the Vile last night that the new man missed!
Of all the programmes weâve produced, that era had the best covers I think. A match shot every issue.
Nice to see a keeper getting a good, old-fashioned clouting. 
1 Like
If that happened now Bernie would not just get a red card, heâd be up before the beak for GBH
1 Like
We won my first match 3-0. We were two up after 6 minutes. That was when I should have left - âtake me home please Dad, it will never get better than this so whatâs the point. Weâll catch the wrestling if we leave now.â Alas, I stuck aroundâŚ
1 Like