Saddlers on ITV4

Big Match Revisited at 10.30am today has highlights of Walsall v Shrewsbury 1977/78.

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It appears we won 3-0, might watch it to remind me of what a victory looks like :grin:

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I’m guessing that the reason we were chosen to be on telly that day (would have been Star Soccer with Hugh Johns), as it didn’t happen very often back then, was that this was the game immediately before our 5th round FA cup trip to Arsenal - our “prize” for beating Leicester in the previous round.

Very Sunny from memory. The back of my 7 year old head features I think. On the wall just towards the railway end on the popular side.

The sun meant everyone looked like they were saluting as they shielded their eyes from the sun.

Pretty sure that this was still the era where we had those lovely curved stanchions in the back of the goal. Also maybe the first season with the green socks.

At full time over the wall with dad and friends to walk around the perimeter of the pitch to make our way out. Brass band music playing as we did so.

Will be with dad and same friends later today. Hoping for same score line.

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I’m sure Colchester will oblige on the scoreline :joy:

Freeze-up, if I remember right. Not many games on, and I think we had a few from Albion and Wolves. I remember one moron saying Buckley was no better than Joe Mayo.

That win was part of a good run and we looked to have a great chance of promotion. In the end we finished sixth (no play-offs then) and missed out on third place by three or four points (still two points for a win) and Mackay jumped ship in the summer. We had a bad run of five or six games without a win in March and/or April, including a 1-0 loss at eventual champions Wrexham, and that did for us.
Played some great football that season though, and when we were good we were very, very good.

Buckley, Bates, Dennehy, Evans, Harrison, Caswell, we had some chaps who could play a bit back then.

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Cambridge and Wrexham went up. We lost at Cambridge and Preston in four days ,and that finished things. Late goal at Cambridge, own goal at Preston-Ian Paul on debut.

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Terraces, muddy pitches, back-passes, fans running on the pitch when a goal was scored - a whole different world compared to today.

Just seen the end of the Chelsea game. Chelsea 2-1 up but still taking quick throws. A young Ray Wilkins really fair, respectful and eloquent in his interview.

People will point to the conditions, the pitch and overall standard being overall pish but the spirit and respect for the game was a different class to today. And footballers looked like “every men” rather than the six packed, turkey toothed homogenous look of today.

Ooooh orange ball time at Sheff Wed. :heart:

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Absolutely no way they’d play with the pitch like that these days!

And only a booking for a deliberate handball on the line. :astonished:

Great save though :joy:

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Jimmy Mullen.

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Is he the one with the brown bottle in his hand? :wink:

Bet he goes off at half time, got a punter in the crowd lined up to buy a 74 Capri.

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Brian Moore didn’t think it should be even that. I thought he was going to argue for a straight red.

As I said, a whole different world to how it is these days.

Always loved programmes like this where there’s a phone on the desk. Did Brian ever get a call?

Hopefully we get some letter later where the correspondents full name and full address is read out.

Probably the reason why our game, and the Wednesday/Vale one, featured on the Big Match as that was mainly London and the south east. Star Soccer was our equivalent - can’t recall what the other ITV regions did.