Thank God It's Over

What a depressingly dismal season… yet again. Only potential silver lining is MF arriving. If he can’t turn this ship round then what next? If LP doesn’t support him then he will walk. Obviously with two of our top earners and most creative player out long term then that impacts our budget for next season. League 2 has been pretty poor this season and we were still nowhere near competing or “giving it a good go”. With Stockport and Wrexham possibly coming up and Gillingham and Doncaster coming down the league will be stronger next year. The acceptance of failure that runs through the club from top to bottom is going to be difficult for MF to change. Unless he can perform a miracle then I really fear for our future. It will hopefully be an interesting close season and I hope I don’t have to witness many of the current lot in a Saddlers shirt ever again.

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Sorry posted in wrong forum, I’m sure a mod can move it :grin:

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Thank Mod, It’s Over (to All About Walsall)

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I feel like we have this same thread every single year lol

I thought this was a tweet by Oss.

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I was hoping it was a Roy Orbison thread. Sadly, it’s about our miserable, dull season, with few footballing highlights and problems galore off the pitch.
Next season will be better, won’t it? :crazy_face:

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To be fair things have got that bad I’d drive all night to get to see some quality football.

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There’s a lot of the squad who need The Big (Elb)O.

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The last two seasons have been dreadful and a 3-0 home defeat to Swindon just summed it up perfectly. They are the worst two seasons I have seen as a Walsall fan I think.

Things have got to get better next season.

I have faith in Flynn though.

I hope Stockport come up next season - they are the nearest league club to me if they do.

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Looking at the teams likely to be involved next season, it could to be another struggle unless there’s a heap of change.

The 3 that don’t go up from the play offs will likely be up there along with Salford, probably a couple of the relegated clubs and the promoted clubs from the Conference. Then there will be a couple of surprise packages, as there always is.

Big couple of months ahead of we are going to competing for a top 3 or a playoff place.

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The last 6 years have been terrible.

Other than MF, i see nothing in the club that tells me 2022/23 is going to be any better

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We say this every year. They don’t have to get better. There’s no clear proof either way on whether we’ve reached rock bottom. The worst might be yet to come.

It seems to me that the support the club enjoys is largely founded on people wanting/needing and presumably getting, something in addition to the football, out of a matchday.

So long as that prevails, then the club seems likely to maintain its attendance levels despite on field performances.

Family and friendships appear to be the reason a large number attend games, rather than anything the club offers on the field, or indeed off it.

As someone who attends on my own and hasn’t developed a new friendship with anyone of late who I sit near, my decision to potentially “back off” from the club is relatively easy with the football being so dire, as I can fortunately, adequately and easily conduct my social life away from the club.

The added benefit of supporting the club at away games of course, is the chance to make a day of the location by experiencing the “cultural” opportunities of the towns visited, something I note is beyond the comprehension of the club’s SLO. This is something that I currently feel is slightly more appealing than the local, but less mentally rewarding Bescot experience.

It’s almost always solely about the football for me these days, except on the rare occasions family or friends attend with me and so in my judgement of it I’ve had enough. I may be wrong in my opinion and don’t wish to offend anyone this applies to, but it irritated me when I passed people around me who were clapping the players off at the end yesterday and witnessing others throughout who don’t appear to get emotionally involved and seem oblivious to what they’re watching. Every abject performance seems to get the same response. If ever habit was an apt word, then it applies there.

I think what I’m trying to say, is that numbers-wise the club is relatively safe for a while, until such folk as I describe who are prepared to seemingly happily put up with this level of performance, either have a dramatic awakening, or die off, whichever comes first.

On reflection, I’m not sure that I’ve conveyed the point I was trying to make without being judgmental of an element of our support that doesn’t appear to be as upset as me with the football on display. For that I apologise, but struggle with how else to describe it.

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No need to apologise. I get it.

There are eight of us left in our little crew. We were discussing our renewals at the match yesterday. None of us came up with a compelling reason as to why any of us had renewed. None of us have much hope for next season, which is definitely a bigger ask on the pitch than the one just gone. And yet we all have. On reflection, the answer is pretty obvious. The reason we all renewed was each other. My dad and his mates nearing their 70th season. I’m a couple off my 50th. That’s a lot of shared history and memories. Something a lot more binding than watching our centre forwards running into each other at the end of another bottom half fourth division campaign.

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I think our big problem could be in the future if we can’t get the local youngsters to the game .whilst I think the club are trying it is poorly advertised to the people of Walsall.

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That should set alarm bells ringing at the club. If the average age of our season ticket holders is increasing then our audience is dying off and not being replaced. I’m sure they can easily find this information…

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I was an ST holder for many years, then gave it up because of work, then after a few years got one again because I was still attending nearly every game, but the point is the club never contacted me to ask why I had lapsed, to ask if there was anything they could do to persuade me to renew, and for the next few years they didn’t contact me to see if I was interested in climbing back aboard.

One evening a decade or more ago a few of us were talking football and there were nine former ST holders, including me, and none of us had ever been contacted by the club to ask why. WFC is dreadful at customer service, and dreadful at customer retention. Pay your money, don’t pay your money, they will lose no sleep and do nothing either way.

The ticket deals irritate me, what follow up do the club do? Do they know how many of those who took part in the recent deal (Port Vale/Swindon) would have come anyway at full price, how many might have come to one game but not both, how many wouldn’t have come to either. Will they send questions to find out what the attendees thought about the experience, whether they will come again and if not why not?

When Pombear sent me the Early Bird letter he quoted what great value it was, only £11 a game, but it isn’t that for me, it’s £8 and some pennies because I’m over 60. Why not write to a Senior ST holder and quote the correct figures? It’s on the database, so send age appropriate details.

We are so bloody useless and infuriating and unprofessional.

Big crowd yesterday, did we try and make an event of it? Plenty of food kiosks open, some local beers, a couple of local bands playing outside, some great half time entertainment. No, we did two things, sod, and all. I couldn’t even hear the Tannoy, again.

It’s all down to you, Mr Flynn, because there is no structure at WFC to create success, no culture of giving value for money or looking after the customer. Everything about WFC, except the fanbase, is rubbish. So do your best, please. A miracle would be nice.

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I did get a non-personalised email from the club the day before the Early Bird deadline noting that I hadn’t renewed and if I intended to, effectively pull my finger out.

A lot of the players are saying it’s been a season of “ups and downs”! Did I miss the “ups”? It’s been a shit show from start to finish, with some real lows: Scunthorpe and Stevenage away, and Swindon home and away. Absolute dross. Mickey Flynn has got an almost impossible job to turn this lot into a play-offs team.

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The good news is that it’s only a few short weeks before it starts all over again. In just 2 months time we’ll be back with 2-3 home games against Baggies/Wolves/Blues/Villa (delete as appropiate) and a meh EPL/Championship team, plus a handful away against local non-leaguers (usually including Pelsall, Rushall and or Chase Town where it will just be the kids).

Or will my jibe on the predictability of pre-season come back to haunt me and we’ll be welcoming Real Madrid, Bayern and either AC or Inter to Fortress Poundland, after a short tour of EPL teams in the north-west? hu

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