Mon 10th August

Pick up the Walsall Express & Star and read about the win on Saturday. They were pretty impressed with us, I wasn’t with them. wolves, Villa and West Brom player by player reports is OK in their local editions but no Walsall ones in the Walsall edition. Cheers lads, much appreciated.

Sat 8th August - Gillingham

It has taken its time but the all new football season is with us.  One final chance for the Saddlers to begin the new millennium in the First Division is the prize on offer. Right now I’d settle for avoiding relegation and another cup run.

We set off on the 370 round trip with The Smiths setting the tone of our aspirations for the next nine months. There is great, often unnoticed humour in Morrisey’s work but, for today at least, Girlfriend in a Coma is a worthy comparison with our hopes and concerns for what awaits. Pessimism absolutely abounds. In bucket loads.

We arrive at Priestfield at around 2 o’clock and head to the nearest boozer for a pint or two of liquid painkiller. An hour in the beer garden makes interesting listening as some clever dick local, obviously unaware that we are there, chooses to take the piss out of today’s visitors. The crap he spouts is unbelievably ignorant and arrogant – the normal Southern bollocks - hence we chose to enjoy the beer and ignore the arse.

The boys start off brightly and boss the game for the opening twenty minutes. There is no place for Peron and Ray has three strikers on the bench - enough to give Chris Nicholl a coronary I imagine. Thirty three minutes into the new season and the Reds draw first blood. A fairly routine long ball over the top skims off Gills debutante Darren Carr’s head, over our old friend Vince Bartram and into the home net. 1 - 0 to the Saddlers and the sizeable travelling fans go barmy. How long’s left? Eight months, three weeks and 57 minutes but who’s counting? Me.

We look really well organised, difficult to break down and they are always key ingredients to any good second division side. Play like this for 46 games and mid-table isn’t unachievable.

The Gills wanted to pass the ball around and this gave our back four lots time to organise themselves and we looked comfortable.  Hodgy disappeared from the game – I’ve heard that before (more than once) and the Saddlers held out for a great, opening day win. Three points from an away start can’t be bad.  Man of the Match was probably between Porter (yes really) and Kiester but in truth there were really fourteen of them.

Now after listening to all that crap for much of the hour before kick-off, how I’d have loved to bump into the aforementioned beer garden nob on his miserable walk home. 1-0, fuck off.

Fri 7th August

The Express and Star back page screams “Peron says non” as our mercurial talent turns down the Keegan and Al Fayed bankroll. Clearly the E&S sports desk either didn’t hear about last night or were a damn sight braver than those at the Meet the Manager thingy, because I wouldn’t have gone back there.

For what it’s worth, it looks as if someone thought it may be a good idea to swap Jeff Peron (one of the more popular people in Walsall) for Steve Hayward (presently one of the Town’s less popular people). Blimey. There’s a word for people who come up with notions like this and it rhymes with rick.

Thu 6th August

Uncle Ray is appearing at a meet the manager night so the lads decide to attend.  Ray seems a decent, honest chap with definite ideas on how to play, train and behave.  He appears to have total faith in what he is trying to do and the way he wishes to lead the Club.  He answered most the questions thoroughly and to the best of his ability but on a few occasions skirted around the answer, perhaps he should have been a politician.

Footballers are generally not the most intelligent apparently, “I give them one job to do and expect them to do it. We won’t be asking square pegs to fit into round holes.”

Ray also categorically states that Jeff Peron hasn’t signed for Fulham and when pushed by one fan he got pretty shirty, informing the poor chap that he wasn’t a liar, that he didn’t like the inference that he was a liar and silenced the room like a headmaster walking into an out of control chemistry class and shooting the teacher between the eyes.

After that everyone else was too scared to ask anything anymore taxing than whether Ray preferred Rice Crispies or Weetabix for brekkie. For what it’s worth I’d hazard a guess that he’s a Kellogg’s cornflake man myself and is repulsed by the thought of highly tuned athletes tucking into sugar puffs, coco pops or pop tarts.

He also reveals that he has signed Neil Davies on a short term contract.

Wed 5th August

Good news on the back of the paper as Brissett and Wrack sign contracts - something which makes a nice change. Usually we let anyone with a bit of potential and a decent performance behind them jump into the wolves scout’s car and pop down the A454 to have a chat about a potential move to the custard bowl before realising we’ve missed out on them.

Tue 4th August

Phone the Club in an attempt to speak to Roy Whalley, however he’s on annual leave until the 12th of this month. From the outside it does seems a strange time to go on holiday, given we’ve had a 6-8 week break and have season tickets to sell plus new contracts and registrations to sort. I guess that this must be a quiet time in the conference season.

Mon 3rd August - Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday visit Bescot for our final pre season run out and the visitors fielded what appeared to be a relatively strong side.  Paulo Di Canio looked pretty skilful and if he considered passing the ball from time to time he wouldn’t half be a player.

The Saddlers included triallists Tony Whitter (who also appeared at Stafford), Darren Wrack and Jason Brissett.  Chris Marsh also finally appeared - apparently he was injured all along - replacing the impressive Matt Gadsby at full back.

The Owls looked a poor Premiership side and what they did manage to create was wasted by poor final touches or abysmal finishing. In contrast, Walsall finally performed however and the 2400 payers enjoyed a pretty good game and a super Walsall display.  Indeed a gate of 2400 justified the lower pricing policy with the Alsop End very nicely populated.  Was ISSA right to push for lower prices?  I think so.

On the footballing side Jason Brissett stole the show with a stunning free kick, an assist for Andy Rammell and a generally top rate performance. Johnny Kiester also impressed and barring the almost obligatory sloppy set piece goal that we conceded it was a faultless night.  I’ll just pinch myself to check it isn’t a dream.

Sat 1st August

Apparently we won 3 - 0.  Triallist Darren Wrack notched a brace and Andy Watson got the other. The team was reported as overflowing with triallists and I’ve lost count of these buggers now. Wrack is only in his early twenties apparently, which is obviously far too young for us.