In the latest of his regular offerings, Bescot Banter columnist Hillary Street-Ender takes a look back at yet another eventful week at Walsall Football Club.The victory over Preston was certainly very welcome and gave our smiling muscles a much-needed workout. We played well against opponents who were, it has to be said, nowhere near as good as we’d expected, we scored three goals and three different players got their name on the scoresheet. We finally seemed to be packing something of a goal threat and it looked as though a corner just might have been turned. Confidence seemed to be visibly returning, due in no small part to the presence of you-know-who, and a spring returned to the step of players, management and supporters alike. It felt lovely to be basking in the warmth of a well-deserved win – a feeling you could be forgiven for having forgotten – and thoughts turned to the comparatively short trip up to Spotland a few days hence. As the intervening days passed I felt optimism rising within me and I became convinced that we’d return from Lancashire with at least a point. After all these years I really ought to have known better but, no, the more I thought about the game the surer I became that a good result was on the cards. Even when our starting eleven was announced and the rumoured absence of Adam Chambo and Tommy Bradders was confirmed I wasn’t unduly concerned because we’d turned a corner and things were going to get slowly better over the course of coming games. Just over half an hour after kick-off I realised I’d been bitten by the it’ll-be-all-right-on-the night bug and delirium had set in at some point between five o’clock on Saturday and quarter to eight on Tuesday.
Rochdale dismantled us and those present knew, deep down, that we were to get nothing from the evening as soon as the second goal went in. In much the same way as we’d done for Scunny’s first goal a few weeks ago we pretty much stood back and watched the home side do whatever they liked and better finishing might well have seen ‘dale five or six goals clear before the players got stuck into their half-time orange segments. I don’t know what was said to the players during the break but would assume exchanges might have been quite heated, all to no avail as the second period continued in the same vein. You-know-who’s unfortunate own goal put the Spotlanders four goals clear but they might have been seven up by then had the woodwork and wayward finishing not intervened. This was as poor a performance as I can ever remember seeing, certainly as bad as anything seen under Merson, Hutchings, Mullen or anyone else over the last decade or so. I’ve even seen it compared to the horrors of the Barnwell era, the accepted high water mark for crap performances post-Buckley, and that really is saying something. Just ask anyone who was there in those days.
At least we couldn’t be as bad again at Gillingham, could we? In truth we were better at Priestfield but not by very much. We saw a dreadfully dull, almost featureless, game that seemed destined to end in yet another goal-less draw from very early on. Once again there was no Bradders to be a pain in the nether regions to the home defence and it was left to Grimes to try to carry a bit of menace. His how-the-hell-did-he-miss moment will probably haunt him for weeks as he waits for his first Saddlers goal and we looked on in amazement as his point-blank range effort from right in front of goal ended up somewhere near the back of the Rainham End. It was a real ‘and Smith must score’ moment only Smith/Grimes didn’t and our one gilt-edged chance of the first half had gone. Where we were lucky lay in the fact that Gillingham were every bit as ordinary as us and, if anything, looked even less likely to find the net. The home fans were on the backs of the Gills players well before the final whistle as the game petered out into the outcome everyone present would have been anticipating well before the end. Yet we might still have returned with all three points as we fashioned an excellent chance in the dying minutes only for the unmarked Jimmy Bax to head his attempt wide when it seemed he couldn’t miss, right in front of the travelling one-hundred-and-thirty.
The statistics of our current run have been the subject of much discussion in recent days but there’s evidently still a high level of support for Deano although it appears to be dwindling slowly. A cut-off point has to come and it seems likely that it will be after the Bristol City game, with the Robins visiting us a week after Donny Rovers stop off in WS1 next Saturday. Four points from the two games would see everyone in a much better frame of mind but anything less and who knows?
By: Hillary Street-Ender.