Last Sunday afternoon Walsall Football Club supporter Graeme Brookes completed his charity walk, which was in aid of the Walsall Society to the Blind, from 'Walsall to Wembley' just in time for the Saddlers' Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final clash with Bristol City, he shares the latest of his blogs below.
So – four days have passed since Wembley and the walk and all that jazz. I keep thinking back to the match – man it was disappointing. Not that we lost – I kind of expected that. Not that the more I look at the goals, their first was sloppy and their second was just lucky. I was just more disappointed that we didn’t turn up, we didn’t play football, we didn’t play ‘our’ game. Having told everyone, since being a little boy I am accustomed to Walsall playing poorly against the poor teams but brilliantly against the brilliant teams – so we may have a chance. We just didn’t do that. Before I took my seat, I managed to sit in press row for a wee bit and saw Martin O’Connor. I don’t know what he was doing but I was thinking after the game – how much we needed someone like him. Or an Adrian Viveash, Derek Mountfield, Vinny Samways or most recently an Andy Butler. Just someone who can grab the game by the scruff of the neck. Not afraid to scream and shout and tell the younger players to sort themselves out. It hit me, we don’t really have that. The Chambers twins to a degree but they’re really ‘vocal’. We always seemingly had that mix of old and young – well our old aren’t the grizzled tough veteran types. I don’t know.
Still we got to Wembley. We made the walk. We aren’t ‘that’ pub quiz question anymore. We will go again (though the person who said on Central News, “we’ll be their next year, maybe in a bigger cup” – I would like to inform you that drugs like that will never do you well, they will rot your teeth so put that pipe down!) and when we go – I am sure we will make a better show of it.
Anyway – four days have passed. I have barely walked so what I am to blog about? I wanted to just do some general thank you’s and that kind of thing. My friends and family – I love you but I have done it to your face and if I haven’t, I will – give a brother some time (Mom in particular!).
From a press perspective – had lots of amazing support. Cat & Nelly (and Ben) at the Free Radio Team were amazing. Calling every morning – even had the comic relief esque moment where they caught me on my grumpy period and I cried down the phone and they were playing ‘Fix You’ in the background. I nearly wet myself – pure cheese. Thanks to Franksy on Radio WM for calling every evening too – I always thought had a fondness from that team in Wolverhampton but now I don’t care. Thank you. Thanks to Colin Murray and Talksport – for that whole 1 minute after giving the Brizzle fan 5 and banging on about how they never get any time or coverage – well you had yours and then mine! Either way, was pretty cool. From the newspapers: Express & Star, Walsall Advertiser and Football League Paper amongst others I am sure that I have forgotten (perhaps the Observer? Not sure). Thanks to Big Centre TV (new station for the Midlands), BBC Midlands Today and ITV Central News. BBC Breakfast on the Sunday morning, that was cool too – with Pat, the most unexcited Wembley Visitor ever. Thanks to Dan Walker at Football Focus – so we had a ‘in’ with them and we heard that they were talking about Walsall and someone said ‘there is some idiot walking it from Walsall’ and Dan immediately said ‘we have to get him some time’ and true to his word, he did! Legend.
HOWEVER – all the above was amazing but in all sincerity and legitimacy, the most thanks goes to the lads in ONE POD BEYOND. If you don’t listen to the ONE POD BEYOND – Walsall FC podcast and you’re a Walsall fan, you’re missing out. They’re hilarious. Very funny chaps. Anyway – on the Friday morning I was walking along full of such grump listening to the podcast and they gave me a shout out and it legitimately made my day. I know its daft but the whole emotional and mental aspect to the walk was far more important than the physical side of it and when you aren’t feeling it, trust me – you aren’t feeling it. Then little things make you happy (like ducks with what looks like superhero masks on) so when I got that shout out, it really made my day and changed my psyche so to speak. Respecfully but you can keep your Dan Walker, Colin Murray and Franksy – I will take the boys at ONE POD BEYOND every day of the week.
Massive thanks to everyone I stayed with. I cant remember them all but they are all on my twitter. As I said in an earlier blog – every single one of the big hotel chains: Premier Inn, Travelodge, Holiday Inn – all knocked me back. Werent interested in even a discount. We contacted all these people on the website ‘Air BnB’ and spoke to them privately and they all put me up for free. And not just put me up – they cooked for me, they got me breakfast, they washed my clothes. They were amazing. None of it for any profit! In fact on where I stayed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday – they actually gave me a donation! Unreal. It all just reinforces a faith and appreciation socially to what is going on in the world. In the business minded, capitalist, dog eat dog society/mentally that we surround ourselves in – to have that kind of generosity was amazing. To add to that was masseurs. I got FREE massages on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Again – they didn’t have to do that and in fact I moaned and was in pain and I have a hairy back – yet they still did it!
It was hard work trying to get stuff from places but people did help so thanks to ASDA in town, Morrisons on the Old Fellows Park, Sainsburys in Reedswood and JTF.com in the retail park by the ground. Tesco and Matalan – thanks for nothing, get to work on your customer services because you guys have a Points of View-esque email coming your way very very soon!
The special thanks bits are nearly done. I saw a Physio up in Manchester. I cant remember his name for loving or money but you shall see him on the documentary. A big thanks to ‘Midwest Signs’ in Willenhall – the flag that was sticking out of my bag for every step of the walk was made specially and for free. They have a website so check them out. Lovely folks! A huge thank you to: Caroline Mentzer, she is a rather lovely nutritionist and general lovely lady. She had a very successful blog you can look at via facebook, (check out ‘my daughter wont sleep’). She even joined me for a few miles with her beautiful little daughter and made me some special nutty bar with no sugar that looked like Black Pudding but was meant to be really good for me – sounds rancid, was actually nice! That means, she is obviously a witch! She is not, very lovely and your time was very much appreciated.
At this point I am going to break the thanks to tell some stories (otherwise you will switch off, I don’t blame you!). On Friday – the fella who massaged me was actually a football physio! And boy did he tell me some stories. The club he is working at now is NOT the club he worked at before from where the stories developed. This club was a small lower league London club and they were being managed by a manager who had a nickname that had something to do with a ‘Crazy Canine’ (I cant be more obvious! Come on now!). He was telling me some crackers to ‘Smart In-allen’ turned up for the first day to speak to the players and had TWO fights with players at the meeting – one of them with a middle eastern player and he may have said something that if it got to FA, he probably wouldn’t manage again (though saying that Malky McKay is doing alright for himself!). He then said ‘Smartin’ would bring his dog into training, and his dog wouldn’t sit by his foot. His dog would chase the ball! As the players are preparing playing 7-a-side and the such, his dog would be constantly running after the ball and if he caught it, he’d burst the ball! The dog did it numerous times a day! The physio added that when he left – ‘Smart In-Allen’ then got the coach to pull over at a pub full of fans – pulled all the players off the coach and called all the fans over and made the Physio sing a song and make a speech. I have a few more stories but I can’t really tell them. They were cracking.
Anyway – to the boring stuff. In preparation for the walk and trying to get the word out, I had a lot of people on twitter sending the word out constantly, so thank you. That would be people like: Vital Walsall, Bescot Banter, Saddlers Scene, Michael Beardsmore (Walsall Adv – very good journo!), Bloxwich News Network, Walsall Web-Fans, Stu Kimberley, Starr Faithful, Dan Gilbert, Robin Greenwell, Diane Davies (Dep Editor of Ex & Star), One Pod Beyond (again), Dave Evans, Graeme (@Saddler Fan) – #nohamsrules and Dean Smith Fan Page. Collectively – you all RT’d so much or sent me constant messages from early on into training and I appreciate it greatly.
Big huge thanks to the club. Dan Mole, Andrew Poole, Gavin Drake and once I was in the ground – Karen Donoghue was amazing. Getting to turn into a child that nearly wet myself as I walked on the pitch and walked back off and even having the opportunity to clap the home end like I was being subbed off – was very special. I was gutted we didn’t get to interview Deano, but then having that impromptu chat before MK Dons, made up for it.
A huge thanks to Homeserve. They were amazing. Like some next level amazing. The business themselves donated £500, provided me with 2 personalised insulated coats, 2 pairs of waterproof trousers and 2 personalised woolly hats – they also have done something else amazing that I cant mention for a few weeks but hopefully you’ll see or hear about it soon enough. The woman who I dealt with the most was: Sarah Palmer. Phenomenal woman. She also arranged the tanoy shout out during the Sheff Utd game on like 3 hours notice. Just a legend. Not just that though, their actual workforce did loads of stuff. I know one lovely lady named Claire did a guess the sweets in a jar thing (I did go for number 134 and 104 – never heard back! Bad times), their postal office ladies donated some personally, a whole bunch of lads in their office put on make up for the day – all just to raise money. Granted my best mate Bob Gee works in there but even still – they didn’t have to do that. They raised about £150 doing all that stuff on their own. Amazing people. Just amazing and I hope I can pop in to say thanks personally because you were all amazing.
I know chances are high I have probably missed people out and if I have I am sorry (I can edit this so please let me know!).
Last but not least I have to thank ‘Indictus Films’. Before I get into them – Marky Dav, Dan Lightening (best cameraman name ever) and Suki – thank you guys so much, they helped lending equipment or with their time for free. Anyway, Indictus Films are a production company based in London and Manchester – run by two gents named Rob Hardman & Dave Gyasi. Now, Dave is a lovely chappie who happens to be well on his way to being a famous actor. He was a lead in Interstellar, Cloud Atlas and wasn’t around during the walk because he is filming some new super American sitcom (priorities David! All wrong! Walsall at Wembley or Lead in a US sitcom? Seriously!). I mention this because of all the above, he clearly tends to get a lot of the love and spotlight but behind him is Rob Hardman. Now I am a little biased because Bob happens to be one of my BFF’s – but he is the work horse, he is the Gary Porter, Dean Peer, Darren Bradley, Neil Emblen (if you didnt appreciate them – I shake my head at you). He is always doing something and is so busy I feel he intentionally only answers one in every three questions you ask him to save time. They make quite a good team but Bob has been on another level throughout all of this. Additionally, there is a beautiful young lady who works as their producer named: Fiona. They both happen to be very good actors. Anyway – Rob and Fiona have been with me since Day One. Literally – an hour AFTER the 2nd leg against Preston, I get a text from Bob: ‘We are doing this, we will document the whole walk’ yadda yadda yadda. Fiona was already sorting out accommodation and who to contact press wise. Well anyway – Bob was with me for most days, dropping me off in a morning, meeting me at lunch, meeting me at the end of the day, taking me for food, dropping stuff off places. Just amazing. Fiona was the same – just all over the shop. They weren’t getting paid for this. Yes, they hope to get a relatively funny and sweet documentary out of it that may lead to exposure and subsequently work BUT chances are slim. They were doing this because they’re good friends. Sadly, I now owe them big style so I am waiting for that phone call or email that I wont be able to say no too, because that’s what friends do and Bob (Boooowry) and Fiona – you two proved it andnow feel like Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Let me know what you need and I will get back to you (I don’t kill Witches).
Anyway, hopefully the documentary will be out by the start of next season. I will try and liaise with the club to see if they will let us premiere it in the Bonser Suite (Karen, Daniel – nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and we can get some buckets going and try and get Walsall Society for the Blind a bit of moolah. Though to be fair – I would just like to invite everyone who I have named checked above to be present. You deserve it.
Also – for a grand total amount . . . . . . I DON’T KNOW!
I am still chasing up money. Right now – online I have just over £5,500 online. I have close to £1900 to collect outside of the online donations if people hand over their money and make good on verbal donations they said to me – if that does happen, I will have I have approximately £7,400! This figure blows me away considering people told me that try to get to £5000 was too much. Also on top of that, we have the ‘Goals’ party donated by ‘Goals’ in Willenhall that has been directly donated to the Society for the Blind for their kids group to go and have a party (which is amazing because they only have enough budget for 1 party per year) so now they are going to have a fun fun time thanks to all of this.
HOWEVER – it doesn’t stop there. I had so many people tell me that they would donate on pay-day, well I know that it is pay-day for people either today or tomorrow – so PLEASE, if you said you were going to donate, just because I have hit the target – please please do donate. It does make such a difference you wouldn’t believe. Hopefully, we can film a little bit of that difference and add it to the end of the documentary or something! Please follow through on your words and donate by clicking the DONATE link at the top of the page.
The last person to thank is . . . . . . YOU! (Did you like that cheesy end?). Chances are if you are reading this, you are a big fan and you probably did donate (if you didn’t – you know what to do!). I just wanted to thank you personally. The amount of strangers who have donated, leaving very sweet and sentimental messages for me. They were just amazing. Thank you so much. You have made a meaningful difference to some amazing people at an amazing charity. Thank you. Thank you so much. In a time when society can be quite cruel and cynical (and I work in a job that sadly, that is what you see day in day out) your compassion, generosity, thoughtfulness and heart has really shut me up and proved me wrong. If I will take anything from this – it is that people aren’t all that bad. In fact, people are pretty good. If you do something positive and worthwhile – people will support you. Thank you all for supporting me. You will never know how appreciated it actually was and what a difference it made. Thank you.
So this is it for me – I will probably do one last blog when the docuemtary is ready to drop. I am going to keep the twitter going for a bit until I hand over a big cheque to Walsall Society for the Blind. I have a pair of tickets to sell for WBA vs QPR on 4.4.15 – to the highest bidder, so head over to @walsall2wembley to have a bid! Thank you all for reading, its been a pleasure and actually quite cathartic.
To answer a question – will I do this again. YES! When Walsall get to the final of the Champions League.
See you at Chesterfield. UP THE SADDLERS. x