Today I write my blog from just outside of Birmingham where I am currently lodged, at the house of Andrew Ross, ahead of the epic football match that is Walsall FC v Norwich City!! Ok… so not so epic in commercial or national terms -this is a fairly ordinary fixture in the third tear of English football- but epic to me! The reason that this fixture takes on such significance is that my dear friend Jon Ross (he whose wedding shots appeared on the blog in the summer) is an ardent Walsall supporter. Today is thus a day for good natured rivalry and leg pulling due to my passion for Walsall’s opposition – Norwich City Football club.
Walsall are having a fairly unexciting season and looking unlikely to either get embroiled in a relegation scrap nor involved in a promotion push. Mid table obscurity seems to be the order of the day at the mid point of the season. Whereas the mighty Canaries (the nickname for Norwich) are flying high! 9 wins from 9 at home and not many points dropped away means we sit in third (due to a shaky start to the season) and are closing on the top two with every game. Little wonder for we are the division’s top scorers and that is mainly due to Mr. Grant Holt who is pictured above.
So then off to a pleasant lunch with chums and then off to the Bescott Stadium. I shall be sitting in the Walsall end in disguise!
RESULT: VERY annoyingly the game was cancelled due to a frozen pitch only 45minutes prior to kick off!! The Football Association really must do better- especially for the 2000 Norwich fans who had driven for 4hours to get there. Either call off the game the night before or in early morning- or play on regardless. What are these modern footballers- mice or men?!
¿Who won?
Like to think this season it will be Norwich, my own team Charlton along with Leeds going up. They would not look out of place in the Championship.
But the way things are going with injuries (our entire first choice defence was absent yesterday) and some “interesting” refereeing decisions (we were reduced to 9 men for nearly an hour last Saturday) we’ll be the ones having to go through the play-offs.
Hmmm, I still bear the scars of my youthful enthusiasm for Walsall, having got hit over the head by a missile flung by a Birmingham City hooligan at a local derby in the ’74-5 season. Sympathy afterwards from the PP of what was then Saint Aidan’s (now merged and called All Saints), Small Heath, where I’d parked my car. Last thing I saw as I was being escorted to the ambulance was the Blues’ second goal – didn’t see the Saddlers’ consolation goal. BTW, Father, Walsall’s soundest church is just up the road from the Banks’s Stadium – Saint Gabriel’s, Walstead Road.
Yes I spotted it as I drove past!