By 7inchyouknowwho
May 13 2003

Part two of the Radio WM Saddlers special, which went out on the 23rd April 2003.

On the 23rd of May Neil Ravenscroft, a publisher on the site and Ian Hemmings who has also been involved with the site took the chance to feature in a Radio WM special summing up the Saddlers season.

Part 2 of WM recording 23/04/03

 

RW:                       I’ll let Neil choose another subject then, didn’t reach the bell there, see we didn’t need the bell, Neil in Willenhall has voted for Ian Roper, Faye and Sam the Telford Saddlers they’re voting for Ian Roper, he’s improving every season, and I’m gonna run out of me column of votes for Ian Roper in a minute! What have we got then? Ha

Neil:                      I don’t know

RW:                      Purple stand, the pros and cons of the purple stand. How do we feel about the massive new building that has a terrific view of the M6 I’m told if the games not very exciting thoughts gentlemen- free for all!

Matthew:              The biggest hoarding I’ve seen anyway! On the outside it looks very good but the middle section of it, shall we say the concourse area looks very unfinished shall we say, that’s just my opinion!

Neil:                      It certainly looks like it could do with a bit of decoration. Somebody asked me this a while ago, what it was like and I’ve actually sat in the North stand at Old Trafford and

RW:                      I hope someone paid for your ticket for you!

Neil:                      It was a Euro 96 game.

RW:                      Ok that counts fair enough.

Neil:                      Russia, Germany, cracking game, erm, but I actually think the view from the purple stand from the upper tier is one of the best I’ve ever seen in football, the view is tremendous.

Ian:                        And also as you say, if it’s a boring game we go moo cow spotting and whenever one goes past everyone starts mooing, it’s a bit of a novelty factor for WFC there!

Neil:                      Unfortunately you can’t read the names on the Stobbard lorries from that range!

Ian:                        No unfortunately not, no.

RW:                      Is that- do you lot all sit in the purple stand or…

Neil:                     Behind the goal, middle tier.

Ian:                       Yeah, same as me, Matthew- yeah all the same.

RW:                      So what about the loss of terrace which is coming soon?

Ian:                      Well its progression and its something that I feel strongly about as well after Hillsborough, coz I think those people shouldn’t really have had to have died for us to have seen what was blatantly obviously wrong with football grounds being just cattle sheds but with the problems of segregation and fans rioting, the main aim was just really to segregate the fans from each other and stop them getting at each other with the idiots that seem to be resurfacing back into football now.

RW:                     Where would your dream seat be? If you could sit in any seat at Bescot stadium where would you wanna sit?

Ian:                       Manager’s seat!

RW:                      In the dugout? Would you do that thing leaning on the side of the dugout like Colin does quite a bit?

Ian:                       I’d probably be up and animated and shouting and swearing my head off at them coz I’d be really frustrated.

Neil:                     It’s more the Gordon Strachen approach.

RW:                     Yeah or locally I suppose the Megsonian approach really. I don’t know whether it works but it did for one season. Yeah, dugout, everyone else happy with the purple stand?

Neil:                      I’m quite happy there I think, yeah.

RW:                      Well fantastic, we’ll get Ian to choose another subject then and we’ll see what, I can’t remember what I’ve written myself now.

Neil:                      Coz there’s some nasty surprises!

RW:                       What have we got? We have, gentlemen, ooh right now, this could take a while, this is quite… Colin Lee, the verdict so far.

All laugh   

Ian:                       Interesting. Personally I think he reminds me a lot of er Kenny Hibbitt type person, who can bring the players in but maybe can’t actually mould the team into an actual unit that can function all the time and maybe if we could bring another person into work alongside him or maybe move him up to the old Paul Taylor type of director of football role, where he can get the players in and then have somebody else to work with the players and improve the squad and get them working together but saying that as well, the last two seasons when its really counted the players have all pulled together along with the management and produced results that we need.

Neil:                     That was a bit err.

RW:                     That was quite deep that wasn’t it really!

Neil:                     Yeah!

RW:                      He’s not as good a golfer as Kenny Hibbitt I’ll say that for a start.

Neil:                      I hear not many people are!

RW:                      Not that many people have that much time but er..

Neil:                      He’s probably not as good a golfer as Chris Nicholl either but erm I think it’s probably too early to say, er, he hasn’t totally been able to assemble a squad of his own yet at the club. So I think really next season is the one that will tell, but for a man whose actually kept us in the division two seasons running, he’s taken us to the fifth round of the FA Cup two seasons running, though it is easier from the third round saying that, you can’t argue with it. He kept Torquay up against all the odds, he kept us up last year against tall the odds and he’s done a reasonable job in progressing the club further this year. Erm, I’d do with 7^th place in the first division two seasons running!  

RW:                    What 7^th from bottom?

Neil:                    No, 7^th from top.

RW:                    7^th from top?

Neil:                    It may not suit the Wolves fans but it’d suit me down to the ground.

Matthew:            Yeah, I think you’ve gotta admire him really for the job he done last season and this season. You gotta admire him keeping us in the division by some of the circumstances that have gone against us, but the one major, flaw I have is erm, we don’t really know what our first team is, there’s so much change in every week yeah it might be down to loss of form but there is still no solid first team that we can mention for Walsall that play every week.

RW:                   What about the style of football under Colin Lee is that right?

Neil:                  Erm Wolves fans always used to accuse him of being a defensive manager, but he certainly wasn’t at the start of the season, in fact out major problem was we were probably too attacking, erm, we were scoring goals but letting far too many in and I think what happened after Christmas is something had to be done to address that and that’s what he’s done with the run in and four clean sheets on the trot in any division is good going.

Matthew:         Like before Christmas we were scoring three and letting in four, like Rotherham, Crystal Palace home games.

Neil:                No don’t mention that.

Matthew:         I know, I dread it but you know,

Ian:                  But there again probably one of the best goals we saw was against Rotherham when er Driller drove erm the volley in.

Matthew& Neil: Zdrilic, yeah great goal.

RW:                 So the jury kind of our, your happy to stick with him for next season?

All:                  Yeah, certainly, definitely yeah.

RW:                 Right ok more to come from the three guys, remember to get your votes in for the player of the season, one person will be drawn out the hat and win a signed saddlers football, 0121 432 2000 the number to call on or you can text 0778620956 and actually while we were having that debate about the purple stand Pod in Aldridge did text into say when you think the fans are booing in the purple stand, they are not, they’re mooing the milk lorries on the M6 which is the point the guys were making and a question I can’t answer which is when can existing season ticket holders in block F renew our tickets, we will have to move to a new block due to unavailability. Are well, all the tickets apparently go on sale on May 6^th so hopefully that will be sorted out. I’m sure the club will be happy to let you know what the best way is but that’s one of the blocks that isn’t going to be sold in advance because away fans may get it during the course of next season. (Now more highlights from the year). Argh, the green green grass! I put it to the panel would Walsall potentially still be in a relegation battle if they were still having to churn up that surface that they had before the pitch was relayed?

Ian:                  Interesting, coz you’d have thought you’d have had the advantage of playing week in week out that you’d get used to it and be able to have a game plan worked out to beat virtually any team down there.

Neil:                 It would have forced us to actually try and grind out some results rather than try and play the football but I think we’d have been in trouble.

RW:                 I mean you weren’t winning on it were you, you lost against Wolves for instance and in fairness you could have lost by more than just  that freak goal against Wolves?

Neil:                Ooh I don’t know about that...

Ian:                  No, I thought we’d cancelled each other out that night meself, it was only a freak of nature with that bobble.

Neil&Matthew:  Yeah we did.

RW:                 Did the pitch cancel both sides out?

Neil:                 Probably neither side could play much football on it. I’m probably gonna make myself intensely unpopular by saying they are probably the best footballing side in the division.

All:                  Ooh!

 

Coming soon in part 3 - Who is the better - Lee or Graydon.