By Neil Ravenscroft
January 30 2003

As January comes to an end, dominated as it was by FA Cup ties for Walsall, it's time to announce who will be TheSaddlersFC Player of the Month. The month as a whole was a mixture of the good and bad, with good performances from most players, tempered with bad ones.

When you are struggling through the mud of winter, though, one thing becomes more and more important and that is consistency.

Over the past few years, Walsall have been blessed with some very consistent performers at right full back.

Ian Brightwell was always one of the more consistent performers in the side and, before him, Wayne Evans was invented to have the nickname of "Mr Consistency".

This month, I have no hesitation in giving the award to a man who is following in the footsteps of those players. TheSaddlersFC Player of the Month award goes to the man who gave a superb performance last week in the Wimbledon game and scored the penalty against Reading to give Walsall the win in that penalty shoot out:-

DARREN BAZELEY

I'll even forgive him for having played for Wolves!