“We've embraced it. Poundland is a successful local business that employs a lot of people in the town”
“We've embraced it. Poundland is a successful local business that employs a lot of people in the town”
The new name for the Bescot might generate a few laughs, but Walsall are starting to look like a serious bet for the play-offs, as One Pod Beyond’s Tom Lines explains
Thursday 29 December 2022
Dear County fans, Stopfordians, and anyone else joining us today, a very warm welcome to your Thursday edition of The Scarf My Father Wore. All roads lead to the West Midlands tonight, as the top two teams in the League Two form table (last six games) lock horns at the Bescot, with the play-offs (and possibly more) looking a very real possibility. Ahead of the game, we’ve had a great chat with Tom Lines from the Walsall podcast One Pod Beyond.
Once again, another quick plug for ‘A Curry with Colin Woodthorpe’ - our first live event of 2023. It’s taking place at Last Monsoon in Stockport on Monday 30 January at 7.30pm. We’ve now sold over 60% of the tickets, so we’re well on the way to a sell-out. Come and join us as we speak to one of Gary Megson’s first County signings ahead of our first season in Division One in 1997-98. Colin’s an absolutely lovely bloke, and having made 171 appearances for County, he’s got some fantastic stories from his five years at Edgeley Park.
You’ll also get poppadoms, mixed starters, curry, rice and naan breads. As well as a full colour souvenir programme. All for just £20. Fancy it? Send me a text or give me a call on 07816 111150, or you can email desmondhinks@hotmail.co.uk
Finally, today’s edition is sponsored by The Site Supply Company. A big thank you to Steve Cree. Check out hivis.net if you need any workwear or high visibility clothing, and get 10% off all orders with the code TSMFW.
Des Junior
League game at yours. Cup game at ours. You can only win one. What you choosing?
Cup. Clubs like ours can't turn down the extra money from a decent cup run, especially if it helps us make Mansfield an offer for top scorer Danny Johnson whose six-month loan is up in the middle of January. Plus, for a club with a giant-killing record as good as ours, we've largely been hopeless in the big cups for well over two decades. A decent run this season would finally show all the younger Walsall fans what they've been missing.
I didn’t realise Walsall have rented the Bescot for the last 30 years or so. This month, however, your new owners announced the purchase of the stadium for the club. What’s the history like when it comes to ownership of the stadium, and what’s your views on this latest announcement?
A potted history of the stadium saga starts with the move from Fellows Park to the Bescot Stadium in 1990. A few years earlier we'd been taken over by Terry Ramsden, a flash city 'whizzkid' who lost most of his whizz when the Japanese securities market crashed. We were quickly sold on to a group of businessmen from outside the area who took control of the move to the Bescot following the sale of the old ground to Morrisons for £5.5m. Despite the new ground being an inferior copy of Scunthorpe's recently-built Glanford Park we somehow managed to pay around £5.5m for the Bescot (Scunthorpe paid £2.5m), much of which went to construction companies with links to the new owners.
Remarkably, despite having paid for the new ground and spent an additional £1m decontaminating the former sewage works it was built on, the club became tenants of Severn Trent Property (another entity with links to our benevolent former owners). Shortly after moving into the new ground we went bust and accounts relating to the move were never filed. Enter board member Jeff Bonser who took over ownership of the club and when Severn Trent put the freehold up for sale a few years later, Mr Bonser purchased it and became our landlord for the next 30 years, building up a tidy pension pot along the way.
The purchase of the Bescot by our new American owners Trivela has been almost unanimously welcomed by fans. They've taken out a loan to pay for it so we've gone from paying a rent to paying a mortgage but that has to be better than the previous arrangement. We're also under no illusion that purchasing the ground makes Trivela's investment much more saleable in the future but they are making all the right noises about being in it for the long term so we'll have to take that at face value for the moment.
Speaking of the ground… Poundland Bescot Stadium is a shit name isn’t it?
We've embraced it. Poundland is a successful local business that employs a lot of people in the town. Besides, discount retailers provide a valuable service during a cost of living crisis. Certainly more valuable than the betting companies and crypto bros that pollute so much football sponsorship.
In Stockport, there’s more and more County shirts about, but unfortunately you’ll always see plenty of United and City shirts. Is Walsall the same with Villa and Birmingham?
Of course, although it's much more likely to be Villa and Wolves. But as Stockport and Walsall fans know, there's nothing quite like supporting the town you were born in. Those who choose the emotional crutch of a 'big team' don't have what it takes to support teams like ours so it's probably best for everyone that they've chosen the path they did. Have you seen how they react to missing out on a £60m signing? I'm not sure they're built for losing away at Scunthorpe on a Tuesday night.
Back in February, you tempted Michael Flynn away from Newport. That’s looking to be a shrewd appointment.
He's been excellent. You know what you're going to get with a Flynn team - we're organised, committed and very hard to beat. We get the ball forward quickly but we don't play with a target man so it's more sophisticated than hitting it long to the big man. But it's the spirit in this team that really impresses me. Something shown by the fact that we've come from a goal down to win three of our last four games. We've got options on the bench for the first time in years and Flynn is never afraid to go for it. We could have settled for a draw at Swindon on Boxing Day but in the last 15 minutes there was only one team going for the winner.
What’s your prediction for tonight?
Two of the form teams in the division so it should be close. Another 1-1, albeit much more even than our very fortunate draw at your place.
Best and worst memories following Walsall?
Best: the first promotion to the Championship under Ray Graydon in 1999 when we started the season favourites for relegation.
Worst: our last season in the Championship in 2004 where we somehow made Paul Merson player-manager after he returned from a month-long stint in rehab in Arizona and were duly relegated on goal difference on the final day.
This is your fourth consecutive season in League Two, your longest spell in the fourth tier since the early 90s. What’s gone wrong over the last few years, and what would you say Walsall’s natural level is?
Our natural level is League One. That's not entitlement, the facts bear it out. We've played more games in the third tier than any other club. In terms of what's gone wrong, we just stagnated under the previous ownership. We'd become a club where paying the rent each season became the priority and everything else followed on from that. A tired team, playing in a tired stadium under tired ownership. Trivela and Flynn are the wake-up call the club desperately needed.
What are your expectations from this season?
At the start, I'd have been delighted with a top-half finish. Now I'll be disappointed if we don't make a decent tilt at the top seven.
What do you think of Stockport County?
One of those proper clubs you love to see back in the Football League. Proper ground, proper fans, proper away day. Walsall have always had an affinity with clubs from big metropolitan areas packed with lots of 'bigger' clubs. That's why we always get on well with fans from clubs like Rochdale, Tranmere and Orient. I'd put Stockport in that bracket. Plus I've always had a soft spot for Stockport as my first girlfriend was from Bramhall!
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A nice interview, that, lovely insight from the Walsall guy, I never knew about all that history with the ground. As for his first girlfriend being from Bramhall... maybe a slight criticism there, he's gone too posh too early for me. Left himself no options for an upgrade within the SK postal boundaries, unless we're talking Alderley Edge, and we all know how sharp a leap up in class you're looking at there. But of course that's easy for me to say from up here in the stands.