We’re onto Part 3 of our My Top Three series with Darren Fellows offering his choices. If you’ve missed the fist two blogs, please click on the links to catch up on Richard’s Spring 96 blog and Matt’s Ones That Matter. They’re both great reads.
Please feel free to record your memories about Darren’s choices or add your top three in the comment section at the bottom – we really appreciate all the comments added. We’ll have more of these in the coming days but for now let’s go back to some great times of unity and joy. Enjoy.
United We Stand.
There are so many great moments and memorable goals. So many highs and chinks of blue sky amongst what often feels like a sea of dark grey clouds. Reflection and thinking about this piece tells me that even in the frustrating times there’s some great ones ahead and the goals that define them will inevitably become the memories of that moment. I really could’ve chosen dozens.
Tom Bradshaw’s instinctive debut goal at Port Vale, where we saw the first glimpse of what we’d poached was high on my list as was Romaine’s bullet a year later at a deserted Blackpool. Both are modern day special moments. Looking further back, all four goals on that incredible night at Watford were each worthy of note, as was David Kelly’s hat-trick goal against Bristol City. A little further back, it’s hard to choose just one from tsunami of Alan Buckley goals that got me forever hooked and if I’d have been at Sheffield United I’d have probably written about the late penalty that Don Penn converted. For the Bescot years, I considered the two late(ish) goals against Scunthorpe on the penultimate Saturday of 94/95, with Charlie Palmer’s equaliser arguably being the most important goal of the decade right up until the moment Ray Graydon walked through the door. After that, you could choose Andy Rammel’s header that beat Stoke, Chris Marsh’s goal against Oldham or any of the 2003/04 opening day four goal extravaganza against West Bromwich Albion.
But, whilst they were great, they didn’t make my final three. All three chosen were away from home, all three were important in many ways, all three were in incredible times of club unity and all three are really important to me. So, in no particular order;
Andy Rammell vs Luton Town
26th September, 1998
My memory tells me that it was little more than a tap in, but he had a bit more to do than that. The Darren Wrack half cross / half cut-back cutting afforded Andy Rammell the millisecond of space and time he needed to get to the ball in front of his marker. A smartly judged and deft first time finish eliminated the goalkeeper from the equation and the ball looped into an unguarded far side of the net. As Rammell threaded himself between the back of the net he’d just found and the converted terrace behind it, an afternoon of frustrating stalemate exploded into celebratory pandemonium. A sizeable and increasingly believing away following going absolutely nuts, mirroring similarly fevered on-pitch celebrations. The realisation that this wasn’t just a decent start to a season, but something more solid was dawning on many.
It wasn’t particularly pretty, it wasn’t a team goal crafted from twenty-odd passes and to be fair, when the moment came, Rammell (and his manager) would’ve been disappointed had he not converted. But it was brutal, particularly in the simplicity of its execution – a tackle won in front of the back four, a pass that released Darren Wrack on right hand side, the cross that crafted the opportunity and a striker who came alive in that space between the penalty spot and six yard line. It wasn’t route one by any means but it was every bit as cutting. Seven seconds of aggressive and well executed possession that proved the difference between one and three points. It wasn’t the only 1-0 win based on similar foundations in that magical season but it was almost certainly the first ‘marker’ result.
To be honest, it was a game where we should’ve been long out of sight before Rammell finally broke 86 minutes of deadlock. Indeed the afternoon was a bit of rarity in that magnificent season in the fact we dominated the game and wasted a handful of chances before finally crafting something we couldn’t miss. That we didn’t spend the last fifteen minutes camped in on our 18 yard line was similarly unusual.
For me, whilst wins at Gillingham and Wycombe signalled that Ray Graydon might have put together a squad and system that looked capable of making those pre-season favourites for relegation look a nonsense, Luton was the first landmark win of what was a truly magnificent season. They were unbeaten at home and had made a strong start. Yes, it was only 1-0 but we battered them for the entire afternoon, arguably all ten outfield Walsall players winning their individual battles.
A line had been drawn, the marker set. We were good, we had something about us and a manager and team who everyone could believe in. Indeed we looked capable of taking on most in League 1 and there was no-one to fear. The next seven months produced far better goals, many more memorable moments and arguably more significant wins, but this is where 98/99 got real for me. That moment when Andy Rammell converted Darren Wrack’s cross is the precise point where I began to believe that miracles could happen.
David Kelly vs Bristol City
25th May, 1988
To be fair, when he received the ball, what happened next can’t really have been in his, or anyone’s, mind. It just sort of happened.
I guess context helps here – we were in injury time of the first leg of a play-off final. Like all play-off games it had been a frenetic affair with almost nothing to choose between the two teams. Bristol City drew first blood and a Graeme Forbes header that forced a bizarre own goal levelled matters either side of half time. Both teams pushed after that, both teams came close but a David Kelly turn and shot edged us in front ten minutes from time. From there on in it was all about protecting the lead and getting back to Fellows Park in the driving seat.
So, when Kelly received a long defensive clearance in in injury time the requirement was pretty clear. Hold the ball, stall for support to arrive and kill as much time as you possibly can. Don’t give possession away. His first touch, off his knee, was good and suddenly he’s facing the Bristol City goal with a couple of tired and lumbering defenders in his eye-line. Both were petrified to commit and lose the tackle, both were back-peddling faster than an MP caught out by the tabloids and both were clearly petrified of Kelly’s threat. So he ran at them, and they backed off, so he kept running and they backed off. As he edged towards the Bristol City 18 yard line he sensed his opportunity. A couple of jinks created a half yard of space and a killer left foot drive, executed with pin-point precision, somehow squeezed itself inside the goalkeeper’s left hand post.
Cometh the hour, cometh the greats.
The play off campaign of May 1988 probable couldn’t have been any tougher. Notts County were edging their way back to a decent spell in the second tier of English football and Bristol City will always be a challenge in the 3rd tier. For both however, we had a team that was just as good and was every bit a match for both of them. The team that triumphed from this trio was going to need that extra something – that bit of magic the separates the best from the very good. We had it – in the boots of a striker for whom history shows was probably reaching the top of his craft. A striker who netted seven times in five play-off games. Seven times!
It’s probably worth reiterating that these were goals against the best in the division, they weren’t cash in goals against teams who’d given up or were defensively shot. They weren’t late boot filling opportunities against teams going through the motions either. Four were away from home, two gave us the lead in games, three created scoreboard daylight and all of them really mattered. I’ve seen whole seasons where our striker hasn’t beaten seven goals, yet Kelly did it in three weeks.
I chose this one because it was an absolutely brilliant finish that gets lost in the aftermath of the home defeat and the heroics a couple of days beyond that. Without this the replay would never have happened.
Sam Mantom vs Brentford
5th January, 2016
One of the reasons I so cherish the Graydon era, and the first season in particular was the unity that surrounded the football club at the time. Everyone pulling in the same direction, the support and respect reciprocated both on the terraces and the playing surface. Songs that are positive and rather than negative ones about lesser clubs.
2015 was a similar time. Transfer business in summer 2015 had improved an already strong squad and the ingredients in Dean Smith’s five year plan were cooking nicely. There are no guarantees in football and our escaping League 1 in May 2016 was a long way from happening but let’s be honest, if we had kept going in the manner that the first five months had seen, others were going to have to find something pretty mighty to overtake us.
Then Rotherham came knocking, and Smith’s agent did a far better job for his client than the majority shareholder managed for his investment and our hopes. The rest, as they say, is history.
That afternoon at Brentford was properly hostile and the message, ferociously delivered at Smith from behind the goal was pretty unequivocal. The decade earlier re-design of Griffin Park meant that the tunnel was perfectly placed to communicate with the recently departed coaching team and was undoubtedly a key contributor to that afternoon’s drama. The pre-kick off walk from dressing room to dug out absolutely set the tone for the two hours that followed.
Smith, no doubt, would’ve have expected the terrace hostility. However I’m not as convinced that he’d anticipated quite how his former players reacted and rose to the occasion. Brentford were far better than us, they operated comfortably a level higher and were technically very good. But all that goes out the window however when you’re faced with a team possessed with an unbelievable determination to give the man who walked out on them the bloodiest of noses. They tackled all afternoon like they’ve never tackled before, ran miles to cover each other, gave absolutely everything they had and fought for and a hour and a half like their lives depended on it. Every ounce of that effort was cheered from behind the goal. It was, as history shows, the last strands of collective unity we’d see for quite a while.
The winner when it came was a triumph of all the things Smith built. Paul Downing, a player Smith improved month by month (and subsequently deteriorated every bit as quickly when Smith departed) bought the ball out of defence, across the halfway line and fed the ball to an open Sam Mantom. Tom Bradshaw and Milan Lalkovic immediately pulled out wide, dragging defenders away from the ball and as he edged into range Mantom dragged the ball onto his left foot and curled a beauty into the bottom corner of the net. Ironically, it was a goal that encapsulated Smith’s football philosophies, with control of the ball and selfless creation of space every bit as important as Mantom’s strike of the football. Everyone there will long remember the noise, ecstasy and magic of the moments that followed.
This was vintage Walsall, standing our ground and sticking one up at those who purport to look down on us. I’ve always cherished the clarity on the fact that you’re either with us or you aren’t. The lack of grey area feels quintessentially Walsall. That post-game celebration and Smith & PinkCapMan’s walk back to the sanctity of the tunnel perfectly encapsulated this and will be a strong memory for a long time.
I was in the second year of my PhD, and had just emerged from a winter spent in the York Minster archives and the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research in York. York in the winter is one of my favourite places, and who doesn’t want to spend their time researching the role of the clergy in 18th-century elections? Plus, I got to see Walsall win away at Bootham Crescent in the rain.
The No Nobhead Policy 