Walsall - Not Wanted Here?

By Neil Ravenscroft
April 20 2003

Neil Ravenscroft ignores the football and looks at the crowd, following the Norwich game and asks if the town wants a football club?

So there you are, playing a team in 8th place in the Division and pushing for the play offs, on a day which could seal survival in the Division for the second season running, a club record, and you are bound to get a full house? Not if you are Walsall, you're not.

The crowd of just over 7,000 for such an important game makes me think that the people of this town do not want a successful football club. The kinds of reaction we got in the "Save Our Saddlers" days, with the size of the cmpaign to keep the club in the town seem to be long gone. Whether this is purely down to the shher amount of football on the TV is hard to say, but the amount of Premiership replica shirts worn by kids in Walsall nowadays seem to suggest that is the case.

We and the club must be looking at ways of attracting the young into the ground now, as the future of the club may be at stake.

Of course, when they do arrive, there seems also to be an element that we don't really want there. I've never booed the team of the pitch, but can forgive the reaction to the sterile game against Coventry on Tuesday night. What I can't forgive is the attempt to get the boos going at the end of yesterday's game. We had just played an enteraining 0 - 0 draw against one of the better sides in the Division (one which could still be playing in the Premier next season) and, with more composed finishing, would have beaten them.
What do these morons want? Do they really think we have a God given right to win every game? Are they showing a marked similarity to the suporters of another local team - one which they say they despise?
Answers on a postcard please.