Bury (A) League One, 16 Jan, 3pm

[PT]

600 odd isn't too bad given it would have been the third away in seven days for many, the weather was cack and it wasn't definitely definitely on until about 12:45.

If we stay up there, I'd expect we'll see four figure followings in eight of our remaining away games (cup, Crewe, Burton, Vale, Chesterfield, Sheff Utd, Bradford and Oldham). I'd expect us to sell out at Crewe, Burton and Vale if we're top two when those come around.

All of which might well end up with an average away following of around 1,000 which would match the year we won the fourth division which is often referenced as a high point in our followings.

[funk_hits_the_fan]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

[martkrugeleysaddler]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

I'm not sure how they can financially back a championship side on 2k gates. I'd like to see them come up with us, but I can't see how they can compete. You need 20k plus gates just to even be competitive . I know Bournemouth went up with 10k crowds but they are propped up financially.

[latviancheese]

Its a funny own goal. One thing Andy Taylor will always give you is quality delivery.

I like Fordes goal but you have to ask where the Bury defenders were :D

[WarsawPact]

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

I think 'well done you 2000 people'.

[Jolly Johnny]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlvzUAJS9u4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

From those highlights, you'd say we were lucky to come away with the 3 points!

[funk_hits_the_fan]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

I'm not sure how they can financially back a championship side on 2k gates. I'd like to see them come up with us, but I can't see how they can compete. You need 20k plus gates just to even be competitive . I know Bournemouth went up with 10k crowds but they are propped up financially.

I fear Burton will 'do a Rushden' in the future I really do. Chasing promotion based on one mans wealth and hunger (the chairman). It's completely unsustainable....shame because I always liked Burton.

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

I think 'well done you 2000 people'.

Couldn't agree more, I'm not knocking their fans in anyway! I was just attempting to illustrate to those knocking our support that in comparison we have nothing to complain about!

[IHTC.]

600 away is roughly 20% of our core fan base at home so decent effort in my opinion

[PT]

If it's true that Burton havent got crowds to sustain Championship football it is certainly true for us too.

I think only Rotherham have averaged less than five figure home crowds in the Championship this season and theirs is around 9,700

It's not like last time we went up there and we had clubs like us, Crewe, Stockport, Grimsby and Vale trying to do it on 6,000.

That is why what the likes of us and Burton are doing this season is fantastic. It is a rear guard action against what many might see as the natural order of things where the three teams that come down are replaced by Sheff Utd, Coventry and Bradford.

If we did go up, our crowds would go up, but for most games it would be 5,000 of us plus away fans which would require another monumental effort to sustain ourselves.

That's not a negative take on things. It's actually a really positive context for what we are achieving this year.the odds are stacked higher than ever against the likes of us and Burton and it is fantastic that we are confounding those odds. Proper sport.

[Magic Man Fan]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

I'm not sure how they can financially back a championship side on 2k gates. I'd like to see them come up with us, but I can't see how they can compete. You need 20k plus gates just to even be competitive . I know Bournemouth went up with 10k crowds but they are propped up financially.

I fear Burton will 'do a Rushden' in the future I really do. Chasing promotion based on one mans wealth and hunger (the chairman). It's completely unsustainable....shame because I always liked Burton.

Do.you know anything about Burton? They're doing nothing like you suggest. It's Bury (and a toned down Fleetwood) that are spending what they can't afford. They're certainly not reliant on Robinson's wealth.

Burton have a modest budget, they just get the most out of it, like we do.

[Magic Man Fan]

It's a pity that more Walsall people can't be bothered to support their team, same old faces year in year out at away games in particular this season when the team are clearly playing so well............600 hundred fans is quite frankly pathetic considering our position.

I think 600 hundred fans would be brilliant - we'd need a much bigger stadium!! :wink:

Seriously though, I was impressed with the numbers we had there yesterday and we're much more lively than the 3000 bury fans that were sat there.

Apart from the 50 that outsung us in the second half. :?

[Cully]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

Are you deranged?.............supporting Chelsea, desolate Walsall - it has a population of at least 270,000, they don't all hang out on a patch of waste ground huddled under an old pair of curtains and drinking paint stripper. There are no excuses, there are probably as many people, who attend, live outside the curtilage of the town than live within it, useless support from the town as always. Did you watch the match and count our chances even in the second half, you must understand that for every 'what if' there are another couple of hundred to consider. eg 'what if' we scored every time we got to the edge of their box, it could have been 100 - 0 to Walsall. Bury didn't win because they weren't good enough and that's reflected in the scoring, you could even argue that the conditions in the second half were in their favour making it more difficult to play football. Just look at the league placings for a clue to how good they are despite spending more than they can afford on relative 'big names' [for this division]
Stop making excuses and speculating and I'll see you at Fleetwood a week on Tuesday, that gives you over a week to save about £20 for the ticket [if you are under 5 it's free - just saying :D ]and about the same for a coach ticket or get a few mates together and car share for about a fiver in petrol/diesel.
Who cares about Burton? I couldn't give Dingle.

:wink:

[Cully]

Apart from the 50 that outsung us in the second half. :?

I have to say fair play to them for their undaunted support which was excellent throughout the game, best performance by home fans I've seen this season considering such a small number - well done those Bury fans.

[funk_hits_the_fan]

3 away games in a row, terrible weather up north and the possibility of the game being called off!? An amazing following, especially after the big numbers at Brentford and Coventry. I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea. Have you looked around Walsall recently and seen how desolate it is? Not sure many fans have enough money for 3 away trips....

Never in doubt hmmmm I'm sure the Bury striker missed an open goal after a post had been hit?

What do people think of Burton getting 2k gates while been sat at the top of the league??

Are you deranged?.............supporting Chelsea, desolate Walsall - it has a population of at least 270,000, they don't all hang out on a patch of waste ground huddled under an old pair of curtains and drinking paint stripper. There are no excuses, there are probably as many people, who attend, live outside the curtilage of the town than live within it, useless support from the town as always. Did you watch the match and count our chances even in the second half, you must understand that for every 'what if' there are another couple of hundred to consider. eg 'what if' we scored every time we got to the edge of their box, it could have been 100 - 0 to Walsall. Bury didn't win because they weren't good enough and that's reflected in the scoring, you could even argue that the conditions in the second half were in their favour making it more difficult to play football. Just look at the league placings for a clue to how good they are despite spending more than they can afford on relative 'big names' [for this division]
Stop making excuses and speculating and I'll see you at Fleetwood a week on Tuesday, that gives you over a week to save about £20 for the ticket [if you are under 5 it's free - just saying :D ]and about the same for a coach ticket or get a few mates together and car share for about a fiver in petrol/diesel.
Who cares about Burton? I couldn't give Dingle.

:wink:

Talk about dragging up a tired old debate. Yawn. You have to judge it on those that do go, not how many in the town should go based on the population! Jesus.

I'm sure you don't care about Burton; it strikes me that has always been your Achilles heal - unable to accept limitations of an actual situation - lack of perception / ignorance to the bigger picture.

Yeah see you at Fleetwood - there won't be 2000 of us for that game, either.

[Darth Vader]

One to criticise our away support but it wasn't a bad show at bury after the 1,600 at Brentford and 1,400 at Coventry.

Was expecting about 300 with the possible postponement as well

[chestersaddler]

I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea.

I think you are getting Cully mixed up with Sheffield Saddler, Funk. Both Margaret Thatcher worshippers, but only one a Chelsea fan. :D

[Welsh_Saddler]

I think Cully still thinks he is supporting Chelsea.

I think you are getting Cully mixed up with Sheffield Saddler, Funk. Both Margaret Thatcher worshippers, but only one a Chelsea fan. :D

FACT :mrgreen:

[Gripper]

Agree with the above comments regarding how it felt in the first half, every attack ended with their net rippling and the away end rising to their feet.

The second half we were nervy, they chopped up our attacks, they did very well in fairness..Fair play Bury.

Positives

Andy Taylor looked good, great delivery which we have at times missed and have been screaming out for.

We didn't miss George Evans at all in my opinion....Mantom was class.

Our attacks in the first half reminded me of some of the better side's over the seasons I have seen at the Bescot, where the defence is practically running scared with no options.

Great game of football and advert for League One....game of two halves.

We won.

Negatives

We did effectively fold and lost as a result seemed to lack composure in order to prevent that quick second goal.

Tom Looked absolutely ruined and drained of ideas in equal measure....Maybe two up top in the second half could've given us more depth.

The conditions didn't help, not sure if that affected Etheridge's ability to cope with the shot that led to their second.

Forde should've squared the ball to Bradshaw...anyone who was there know's what I'm onnabout.

I left the ground pleased with what we had done, very happy. They did a job on us earlier in the season and we couldn't muster a response...however I reckon we are a much stronger unit now.

Time will tell...onto the next one.

[Magic Man Fan]

Agree with the above comments regarding how it felt in the first half, every attack ended with their net rippling and the away end rising to their feet.

The second half we were nervy, they chopped up our attacks, they did very well in fairness..Fair play Bury.

Positives

Andy Taylor looked good, great delivery which we have at times missed and have been screaming out for.

We didn't miss George Evans at all in my opinion....Mantom was class.

Our attacks in the first half reminded me of some of the better side's over the seasons I have seen at the Bescot, where the defence is practically running scared with no options.

Great game of football and advert for League One....game of two halves.

We won.

Negatives

We did effectively fold and lost as a result seemed to lack composure in order to prevent that quick second goal.

Tom Looked absolutely ruined and drained of ideas in equal measure....Maybe two up top in the second half could've given us more depth.

The conditions didn't help, not sure if that affected Etheridge's ability to cope with the shot that led to their second.

Forde should've squared the ball to Bradshaw...anyone who was there know's what I'm onnabout.

I left the ground pleased with what we had done, very happy. They did a job on us earlier in the season and we couldn't muster a response...however I reckon we are a much stronger unit now.

Time will tell...onto the next one.

Tom looked no more drained than in the last few games. I get the feeling he's not busting a gut right now. Whether that is because he's not fully fit, is trying not to get injured to ruin any potential transfer, or doing it purposely to put scouts off, because he wants to stay so much, I don't know. :D. He's still scoring though, even at half cock.

[bangsection]

Do.you know anything about Burton? They're doing nothing like you suggest. It's Bury (and a toned down Fleetwood) that are spending what they can't afford.

You can add Scunthorpe to that list, whose top five budget didn't prevent a 0-5 spanking on Saturday and who will be spending even more money paying off Robins after sacking him today.

[Magic Man Fan]

Do.you know anything about Burton? They're doing nothing like you suggest. It's Bury (and a toned down Fleetwood) that are spending what they can't afford.

You can add Scunthorpe to that list, whose top five budget didn't prevent a 0-5 spanking on Saturday and who will be spending even more money paying off Robins after sacking him today.

Ned Kelly sacked too. Wonder if he'll return (again!) to work with SoD?

[cookyskid]

Are you deranged?.............supporting Chelsea, desolate Walsall - it has a population of at least 270,000, they don't all hang out on a patch of waste ground huddled under an old pair of curtains and drinking paint stripper. There are no excuses, there are probably as many people, who attend, live outside the curtilage of the town than live within it, useless support from the town as always.]

The idea that because there are 270,000 people who happen to live in an area administered by Walsall Council, our support is "useless" really doesn't stack up, for three main reasons:

1. 270k is the population of the metropolitan borough, which includes large areas whose only real affiliation to the town is that they happen to pay their council taxes there. Willenhall for example is obvious Wolves territory, and the old Aldridge and Brownhills areas, which only came under Walsall's jurisdiction in 1974 have always had a lot of Villa & Wolves fans. I know that at my old school, Shire Oak, Saddlers were in a distinct minority when I was there (1967-74).According to Wikipedia (I know.....) the population of the built up area of Walsall itself is only 67.954.

2. Even taking the 270,000 as a realistic catchment area figure, the support is about what you would expect. Taking all 4 divisions the aggregate attendance at league games on a normal weekend is around 700,000, out of a total population in England and Wales of 57m. So around 1.2% of the population go to matches on a given match day. 1.2% of 270,000 is 3,240, so our support is about par for the course.

3. Both history and geography are important potential limiters on our level of support. A lot of support for a given club results from family tradition. For example, my grandad and dad were both Saddlers and so are my brothers. Where this tradition of support is handed down from generation to generation this means that clubs with a successful past can sustain larger followings for many years, or even decades, after their glory days. My nearest club is Huddersfield Town, whose best years were in the 1920's when they won three First Division titles in a row. Many of my friends are Town fans, having grown up both on tales of that era, and memories of some more recent, if more modest, success when they were in the top tier in the 1970s. Our history is unfortunately rather less glorious, and I don't think reminiscences of record applications for re-election really do the trick! Huddersfield is also more fortunate in its geography. The nearest "big" club is Leeds, nearly 20 miles away (Bradford City are nearer but arguably similar in size and aspiration to Huddersfield) whereas we have Villa, Wolves, Blues & Albion all within 10 miles.

That said I don't think we, or the club should be too fatalistic about this. We can't change the geography but if we can get promotion this year (and more importantly stay up) we have the opportunity to create a new history. With three of our four closest rivals in the same division (failing some unforeseen miracle at Villa Park) we have the chance to show that we can compete on equal terms, and hopefully gain a new generation of fans oblivious to the, rather faded, glory attached to Wolves and Villa, and energised by the dynamic sexy football of the Super Saddlers!!

Going for a lie down now. Nurse - more tablets please...................... :) :) :)

[BathSaddler]

Some great points, cookyskid. Walsall itself is probably little more than 100,000 and around 170,000 when you factor in the likes of Rushall, Bloxwich, Blakenall, Leamore and Beechdale.

Growing up in the 70's Darlaston or Willenhall never felt much like Walsall to me. You could say the same for Aldridge and Yew Tree. Walsall's metropolitan borough is a significant size, but the town much less so. Our support isn't great, but nowhere near as bad as some make out.

[Darth Vader]

Beechdale bloxwich Leamore are probably the only decently populated Walsall FC areas I've come across (having lived in two).

Pelsall has a few but never see much Walsall related things around day to day.

[Pedagogue]

Excellent post, cookyskid. We have years of family tradition to overcome to build up our fanbase but, as you rightly say, with our "mossive" neighbours slowly fading, this is a golden opportunity to make inroads into their support. It won't happen overnight but, given the fickle nature of many modern football fans whose main allegiance is to a replica shirt and a Sky subscription, we can do it, albeit very gradually.

[WFC_Rob]

Saturday's match was a strange one - not just because we nearly surrendered a 3-0 lead, but also because I don't think we played amazingly well even when we went 3-0 up. Does anyone else agree? I'm not by any means saying we were poor, but every player was probably a 7/10 rather than anything higher - which is probably the sign of a very good side as much as anything else.

I always felt like we had an extra gear or two to shift into, but the conditions in the second half and the fact Bury were clearly given a rocket at half time made it that bit more difficult for us to grab another goal. Better decision making by Forde and Morris could have led to at least one more goal though.

One of the most pleasing things for me was Mantom's performance. Granted, he faded towards the end, but for the first hour I thought he was probably the best player on the pitch.

It was a great win, regardless. They might have slipped up recently, but they also have some handy players and a bigger budget than ours.

[Magic Man Fan]

People shouldn't be worrying about whether we or Burton could challenge in the Championship on our wages. The fact is the TV money goes through the roof next season for Championship clubs also, so we just need to get up. If we just went up, didn't spend a penny extra, but came back down the extra turnover would put us on a par with bigger clubs at this level, giving us the opportunity to go straight back up.

This works if fans are patient, as it means you can slowly consolidate at the higher level and get better outcasts to choose from and develop our own young players to a higher level, with the next (more expensive) level of academy.

The gap in quality between the Championship and League One is getting bigger all the time, and IF we can get up this year, we'll be a step closer to being on the right side of the gap.

You need a five figure crowd to at least stand a chance in the championship, which we couldn't get last time, and would struggle this time. However, like Peda says there are lots of fans of other Midlands clubs who are fed up, and can be attracted in time.

[aaaae]

Anyone got the details of the Championship deal next season?

[WarsawPact]

I read somewhere that 80%-90% of the Football League's TV income goes to the Championship clubs.

[pumajaguar]

I agree that the population of the Walsall borough needs to be taken with a pinch of salt when discussing our support. Many people who live in the borough are just as close to our more illustrious neighbors as they are to the Bescot. We've never been a well-supported club, if that's ever going to change it will take a while.

To be honest, I think West Midlands clubs in general are a bit undersupported. Compare the crowds of Villa and Birmingham to Liverpool and Everton, significantly lower even though Birmingham is a much bigger city. Although plenty of Liverpool fans are glory hunters from elsewhere I suppose.