Final whistle for Walsall FC's Roy Whalley

And the 66-year-old was today heralding the dawn of a new era after leaving the Banks's Stadium, a venue he played a huge role in helping to develop, for the final time as a full-time employee of Walsall Football Club.

Whalley retired yesterday as the club's commercial director, the role as he held for the past three years after stepping down as chief executive, closing the book on 27 years at the sharp end of life with the Saddlers.

Over that time his impact has been felt not only at the Banks's but in the town. He leaves with club on a financially sound footing and, as he says, respected throughout the game as a 'model' for how clubs should be run.

But it was all very different back in 1986 when Whalley, already a well-known figure through his teaching job at Manor High school, was offered the role of club secretary on the steps of the Town Hall by new club chairman Terry Ramsden.

Whalley had just completed a masters degree in teaching, spent a year as deputy head, his career prospects good.

By complete contrast, Walsall had spent the decade lurching from one crisis to the next and their prospects were at best uncertain.

For Whalley, the choice was obvious.

"I always say it was an easy decision to make, but a difficult one to live with for a while," says Whalley.

"Teaching was very safe job and I'd got a family too. To move from that very safe position with a bright future, to football, which was just about the most unsafe profession around, really it was madness. But I always think had I not taken the opportunity I would have looked back and thought if only?

"I have done things I would never have done, I have met people I would never have met and I have been to places I would never have been had I not been in football.

"I think I have been able to achieve more and influence things more than I ever could in education. Yes it was a big gamble but I have never really regretted it."

At the time he accepted the job, Whalley was already a well-known figure at the club's then home of Fellows Park, having played a prominent role in the Save Walsall campaign. A fan since attending his first game in 1955 at the age of seven, he suddenly found himself thrust into the 100mph world of football administration, whisked away to a board meeting in Kent by helicopter on his second day, 'a big thing at the time' as he recalls.

The first five years would be the hardest. Within months Ramsden had been crippled by the stock market collapse and the club was once again facing up to crisis and losing up to £10,000 a week.

That they came through it, finally making the move from Fellows Park to the Banks's Stadium in 1990, was in no small part down to the efforts of Whalley who grafted under the new board headed by Barrie Blower and Jeff Bonser.

Whalley has been the driving force behind the club's rapid commercial growth, with the club now home seven days a week to conferences, boxing shows and all manner of other events bringing commerce into Walsall.

One his proudest achievements was establishing the Sunday market at Bescot Stadium in 1992 after a lengthy campaign.

Whalley has experienced both the highs and lows on the pitch, with the team promoted and relegated five teams over his 27 years.

Even though he may have marked the end of his full-time involvement, he will still have a presence after accepting a position on the board.

And of course, he would never miss his beloved team play. He said: "This hasn't been a job, it's been a mission. All you can hope to do is leave the organisation a little bit better off than when you found it. I'd like to think I've played my part."