Express & Star

Saddlers Social: Walsall fans have their say

Walsall fans have their say on the latest week at the Banks's Stadium

Published

Richard Kendrick

Being associated with Walsall FC is a perpetual circle, going around and around with nothing changing. We’re in the same place we were 10 years ago.

The board will argue fans only object when results are poor, after all, no-one wanted to protest in September when we were winning with the same group of players.

Being brutally honest, we are a League Two club in every facet. The budget, player’s wages, attendances, quality of ground, atmosphere and attitude towards ‘customers.’

That’s what fans aren’t happy about. You can’t keep running the club in this way before it eventually catches up with you. Understandably, the board want to run it as a sensible business, but ironically, they are in danger of ruining their own ‘product’.

Here’s the Catch-22 situation we always find ourselves in: 1000 more fans attending each home game would add nearly £400,000 (a familiar figure to WFC fans) to the budget each season.

If that happened and we still paid the lowest wages in the division, then we would certainly have every right to protest.

But 1000 extra fans won’t turn up if the football is poor, the facilities are shoddy, the attitude towards ‘customers’ is slack and the cost of tickets doesn’t represent value for money.

Too many ardent supporters are now deciding they are not bothered about attending anymore and every person who decides that now means two or three people in the next generation don’t become our fans of the future.

The solution? Sort out the facilities, invest in the team, make people want to attend each week and those 1000 fans might start turning up. Not just now, but in generations to come.

But we can’t invest in any of the above as apparently, we don’t have the money; not enough fans turn up. The fans will blame the board, the board will shrug their shoulders. You can see the issue here can’t you? So we keep going around and around and around.....

Nick Etheridge

Where to start? Things don't look good on the pitch following the poor performance against Scunthorpe.

We looked bereft of ideas going forward (other than to lump it forward to ANdy Cook), and were lacking in both ability and concentration at the back. Worryingly, it's far from the first time that's happened.

Off the field, things look even worse, with fans as out of touch with the club as they have ever been.

Take the new "Fanzone" for example. Rather than ask the opinion of what their customers want, the board have seemingly decided to install a creche without any indication of it's worthiness or relevancy.

On one hand, at least they are trying new schemes, but without finding out what exactly us, the fans want, they will continue to make the gap between us bigger.

Kevin Paddock

Another week, another defeat and as I write this, another week of no signings. It really is depressing at the minute being a Walsall fan. Our defeat against fellow relegation rivals Scunthorpe just typifies the situation.

They’re on the up, full of confidence and have added four new players, yet we are heading down the league faster than you can say Bonser Out! Fans are annoyed and following the departures of Russell Martin and Jack Fitzwater the squad is worryingly small.

It’s now you need that momentum and without it and without new additions it’s going to be a long few months. I wouldn’t begrudge Dean Keates if he just walked away from this mess. He shouldn’t let his legendary status be tarnished because of those on the board.

Dan Gilbert

It's beginning to look like last season all over again isn't it? We can't buy a win, performances are pretty dire and there are a host of off-field issues as well.

The club can't do much right at the moment and the decision makers at the top are somehow performing worse than our defenders.

That's what I'm going to focus on. A friend of mine recently wrote a letter to Stefan Gamble about a whole range of issues at the club.

The response just wasn't good enough, it just didn't grasp that there are real problems at the football club. The club's expertise is in business, which is why the football side of this club is being neglected for 'The Venue'.

If regular visitors of 'The Venue' and it's events were as unhappy as us fans, do you really think things would remain as they are?

I'm hoping that someone at WFC reads this, it isn't me having a go for no reason. We just want the best for our club, we want to go to our hobby which we work all week for, looking forward to it and we want to enjoy it and feel as though you are thankful for our support.

We want to feel the club cares about us as much as we care about the club.