Bonser ready to hand over reins

Owner Jeff Bonser is hoping that the Hutchings-O'Connor partnership he believes can revive the Saddlers' fading fortunes will be his last appointment. In his dream scenario, he wants to have found a new owner "within the next 12 months" who will take the club he has steered for more than 20 years into a new chapter.

It could be wishful thinking. Football, especially at the sharp end of the League where the coppers are still counted, is under just as much of an economic attack as the rest of business and industry – so much so that Bonser predicts "six, possibly as many as 10" clubs will go into administration by the end of the season.

He proudly points out that none of them will be Walsall.

But finding someone to take on a club in this climate is going to tax even his instinct for survival.

Bonser, however, is adamant. He has been wearied by the bitterness and criticism from supporters, angered by malevolent whispers against his reputation. He doesn't need it any more and, if he can find a way out of it, he will.

"This club needs to move on and move away from me," he says. "I'm not stupid.

"I know the fans don't like me and don't want me here any more. I was as unpopular as Jimmy Mullen and I've reached the point where I don't need that any more.

"I don't want me or my family to be coming to games and have people confronting us or shouting abuse at us. What do I want that for at my age?

"So I am hoping that within next 12 months we can find someone to move the club on from me. If they need me to hang around and help them through the first six months then fine, I'll be more than happy to do so.

"As long as it is someone who can convince me he or she is right for the club and ready to take it on, I will be happy to step aside."

Bonser loves nothing more than to feel the sun on his back while he pursues his enthusiasm for powerboating but his club is fighting its way through a bleak winter for football and will have need for him yet.

Already the Saddlers are down by £350,000 on where they expected their income to be when the budgets were drawn up back in March and it is more than likely to get worse before it gets better.

So, with a sense of relief and renewed optimism, he has welcomed Hutchings and O'Connor in the belief they can re-invigourate the team and a support base disenchanted by the football they watched in the last year. And, says Bonser, he has "a gut feeling about this pair."

He says: "I'm very excited by this appointment. I think it's very refreshing and I know they see it as a fantastic opportunity.

"Martin wants to be a manager himself one day and I have no doubts he will achieve that ambition. But this is the most exciting appointment I have made in a long time.

"I know Chris has got tunnel vision, he can quietly handle the difficult situations that come up.

"He commands respect and he has worked with foreign players and knows how to handle them.

"That is important in our position because it is sometimes the foreign market where you can find real bargains. That's an advantage at this level. And he is so positive about the opportunity.

"His attitude from the start has been 'I want to do this job' and not worry about contracts and conditions.

"He asked me what I wanted to do about a contract and said 'why don't we do 18 months? And then I can come hammering your door down next year when we are in the play-offs!'

"And I said 'I've got no problem with that.' But he's not daft; he knows that's the reality these days. You don't go around handing out five-year contracts.

"But it's all about timing. It cropped up that Chris was out of work and we needed a new manager. I knew him from 1990, I played a significant part in getting him here then. He played the first game at Bescot and showed great leadership at that time, a very good captain who earned the respect of the dressing room.

"I knew that he knew Martin O'Connor and I put the proposal to him – how would he fancy taking on a one and two appointment with Martin? He said: 'what a great idea.'

"To have somebody like Martin, a Walsall lad through and through alongside him is terrific. It wasn't in my mind to go out and find two ex-captains, one of whom lived up the road, but it's an added bonus.

"Martin has got to prove himself with Chris, he knows that. Chris has got a lot of coaching experience but at last he has got the chance to move into a club as his own man and not picking up bits from Paul Jewell."