Walsall blog: 24/04/1999

Saturday 24 April 1999 will forever stick in the mind of Walsall fans as blogger Mark Jones recalls the promotion season.

It's no secret that 1998/99 is my all-time favourite season as a Walsall fan - I might have mentioned it once or twice.

We started as favourites for relegation and ended up gaining automatic promotion.

Ray Graydon had no previous managerial experience, although he was a well-respected and successful coach, but ended up as runner-up to treble-winning Sir Alex Ferguson in the Manager of the Year Awards.

We had no idea that the appointment of Graydon the previous summer would usher in a new era for the mighty Saddlers.

The collection of free transfers, youngsters, trialists and - if I'm honest - other people's cast-offs that made up the squad that kicked off in August became a real team with character and characters which never knew when they were beaten.

Match by match the side seemed to grow in stature, every time you thought that we were about to dip in form, we would come back stronger.

On Saturday 24 April 1999, a season's work came to fruition perfectly.

To backtrack just a bit, there was no question we were up against the money men that year.

There was mega-rich Fulham, managed by Kevin Keegan, out of sight at the top of the table, with reasonably well-off Preston managed by David Moyes our main rivals for the second spot for most of the Spring.

Manchester City were the division's big boys playing catch-up, after a 'too big for this league' start.

Tony Pulis' Gillingham had spent quite heavily and were not too far behind. Bournemouth, fresh from an annoying Wembley appearance and with the irritating Mark Stein and Roger Boli to boot, were in the mix too.

Then there was Wigan just beginning to splash Dave Whelan's cash, whilst John Madjeski's Reading were nowhere.

The Clayheads had spectacularly and amusingly blown up after a beating at the Bescot in December.

If you stopped to think about it, we shouldn't have been anywhere near the top - but money couldn't possibly buy what we had.

We had Andy Rammell, Adrian Viveash, Neil Pointon, Darren Wrack, Chris Marsh, Super Jimmy Walker, Dean Keates, Ian Roper, bags of attitude and a certain Mr Graydon.

Going in to April, Preston started to wobble and we pounced.

A routine win over couldn't-be-arsed Blackpool, the tannoy announcer wished us all the best in our tussle with their rivals North End.

This was followed by a mighty - and mighty fine night out after - a home win over Wrexham that put us second.

We went down to a Lomano Lua Lua goal at Colchester but bounced back with a textbook win at Bournemouth three days later.

A stunning Wrack strike, after a run from the half way line, early on and then yet another clean sheet gave us the three points.

The thing was that season, even though the Southern nancies had a right go that night, you were always supremely confident that we were capable of taking whatever other teams could throw at us.

Therefore if we scored one there was a good chance we'd win, so the fact that only 'Rambo' and 'Wracky' reached double figures for goals was never an issue.

We beat Macclesfield - complete with future Saddler Pedro Matias - the following Saturday, meaning we needed eight points from five games to clinch promotion.

Preston were now so far behind that even a midweek defeat at Deepdale, complete with the obligatory Jason Brissett sending off, couldn't take things out of our hands.

The big problem now was Joe Royle's Manc City who were on a roll and had winnable final games.

So to relegation-threatened and rain-soaked Lincoln: -

Call it tradition, superstition or thirst but that season I never saw a kick-off at an away game. At five to three someone always had to go and get another round in, before we set off to the ground.

On that day the pub turned out to be further from Sincil Bank than first thought, so we arrived midway through the first half to be told that Man City were losing at home to lowly Wycombe.

'Yeah right' and 'course they are' were the general responses. But upon finding a genuinely reliable source, we found that not only was this true but they'd just gone two down.

This was our moment - all we had to do was survive the long ball onslaught from ex-dingle Shane Westley's mob, notch one and we were home and dry(ish).

Despite having Ian Roper knocked out - Sir Ray joked afterwards 'we asked him what day it was, he said Thursday, so we knew he was ok!'- the defence were magnificent again and it was just a case of grab the inevitable chance when the chance came.

Sure enough late on it did.

Unusually, for no apparent reason, Darren Wrack was switched to the left flank. As if by magic, he was in the right place at the right time to latch on to a through ball just outside the box.

It was one of those moments where you suddenly realise your man is in front of the defender and that he's gonna be able to take it round the on-rushing keeper.

Then with the goal gaping in front of him, Daza decided to play games with the expectant but extremely anxious away following.

As a thousand plus Saddlers screamed 'HIT IT', he switched the ball onto his right foot, then took another touch, before finally, after about three hours and with what seemed like the entire Lincoln team descending on either him or the goal line, he caressed the ball into the back of the net. It was a truly beautiful goal.

Cue pandemonium behind the goal.

Naturally the final whistle took a week and half to arrive and the Mancs had pulled one goal back, but but we held on once more and they floundered.

Frantic phone conversations back to god's own metropolitan borough went something along the lines of 'losing 2-1 still, bet there's 17 minutes of injury time.'

'No, they've shown footage of their players trudging off the pitch, they've definitely lost!' confirmed this.

We had needed eight points from four games, we now needed five from three - except that we didn't. The collective moment when, seemingly simultaneously, everyone realised that Man City's defeat and dropped points for Preston meant we needed two from three, was magnificent.

Even Walsall couldn't mess that one up.

The promotion clinching win against Oldham the following week was special, as were the parties against Fulham and the beer-stains at Stoke - you had to be there.

But Lincoln was where it all became a reality.

The feeling at the end of that game was amazing, we knew we could and would go up the following week, it was job almost done.

The players on the pitch had played with the same attitude as us, we had a fantastic manager and it felt as though we'd done it together.

Most importantly of all, we deserved it.

What a day. What a season. What a promotion.