Walsall book extract: The Bescot was bouncing on a special day for Viveash & Co
A new book by author Simon Turner, titled Walsall Match Of My Life, has been released featuring stories from an array of Saddlers legends. In total, 16 legends share their memories of giant killings and hard-fought promotions. Now, in a series of extracts from the book this week, the Express & Star will shine a light on some of the interesting tales found across the 320 pages. Next is Adi Viveash, who remembers the build-up to sealing promotion to the second tier in 1999...
As soon as I pulled into the car park, I could see it wasn’t going to be any ordinary game. At that time on a Saturday afternoon there would normally be around 20 people milling about, but there were hordes of fans everywhere.
I was mobbed as I walked into the stadium with my family and immediately felt the weight of the fans’ expectations. That can become a hindrance, so when I got inside, I quickly found Tom Bradley and told him how mad it was out there, warning him that it could make the younger players a bit nervous.
I do remember seeing some of them coming into the dressing room and thinking that the fans’ excitement had already started to overwhelm them a bit. But then it started to settle down, with the usual sort of jokes and banter going on. We were all trying to make it a normal match, but it wasn’t. I reckon that was the hardest part of the week for Ray and his staff: trying to play down the game when you can’t really.
I went out for the warm-up and it was obvious the Walsall fans were there to party. Oldham were down towards the bottom of the league and still had a bit to do to avoid relegation.
I remember looking at their players and they were very focused, so I knew that we had to be ready. For many of us it was the biggest game of our careers, and so we started drawing on the experience of those who had played at the highest level, such as Neil Pointon.
Then we went back to the dressing room and there was a spell when it got really quiet. Ray said his last few words, telling us to believe in the process, to remember what we had done to get to this point and that he was proud of us, whatever happened that afternoon.
It was a calming talk and he didn’t overload us with information that we didn’t need. We’d done all the hard work in the week, so there wasn’t much more that needed to be said. I then recall standing in the tunnel, waiting to go out, wondering whether it would be our day.
The atmosphere when we walked out on to the pitch was phenomenal; the best I’ve ever experienced at Walsall. I’ve been there for other games when the ground has been full, such as the game against Chelsea in the League Cup in 2015, but nothing compares to the noise the fans made that day.
I remember that it was bordering on being out of control on the terraces, but I knew it couldn’t be like that on the pitch. It didn’t help that Oldham started well, while we were a bit nervous.
About ten minutes into the game, they had a long throw-in and Andy Rammell was back defending. He won the ball, but it flicked off his head and bounced off our crossbar.
I think that was the wake-up call we all needed. It made us realise that we had to forget the euphoria in the ground; we had a job to do.
A copy of the book can be bought by visiting: www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/walsall-match-my-life.
