Name: Robert
Davies
Age: 30ish
Lives: Walsall
Fan Since: Mid to
late Nineties
What have been your best memories as a Saddler? They have to be the ‘Sir Ray Years’ from
1998 to 2002. A great keeper, solid defence, a rigid 4-4-2, scrapping
midfielders, overlapping full-backs, crosses into the box and a big man upfront.
Happy days. He took us from favourites to go down, to promotion – even
finishing above Manchester City in the league. After being relegated on the
last day a season later, he then took us up again – via the play-offs and an
amazing day at Cardiff.
It’s been a long time since we beat you 2-1 at Walsall in August. How
have things gone for you since then? We have
had some great away day victories over the likes of MK Dons, Doncaster,
Fleetwood and others. Unfortunately, we have recently been awful at home so
those victories haven’t been consolidated with three points from our home
fixtures. We are an inconsistent team,
that struggles to score goals and plays pretty, un-penetrating football in a
poor league (discounting the top five) that has been lifted by a great run to the
JPT Final at Wembley.
And of course, you have a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final against our
rivals Bristol City to look forward to. What are your thoughts on that? As it’s
the first time Walsall has been to Wembley it is a great novelty. With over
25,000 tickets already sold we are looking forward to a great day out. The
result of the final isn’t a great concern to me as it is just good to finally
put that hoodoo of never having been to Wembley behind us. It’s just a shame
that we don’t get more fans come to see more of the bread and butter league
games.
How do you think the season will turn out for both of our clubs? It
doesn’t look good for Yeovil at the bottom. I haven’t seen you play this season
though so I won’t make any criticism of the club apart from that it’s a
terrible place to get to on public transport. I fancy Walsall to have a bad run
(and we have quite a few under our current manager) as the season will peter
out after the JPT Final. We won’t go down though; we will finish a miserable 18th.
If you could buy one other Football League player, who would you buy and
why?
I would bring back Jamie Paterson from
Nottingham Forest who we sold for approximately £1million in 2013. He came
through the youth ranks at Walsall and matured into a cracking left-winger with
pace, a bag of skills and tricks, crossing ability and a goal-scoring knack. It
was great to watch his game develop and if he came back he would be able to
continue the excellent partnership he had with our current left-back, Andy
Taylor.
Finally, please name your all time best Walsall XI.
4-4-2
GK Jimmy
Walker
RB Wayne
Evans
LB Gino
Padula
CB Ian
Roper
CB Adrian
Viveash ©
RM John
Hodge
CM Vinny
Samways
CM Gabby
Bukran
LM Pedro
Matias
CF Jorge
Leitao
CF Andy
Rammell
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