Football Ground Guide: Fans Ground Review, Banks's Stadium, Walsall FC

Bescot Stadium - Walsall
Saturday 11th January 2003
V Wolverhampton Wanderers, Division One 3pm
By Tim Rigby

1. Why you were looking forward to going to the ground (or not as the case may be)

I always try to get to at least one away game a month, and not accounting for any possible away draws in the FA Cup, then seeing as we only have fixtures at home for January, this was to be the one I would go to.

2. How easy was your journey/finding the ground/car parking

Walsall are our closest neighbours, and combined with local knowledge this was probably going to be the easiest trip to get to, and it proved just as much. A bus out of Wolverhampton City Centre takes 40-50 minutes to get to Walsall, and once there it was just a case of walking through the town to a connecting bus, (the 405), which was another 20 minutes straight to the ground. A word of warning if you are travelling by this route, leave Walsall Town Centre in plenty of time, we left at around about 2:30pm, and only just made it in time to see the teams coming out. Traffic around the ground is hectic, so bear this in mind.

3. What you did before the game pub/chippy.... home fans friendly?

Before the game we had a walk around Walsall, it isn't a particularly great place, shopping is average for a medium size town, and there are hardly any sights to see. Stayed there to have some chips, before coming to the match.

4. What you thought on seeing the ground, first impressions of away end then other sides of the ground

As you would expect the Bescot is hardly the best ground in the country, but it does have a 'nice' quality to it. From the outside it is small, and being on a retail park, you could quite easily mistake it for being just another warehouse! However, once inside it has a good atmosphere. The new Purple Loans stand is impressive, although it is to be noted that the executive boxes do look like the red windows you used to get in Lego! They could have designed that slightly better, but all in all it is quite good, it has a nice enclosed feel about it, despite none of the corners being filled in, my one criticism with the new stand is that it seems to have opened the ground out a bit, before, when all the stands were level, it gave a good finish to the stadium, which only further redevelopment will rectify.

As for the away end, it has nothing under the stand, instead the food outlets, and toilets are in each corner of the stand, which works quite well, because you don't seem to have the cramped conditions that you find in some grounds. We were sitting right in the front row, and open to the elements, fortunately it didn't rain, but we did have to stand up and move around throughout the second half, because it was that cold, sitting down would probably have resulted in frostbite (I'm not joking!) If you come to this ground on a cold miserable winter day, then wrap up, you will be glad of it afterwards.

5. Comment on the game itself, atmosphere, stewards, pies, toilets etc..

The game was awful, the pitch was poor, so we had trouble playing our sort of passing game, the players literally could not make a pass of more than 10 yards, and duly neither team could control the game. We won it by a goal that is sure to be on a future 'They Think Its All Over'. After a back pass, and under no pressure Walsall 'keeper Jimmy Walker went to whack it far up field, but the ball bobbled under his foot, where George Ndah managed to run around him and knock it into an empty net. The resulting chants were of 'Jimmy for Albion'! An easily forgettable win from a memorable goal!

Whilst in the ground there were very few stewards I saw, although as usual the police were out in force, but credit to them, they weren't overbearing, and that resulted in a good atmosphere between the supporters. You would expect a local derby to be full of passion, and for Walsall fans this is a big game, but we have never really treated it with the same respect, and there was no tension among the crowd that I could feel. Despite this the atmosphere was good, and for a nice change good natured as well.

The food was of a good quality, and compared to other grounds (our own included) relatively cheap. So much for cost being determined by demand, a question I wondered about was with gates of nearly three times as much how can we (and others) charge twice the amount for the same items? I'm no accountant, but shouldn't the scales of economies work the other way around?

6. Comment on getting away from the ground

Getting away from the ground was difficult. We walked up to the bus stop, but made the mistake of walking towards town, 3 buses passed us by without stopping before we decided to walk it into town. If you are going to go by buses walk down towards the M6, if you catch it further down the route you may have more luck in getting on.

7. Summary of overall thoughts of the day out.

It was quite a good trip, coming away with a win is always good, but I would recommend a trip to Walsall to anyone, and it is one I will look forward to again.

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