In the latest of his regular blog's Hillary Street-Ender takes a look back at Saturday afternoon's Sky Bet League 1 clash between Walsall and Bradford City, and amongst the various topics covered, shares his views on a less than perfect playing surface
Today sees me make my first visit to Valley Parade since 1989, during that one abysmal season we spent at what’s now Championship level before dropping back into the third division. That game remains in my memory for being the second of only two occasions on which I won the fiver on Roy Randle’s coach and little did I think at the time that it would be twenty six years before I came back. As usual I take a walk around the outside of the stadium and take a few moments to look at, and snap a couple of pictures of, the fire memorial before heading for the away end. As with Anfield’s Hillsborough memorial there isn’t a lot you can say after seeing something like that, other than to be thankful that it didn’t happen when you were there. I take my seat in the top tier of the away enclosure to find I have a bird’s eye view of what appears to be a newly-ploughed field but which is, in fact, the near penalty area. Evidently both keepers are going to have to be very careful with their kicking this afternoon and it’s probably slightly to our advantage that O’Donnell gets to keep goal on it in the first half. The rest of the pitch isn’t in much better condition and cuts up badly as the afternoon passes, we’re not talking Baseball Ground circa 1973 but by today’s standards it’s pretty bad. Bradshaw is said to have returned to fitness but hasn’t made this afternoon’s squad, maybe because Deano doesn’t want to risk someone with delicate hamstrings on such a pudding of a pitch. If so it’s probably a wise decision. City have been making the headlines in the FA Cup of late, with wins over Chelsea and Sunderland so we’ll have our work cut out to take anything from today, even allowing for our recent excellent form on the road. The move to bring in Hiwula has been proved to be a good one and without him we’d have had very little up front in recent weeks and his skill and speed off the mark go on to trouble the home back four throughout the afternoon. The same can be said for the vastly-experienced Jon Stead, a man who, in the absence of James Hanson, proves to be a handful for both O’Connor and Downing. Our preference for moving the ball around quickly and keeping possession – often doing very little with that possession – isn’t really suited to playing on a paddy field but we do okay considering we’re up against a side who’re much more used to the conditions and who appear to enjoy favour from the referee to the extent that there are times when the home crowd appear to be making his decisions for him. Normally I wouldn’t be too critical of match officials because they have an, at times, near-impossible job to do but today’s man-in-the-middle seems to be rather too reliant on the Bantam’s fans advising him. Comments like this always come across as sour grapes but you can only call things as you see them…..
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The first half is an attritional affair with little of real note to report. Hiwula gets in a shot from around the eighteen yard line but it’s a tame one straight at the keeper and an excellent run down the left from the same player see no-one in the area to take advantage of his low cross. Neither keeper has to perform any heroics but it’s very noticeable that Taylor is having a poor game and we’re perhaps fortunate that City have no-one capable of taking advantage of that. Considering that the first period is virtually free of major incident it isn’t bad to watch and we seem likely to achieve another decent result on the road. The lads attack the Ploughed Field End in the second half and we’re going to have a superb view of any Saddlers goals in the unlikely event of us getting any. We reached half-time with the game seeming destined to end in yet another goal-less draw so it comes as something of a surprise when City open the scoring a few minutes after the re-start when the ball is played in from the wing to Clarke, who thrashes a shot along the ground and just inside O’Donnell’s left-hand post, the keeper seeming to get a touch on the way. At this point we’ve not looked as though we’ll find the net but the introduction of Henry and Grimes for Taylor and Sawyers peps us up considerably and we begin to look dangerous, with a goal a stronger prospect than it has been so far. The equaliser we’ve deserved comes as we near the final fifteen minutes when a bit of trickery from Cook makes a yard of space to swing in a cross for the unmarked Hiwula to head inside the far post right in front of us and to set off some serious leaping around. I wait for an offside flag to go up but it doesn’t and subsequent viewing of match footage proves that young Jordy darted between a couple of defenders to get in there as the ball came over. He’s now knocked in three from four games and we’ll surely be trying to extend his loan until the end of the season, he also has to be in with a great chance of playing at Wembley should we do so. All things considered today’s result has to be considered a good one with a win never seriously on the cards.
If only our home form didn’t consistently hold us back.
By: Hillary Street-Ender.