Table of Contents
The question is, why Walsall?
Many have asked me why and how I became a Walsall supporter. It is not common for a person without a local connection to become a fan of a 3rd/4th division team that no one outside the UK has ever heard about.
My story started in the latter part of the 1990s, when season manager Jan Sörensen and striker Roger Boli entered the Walsall history books.
Championship Manager to blame
I played a game on my computer called Championship Manager. Today, that game is called Football Manager. It is the most popular football management game and has probably been that way since its first version came out in the early 1990s.
I found Walsall by randomly picking a team to manage in the game. I had such success managing The Saddlers that I started to look out for their results. In the late 1990s, it was pretty hard to find information about Walsall FC since the Internet wasn’t that developed yet.
Created my website
I later got access to the Internet and started an unofficial Walsall website, which then turned out to be a blog about Walsall in Swedish. It hardly got any visitors, and I closed it down when I didn’t have time to manage it. No one else besides me was interested in reading about Walsall, mainly in Swedish.
My obsession with playing Championship Manager/Football Manager made me the Walsall supporter I am today.
Two visits so far
I’ve been to two matches so far: the first was at Wembley in 2015, and the second was at home vs. Swindon at the end of the 2021/22 season.
As the Internet has become better and faster, I’ve been able to follow matches live. First with live radio commentary, but since last season, I’ve had a Saddlers+ subscription to watch matches live. This has made it easier to see our progress on the pitch and watch in agony when things haven’t gone as we wished.
Thank you for reading this post. To support this blog’s upkeep, you can donate via the donation form.
You can also support me by buying me a virtual drink at buymeacoffee.com.