By Neil Ravenscroft
May 18 2004

It's been exactly twelve months ago today (the 18th May) that I had the life changing experience of suffering from a heart attack. During the recovery period from my illness last year, I started getting terrible attacks of nostalgia, some of which were as a result of the experince and some because of old age. Late last year, I also had to go to the funeral of a very old friend, with whom I was at college, which also had an effect. I decided, along with another friend from the University days that I had kept in touch with, to try and get back in touch with as many of our class mates as possible and organise a reunion for the 30th anniversary of our graduation.

The party was last weekend, as we all (well, eleven of the thirteen I'd managed to find) gathered together at the Renaisance marriott Hotel at Mansfield, for what turned out to be a superb time, as the years just faded away.

But what has this to do with Walsall Football Club, I hear you ask? (My memory may be fading, but there's nothing wrong with my hearing).

Well, we all met together during the course of the afternoon and had a drink and a chat, before retiring to our rooms to change for dinner. As this was a posh hotel, when I put the TV on, I discovered that we had Sky Sports 1 and the game being shown at that point in time was the second division play off semi final first leg, Hartlepool versus Bristol City.

It was terrible.

It was awful.

It was one of the worst games of football I have seen for ages, if not ever.

Hartlepool, who finished sixth in the Division, seemed to have only one tactic and that was to hit it high and long to the centre forwards. The Bristol City centre halves must have finished with headaches. Bristol City at least tried to get the ball down and play, but the trouble was, they couldn't do it. It looked half paced compared with the first division and few passes seemed to find their intended target. Tinnion was till playing in midfield for them, for God's sake! Tony Rougier looked dangerous to the opposition! On top of everything else, the ref was a joke who missed at least one blatent penalty!

I know I started off this piece hinting that nostalgia lends charm to the view, but the last three year's of worth football will soon look like a golden age of flowing football (even to the Colin Lee haters), unless we get out of this Division as quickly as possible. I am now of the firm belief that the only reason for being in this Division is to get promoted out of it as soon as possible. Let's hope that Paul Merson is a roaring success in his first management job, because I won't be able to stand much of that!