Those We Have Lost: Fellows Park, Walsall

In 1983, during the second leg of a League Cup semi-final against Liverpool, walls collapsed at both ends of Fellows Park. Twenty-four spectators were injured. Pictures of Graeme Souness carrying an injured youngster across the pitch were an awful harbinger of tragedies to come, a stark illustration that the ramshackle hotchpotch of timber and corrugated iron that had been Walsall FC’s home for nearly a century was becoming unfit for purpose.

Yet when chairman Ken Wheldon announced proposals three years later for a move to a new stadium, fans were unanimous in their opposition. The new ground was St Andrews, and the plan involved selling Fellows Park and moving the club to Birmingham. The outrage was such that Wheldon was ousted.

Fellows Park was home for 94 years, though it was known as Hillary Street for the first 34. The club, formed from the amalgamation of Walsall Swifts and Walsall Town in 1888, had used several locations before settling there in 1896. Even then, the tenancy was precarious; they were forced back to a previous ground for the 1900-01 season when they could not pay the rent.

The Day the Aristocrats Came to Town

For many years, the ground consisted of a small stand and a banked track. The catalyst for major improvement was an FA Cup third round tie in 1933 against Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal, arguably the greatest club side in the world. In anticipation of a bumper crowd, a roof was erected over the ‘popular side’ terracing. Decades later, another stand was simply built in front of it, creating a forest of ironwork that gave anyone at the back one of the worst views in football.

For two-thirds of its history, the ground only had three sides for spectators. The fourth, the evocatively named “Laundry End”, was simply the brick wall of Orgills Laundry. The keen mathematicians among you will have noticed that.

The directors’ investment for the Arsenal game did not pay off immediately. Having raised ticket prices, a crowd of only 11,189 turned up, just a thousand more than had watched the previous round against Mansfield. But the performance was beyond all expectation. Walsall, a club that had spent a decade shuffling between the Third Divisions North and South, faced a team of superstars. One newspaper preview painted a hysterical picture:

‘Arsenal, the Rich, the Confident, the League leaders the £30,000 aristocrats, against little Midland Third Division team that cost £69 all in. Arsenal train on ozone, brine-baths, champagne, golf and electrical massage in an atmosphere of prima donna preciousness. They own £87 worth of football boots. Walsall men eat fish and chips and drink beer, and the entire running expenses of the club this season have been £75.’

Walsall’s tactics were based on the suspicion that Arsenal’s fancy dans might not like it up ‘em. Reports refer to “very stern” tackles, which likely translates to multiple leg-breakers by modern standards. After Walsall took a shock second-half lead through Gilbert Alsop, it was Arsenal who lost their discipline. Full back Tommy Black aimed an off-the-ball kick at Alsop in the area, and Bill Sheppard converted the resulting penalty to seal a famous 2-0 victory.

From Ramsden's Helicopter to Bescot

After the Arsenal-inspired upgrades, the ground remained largely unchanged for 30 years. In 1965, a roof went over the Hillary Street End and the laundry was finally demolished for an uncovered away terrace. A few years earlier, Fellows Park had seen its record attendance of 25,453 for a Division Two match against Newcastle United. The crush was so severe the official capacity was swiftly reduced.

The fan-led removal of Ken Wheldon led to the arrival of Terry Ramsden in 1986. The flamboyant City whizzkid arrived at Fellows Park in a helicopter, promising promotion and free Christmas turkeys for every pensioner in the ground. But when the Japanese securities market crashed in 1987, so did Ramsden, and Walsall came perilously close to being wound up.

Instead, a consortium took over in 1988 and unveiled plans for a new ground. Fellows Park was sold to Morrisons for £5.75m and work began on a former sewage works adjacent to the M6. Supporters who had been shown plans for a state-of-the-art stadium were underwhelmed when the final design for the Bescot Stadium was a direct copy of Scunthorpe’s recently completed Glanford Park.

A Complicated Legacy

The deal should have brought stability. It did not.

The club somehow made a £1.68m loss on the move and went into administration less than a year after the Bescot opened. The companies set up to own the club and ground were wound up without ever filing accounts. According to Simon Inglis in Football Grounds of Britain, the £4.5 million Bescot was a poor deal compared to Scunthorpe’s ground (£2.5 million with fewer roof supports) or St Johnstone’s McDiarmid Park (£4.5 million for an all-seated stadium with cantilevered roofs). Column-free roofs would have cost only an extra £150,000. Walsall also spent £1m decontaminating the land but neglected to purchase the freehold, becoming tenants. The freehold was later bought by director Jeff Bonser, and the club has paid rent into his pension fund ever since.

This controversial history means Walsall supporters have a more complex relationship with their grounds than most. Nostalgia smooths the edges, of course. It explains fond memories of the shower of rust that fell from the Hillary Street End roof when it was pounded by enthusiastic fans, or the comically squalid open-air toilets. It may have been ugly, uncomfortable and dangerous in its dotage, but Fellows Park was theirs.