September 8th – I had to take a short cut across Church Hill in Walsall on my way back and as I passed St Micheals Church in Caldmore, I remembered it had a curious feature: A football perfectly wedged in the wrought iron cross on the roof.
Legend has it it’s been there for years, and bounced into it’s trap off the opposite wall.
Glad to see it was never removed. You can find out more about this little oddity here.
August 16th – Another delight of the season, that frustratingly I couldn’t harvest: Giant puffballs on the patch of fenced off grass used as an occasional football pitch right in central Walsall between Smiths Flour Mill and the turn off the ring road for Birchills.
These are about the size of a football, and are pure white and lovely to eat. There were about 14 in total over the field, but due to the gates being locked, they were beyond the range of my frying pan.
Nice to see these huge fungi though, looking for all the world like alien eggs.
March 11th – Quick photos grabbed in passing on a desperately murky evening, but there’s no mistaking the recently relocated, civically vandalised Walsall hippo. Now outside the library, publicity wonks working at the council decided it would be a bit of free and easy publicity to paint the concrete kiboko in a Walsall football strip to cash in on – sorry, celebrate – the recent success of Walsall Football Team, a sporting enterprise that in former, less successful times, was untroubled by civic attention.
The wonks this post prandial brainwave surely was – whose previous contact with paint technology is probably limited to spare rooms and nails – assure all and sundry the paint will wash off (presumably when sporting fortunes return to normal and disassociation is necessary) and that the stunt – sponsored by an unholy amalgam of tattoo parlour and home insurance company – is all in good taste.
Of course, seeing a football fan on the streets of Walsall, resplendent girth barely contained by team shirt is not unusual, and the footballing hippo is very representative, even more at home like this. But cast from cheap concrete worn porous with age, it’ll take some effort to expunge him from the red peril he finds himself in.
Of course, the duality of the civic position that graffiti is wrong has gone unnoticed, and it’s odd to see the insurance people back off the naughty step, but hey, this is Walsall.
And no, this sculpture has never been called ‘hoppy’ by anyone I’ve met, despite apparent attempts by the burghers to convince us otherwise.
Good luck to The Saddlers, though…
September 6th – The sadness of things. Spotted on CLayhanger Common. A lost football, trapped in a bramble thicket. Too large to reach over, to prickly to brave climbing in. Play suspended…
Decmber 5th – Almost as ingrained in the life of Walsall Wood as the Drunken Duck are Oak Park and Walsall Wood Football Club. Nowadays, the old Oak Park – a collection of outdoor bowling greens, tennis courts and suchlike – is largely neglected and forgotten; the name is mostly associated with the adjacent, crumbling recreation centre, well used but nearing the end of it’s useful life. Out back is the all weather football pitch, a heavily used facility that speaks of the area’s love affair with soccer. Tonight, it was in use, with local football players training for the next big match. They looked cold. That’s dedication…
March 17th – A recovery ride. I had to do some bits and pieces in Lichfield, which was a good opportunity to spin the aching legs. Surprisingly, they were quite fluid once I got moving. The weather was rather grim and Lichfield as quiet as I’d come to expect it lately. It really is starting to give the feeling of a place half asleep. It was in Breadmarket street that I noticed this; it must have been a really, really unlucky shot, speared neatly on a pigeon spike. That’s gotta hurt… I bet the prize striker got a ribbing for it.
January 9th – Walsall Wood’s attachment to football is deep and ongoing. Home to a popular local club, the outdoor all-weather pitch provided by the council at Oak Park is also very, very popular. This is a great facility, and the floodlights can be seen for miles around. On nights like tonight – returning from the deepest Black Country on a dark night – the hubbub and cries of the players let me know I’m not far from Home.
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