Walsall vs Queen’s Park Rangers 3rd April 1948
Really like this cover, especially the claret border and the graphic in the middle. Very 40’s image but works well. The cover also provides a great deal of information -easier given that the programme is taller and broader than most (7 1/2 x 10 in). Details of the club, date and couple of local advertisements and the beginning of ‘Notes of the Week’. Oddly, however, there is no indication of who Walsall’s opponents are.
The ‘Notes of the Week’ continue onto the second page. Nowadays this match would still have had importance to Walsall but these notes by ‘Linesman’ bemoan ‘our failure to produce anything like our best form against opponents whom we might have been expected to beat’. That meant that being 9 points behind QPR, playing 2 games more and with only 2 points for a win, that there was no chance that the division’s leaders could be caught.
There are also some brief Supporters Club Notes and still space for 4 local adverts, including one for ‘Anodisers and Electro-Platers’? Answers on a postcard please.
The next page is split between and article on the club’s history, focusing on 1892-93 when the club, created out of a merger of Walsall Town and Walsall Swifts, became founder members of the Football League Division 2. The other half shows the current league table and an article on the day’s visitors.
Surrounded by the ubiquitous advertisements ranging from Car Dealers, through Butchers and Beer to the Wednesday Hippodrome (nightly 7.15 from 1 shilling), is the lineup of the teams. Only one christian name given and the team’s colours are provided in the middle rather than next the teams names.The match itself resulted in a 1-0 win for the away side with Bert Addinall scoring in front of 17872 spectators.
The Half-Time Key, to the scoreboard placed at the side of the pitch and populated by a member of the ground staff, is hemmed in by another collection of local promotions, including the intriguing information that the Co-Op will repair your boots.
Fixtures and Results for Walsall’s first team and reserves are on the next page and are again tightly constrained by adverts that advise the ‘your sending become an Investment’ at the Co-Operative Society, that the County Borough of Walsall would like you to get fit at ‘The Baths’ at reasonable charges, and Tandy’s Little Baccy Shop is the right place ‘For Service and Civility’.
