With the new season kicking off this weekend it seems somewhat synchronous to have found a story of a spectre wandering around the stands of Walsall FC. Back in 1996, staff at the Bescot Stadium reported seeing a boy wearing old fashioned clothes more in keeping with the styles of the early twentieth century than the approaching millennium. No comments about the sartorial elegance of Saddlers fans, or lack of, please. I share a house with two of them.

Accompanying the apparition of the lad was a series of strange events which included lights being turned on, doors being opened and things being pushed off shelves in an empty building. The commercial director at the time, Roy Whalley, had his own experience when he was sorting through post in the office and heard a crackling sound accompanied by disembodied voices, as if a radio had been switched on.

After the story on the apparition appeared in the Walsall Observer, a pensioner from the Birchills area of the town made contact with the paper to say he didn’t believe in ghosts but did remember a tragic incident near the club’s original ground at Fellows Park, about half a mile away from Bescot, involving a group of lads loitering near ground to try and get in for free. His recollection was correct. In March 1933, an inquest was held on the body of a boy who was hit by a train and thrown against a wall at Wallows Lane Bridge.

Whoever the phantom fan was, he seems to have been sent off by the prayers of the club chaplain, as there seems to have been no sightings of him since. It has made me wonder which other local stadiums might have supernatural stories to tell. Do any spirits wander Wolverhampton’s ground or is The Hawthorns haunted? Are there any fans at Villa Park lingering long after the final whistle has blown? I’d love to hear any tales you might have to tell about the boo-tiful game.

Sources

Walsall Observer, Friday, 18 October 1996

Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 11 March 1933