NEXT month its 20 years since Walsall Football Club moved into Bescot Stadium.
Aston Villa provided the opposition on Saturday, August 18th 1990 as the legendary Stanley Matthews declared the stadium officially open.
A lot has happened since then and the past two decades have produced one of the most colourful periods in the history of the club.
We will be charting the past 20 years in a book to be published this Autumn, but on Tuesday evening for our pre-season friendly against Villa, we have a number of former Saddlers players who appeared in that first-ever game here as guests of the club where they will enjoy the full VIP treatment before being introduced onto the pitch as part of the half-time entertainment.
Leading out Walsall that day was the aptly-named, Peter Skipper, a no-nonsense central defender who joined the club in July 1989 from Oldham Athletic and went on to make 81 League appearances before joining Wrexham in September 1991. He is travelling down from Hull to be here.
The experienced Kenny Mower had been with the club since 1976 and was a firm favourite amongst both players and supporters alike. 1990/91 was to be his last season with the club before he drifted into the local non-League scene having made almost 500 appearances. He will be here with another popular former player who is still based locally, Ron Green.
Green shared the goalkeeping duties with the colourful Fred Barber in that first game during what was his second spell with the club.
Current Saddlers' Head of Youth, Dean Smith was still a teenager back in the summer of 1990, but he had already captained the Walsall side. He was a second half substitute against his beloved Villa, coming on in place of rugged Scot, Graeme Forbes.
Joining Smith here this evening is another Villa fan in the Walsall side that day, Martin Goldsmith. A prolific scorer whilst coming through the ranks, big things were expected of him but sadly injury was to end his professional career a couple of years later.
We will also have midfield man, John Kelly with us. Kelly is currently based in Ellesmere Port and hasn't been back to Bescot since he departed the club in 1991.
As well as those listed above, manager, Chris Hutchings also appeared in that first-ever game, however, we expect him to be somewhat otherwise engaged during the half-time interval!
