Albert Adomah Reaches 800 Games Milestone with Walsall Victory

Albert Adomah has never been one for fuss. Which is just as well, because 800 games is the sort of number that usually drags the spotlight towards you whether you like it or not.

On Saturday, at the Bescot, the light found him again.

The 38-year-old winger quietly ticked off his 800th senior appearance as Walsall beat Port Vale 2-0, a result that lifted Lee Grant’s side to second in League Two, tucked in behind leaders Barnet. Fitting, really. That is where the story started for him in January 2008.

Ask Adomah about the milestone, though, and he quickly steers the conversation elsewhere. To Andy Dallas, for a start.

All he really wanted to rave about was the quality of Dallas’ clinching second goal and the fact that Walsall, after two failed promotion pushes, are properly in the mix again.

"I'm just grateful that the manager made it possible by still having me on the bench and is still using me," he told BBC Radio WM, sounding exactly like the team man he has always been.

This was only his fifth outing of the season, four of them from the bench. The London-born Ghana international, who went to the 2014 World Cup, still refuses to talk about his career in grand terms, or to map out some grand farewell tour.

"What is my next target? 801 games," he said. "That is the next landmark.

"I really just take it one game by game. It's about the team first - and me staying fit enough to get as many minutes as possible.

"My job is just to stay available - and hopefully long may this journey continue."

That mindset has carried him from non-league obscurity to a World Cup and back again, with barely a pause. It began in earnest when Paul Fairclough handed him his Barnet debut at Hereford’s old Edgar Street ground in January 2008.

"I remember that first game vividly. Hereford United v Barnet. Also in League Two. And I scored."

That was the first of 99 league goals in a career total of 109. Another quiet target, perhaps, sits there in the background.

Nearly 19 years on, Adomah is working under Grant at Walsall. Grant is boss number 21. The roll call in between reads like a tour of English football’s dugouts.

At Barnet he played for Ian Hendon and Mark Stimson before Bristol City came calling. At Ashton Gate, Steve Coppell signed him but quit after two games, leaving Adomah to work under Keith Millen, current Rangers manager Derek McInnes and then Sean O'Driscoll.

Middlesbrough followed. Tony Mowbray brought him in, Aitor Karanka took over and it was at Boro that Adomah finally touched the Premier League, making two top-flight appearances before dropping back into the Championship.

Aston Villa were next. Roberto Di Matteo signed him, Steve Bruce and Dean Smith also used him, but he left without adding to those two Premier League outings, heading instead to Nottingham Forest for more Championship football under Sabri Lamouchi. There was a nine-game loan stint with Neil Harris at Cardiff City in the middle of that spell.

When Forest and Lamouchi parted ways in October 2020 during the Covid pandemic, Adomah’s path led to QPR. Four more years in the Championship, four more managers: Mark Warburton, Michael Beale, Neil Critchley, Gareth Ainsworth and Marti Cifuentes.

Then came another turn. Back to League Two with Walsall under Mat Sadler, then a spell with Darren Byfield involved in the set-up, and now Grant.

Eight hundred games. None in League One. None in the National League. Just the grind of tiers two and four, plus those two Premier League cameos that flash by almost as a footnote.

And still, he buzzes off it.

Even on Saturday, he found a way to leave a fingerprint on the match. The second goal that killed off Port Vale came from all three Walsall substitutes combining, with Adomah involved in the build-up – the modern “pre-assist” that coaches talk about.

"It was just a nice combination-play down the right between Chas (Crew) and myself - and a wonderful finish by Dallo. He took it really well. Once it left his foot you could see it flying in.

"But really it's just amazing to win. And in front of our supporters too. Just like I did in that first game for Barnet."

From Edgar Street to the Bescot, from Barnet to Walsall, from game one to game 800, the details have changed. The attitude has not. The question now is how many more chapters this unlikely 800-game story still has left to write.