Supporting Wolves & England aka:
“From Peterborough to Turin.”
I was too young to care about sport, I probably had a He-man or A-team figure in my hand at the time, I was in the living room and the TV happened to be on BBC’s final score (or what ever it was called at 4.45 on Saturdays back then), I was seven or eight years old, I can’t remember now but I can remember what happened. I overheard the announcer say “Wolverhampton” and my ears pricked. I knew Wolverhampton, ‘that’s that place that exists up the road here cus I’ve heard all the big people around me, who smoke and drink but assure me I shouldn’t smoke and drink, go there sometimes to work or shop in the day light, and drink and smoke in the darkness.’ I was interested. I looked over and learned my first Wolves stats – seven wins in a row, Steve Bull scored in a 1-0 win against Peterborough, and it was an away win. I don’t think I’d ever heard the words, Steve Bull, Away win or One-Nil before but I’ve heard them all thousands of times since. It’s weird how single moments can stick in your mind but this does. The memory now is faded, the audio not what it was and the image is almost black and white, but I remember it well (but it pre-dates my introduction to alcohol, late nights and weed so it’s bound to be one of the few memories I still have that are cinematic in my mind.) I stood and watched the rest of it, all of the Division Four results and stats, the Scottish leagues, the non league. I didn’t hear the name of another place I’d heard of so I was a Wolves fan. If they’d have reported on Bilston town, or Walsall, or god forbid West Bromwich Albion I’d be a different (and more scummy) bloke today (although I’m still a supporter of Bilston Town). But thankfully the dice rolled my way, two sixes, I became a Wolves fan. Not because I was dragged to Molineux to watch the team but because of a simple, single moment that lasted all of five minutes. I sometimes think that it’s this passive awakening that means I don’t hate West Brom enough. I die inside when we lose to them and I rejoice when we win, but I can’t accept hating other human beings who support WBA. They are idiots, their team is shit, but I don’t wanna beat them up or gloat, but I suppose that’s cus I know I support the better club and that’s all I need to know. Had I been ‘blooded at a bull fight’ I might feel different, but I don’t.
That season, 1986-87 saw Wolves beat Colchester in the play off semi’s but lose to the mighty Aldershot in the two-legged final. I didn’t really take any notice, my tiptop was melting… you gotta have your priorities.
The following season was awesome and set me up for season after season of disappointment for ever. Wolves won the double. OK it was a lower league double but the Fourth Division Championship and the Sherpa Van Trophy was a great achievement. You can only compete in the trophies you’re qualified for and we won 2 out of 4, the league cup and FA Cup eluded us sadly that year, it would have been nice to win the quadruple… one day soon aye? Wolves of course making two appearances at Wembley this season taking part in the Centenary festival of the football league as well as their cup success. They drew in the opening round with Everton 1-1. Robbie Dennison scoring a corker of a goal but the Wolves went on to lose on penalties. This was the first full season I’d taken notice of the club and they had silverware coming out of their arse, it was great. Not only that but topping it off my Primary school took us on a day trip to Molineux and we all got to see what a dilapidated shit hole it had become since the rules had come into law following the Bradford fire. It was awful.
1988-89 was almost groundhog season, top of the league and champions again and semi finals in the Sherpa Van, Bully had another fifty goals and for the first time in a long time 24,000 people turned out to a home game, the last home game of the season against Sheff Utd. When Steve Bull was called into the England team this season my pride in the club and the player reached levels that I’d never expected it could reach. I still find it offensive and downright ignorant when I hear people have a pop at Steve Bull playing for England. He had an eye for the goal and proved he was good enough. OK Division 3 aint top flight but more than a goal a game average speaks for itself at any professional level.
I can’t believe this link. Daily Mail Fail Again. But I think these comments from the article are spot on with their accuracy…
“Steve Bull? Having a laugh aren’t you? 4 goals in 13 games (0.3 goals a game). Ian Wright – 9 goals in 33 games (0.27 goals per game), Andy Cole 1 goal in 15 games (0.06 goals a game), or even currently Emile Heskey 7 goals in 57 games (0.12 goals a game). A little perspective huh.”
“STEVE BULL!?! ARE YOU JOKING!?! 4 Goals in 13 internationals 9 in 23 including B Team and Under 21 internationals It’s hardly Bully’s fault that he was behind Lineker in the pecking order and look at the strikers Turnip Taylor used as back up for Lineker over the next three years! Bobby Robson took Bully to Italia 90 and played him in four matches {three as sub}. If Bully is on this list then I expect to see Heskey and Defoe in the top 5 {remembering Defoes England record before this spring.”
And I think this blogger sums up what a lot of Wolves fans of my generation would say about the king that is Steve Bull.
Steve Bull made me a Wolves fan and his call into the England team made me a proud England fan too. It was amazing to see him score on his debut against Scotland and even more amazing to see him picked for the Italia 90 World Cup squad.
Bully for Wolves V Blues: One-nil down to two-one up.
Italia 90
If Steve Bull had cemented my love of football and support of Wolves I think Italia 90 was the waterproofing in the pointing and it was made all the sweeter because Steve Bull was part of the squad. After scoring over one hundred goals in two seasons Bully rightly got the chance to first represent his country and then to be part of the World Cup squad. Bobby Robson, a great manager, was no fool and his decision to take Steve Bull simply proved to everyone around the world that Bully was a great player. It’s often spoken (by morons) that the fact he never played in the top flight of English football meant he wasn’t a great player, but what measure is that? Maybe stick a great top flight player in the lower leagues for two seasons and see if they can get 100 goals. That surely would be a good measure. Bully played four times in Italia 90, three times coming on as a sub and starting the group game against Egypt.
In Group F England struggled with two opening draws with Eire and the Dutch and then scraped a 1-0 win against Egypt to win one of the tightest ever groups in World Cup history. The last 16 saw England take on Belgium and in a less than classic game England won 1-0 with a last minute of extra time goal from the always-awesome-for-England David Platt. England’s quarter final game with Cameroon is to this day still one of my most favourite England games of all time, it would be in my top five along with games like the 5-1 against Germany away and the last-minute-Beckham-freekick 2-2 with Greece. It was a great game and the first time I ever sat back after an England game and thought “That was awesome, entertaining and just all round exciting.” Five goals, three penalties, extra time, some great football, the Cameroon game was awesome. Check out the second Cameroon goal (vids below), it was a great little move and against anyone other than England I’d say deserved to win a game of football.
The semi-final against West Germany is the stuff of legend now. I don’t need to explain to you why. If you’ve happened to stumble across this blog post and have read this far you’re more than likely an England fan, certainly a football fan, and the 1-1 draw and subsequent penalties are not things I need to rake over, especially over twenty years on. We all know what happened. England lost on penalties and have largely been unlucky on penalties ever since.
An interesting little fact for me was this re: Chris Waddle’s miss. He didn’t take another penalty until Wolves met Sheffield Wednesday in an FA Cup tie at Molineux five years later. I was there at Molineux and loved it when his weak ass penalty was saved by Paul Jones, although I think John De Wolf might have put him off as he walked up to take it, but who cares. It was nice, as a Wolves and England fan, to be on the right end of a penalty shoot out for once.
The 1990 England squad is 2nd only to the 1966 England world cup winners on World Cup achievements and the best ever England team playing in the World Cup abroad. 1990 gave me a love and expectation of international football that has stayed with me since. I still love England and I still expect… probably foolishly though these days. I suppose the lust for success comes with the territory and hopefully during my lifetime England will get to lift some silverware and pay back us fans who’ve stayed with them unquestioningly (well almost) for decades.
I suppose I came to both Wolves and England at a time when they were brilliant in their respective competitions, since then I’ve continued to love the game of football but have rarely seen the silverware or the highs.
England v Cameroon Part 1:
England v Cameroon Part 2:
Bully for England v Scotland (Debut goal):
4]
Bully for England v Czechoslovakia 1:
Bully for England v Czechoslovakia 2:
Bully for England v Tunisia:
Wolves Sheff Wed FA Cup:
Nice post. If memory serves me correctly the Tunisia goal was in the last few seconds of a dire game. No England player looked like scoring. Bully was thrown on for the last few minutes and popped the ball in the net as though to say, “What was the problem? Why haven’t you lot done that fifteen times in the last eighty minutes?” However, as we see today, successive England manager after successive England manager seems incapable of picking players out of the top flight and, currently, picking players outside the top few teams. The question I’m asking and the question that’s forcing me to simply ignore England games until we get a decent manager who’s got the balls to look beyond Man U or Arsenal is this:
Why the fuck hasn’t Matt Jarvis got an England call up?
He has week in week out been tearing the arse off any defence he comes across. If only he played for Man U, eh? He’d have been in the squad for months.
It was gutting to see Graham Taylor effectively destroy Bully’s international career and then come to Wolves and destroy his playing career. Then he has the nerve to be a commentator on the radio. Yeah Taylor, what did you achieve as England manager?
But that was a great post. We’ve all got our “how we got into football” stories. Maybe they need compiling into a book?
Thanks for commenting Dave. We all love football for various reasons. I think I was born at the right time, in the right area with the right team to have these memories. If I had a one off trip in a time machine I wouldn’t go back to see dinosaurs or the renaissance or anything like that. I’d go and watch Bully put 4 past Newcastle at St James’s Park, why… because I just would. I know a lot of people think of football as a game for thugs, hooligans and idiots. But it’s a game like no other. Rugby, cricket etc great games but can’t hold up a candle to football. Football has an excitement to make your hackles rise, make you cry, make you happy, depress the fuck out of you, but like a good movie or a good book, it evokes emotions and feeling emotions just reminds us how lucky we are to be alive to feel anything at all.
I don’t want to overstate what football means, it isn’t as important as people, as family and friends, but it is a game that binds us together and offers us entertainment, delight, sadness, anger, raucous celebrating, moments of delightful-mouth-gaping-perfection and the odd bit of silverware to talk about for all time. It’s a great game and the celebs and gems (the real celebs and gems) it produces are something special and they should be celebrated, like Bully, like John Richards, Like Billy Wright, Like Stanley Cullis, and like every player who pulled on a Wolves shirt and went out to play for the club with Wolves in their heart. We are Wolves, and we are great.