Author: chris.cox

Phil Harris is a life long Wolves fan of Welsh descent, and long time member of the DDCWWFCSC here is his sentimental view of Wolves and us…..

Prior to 1975 I was a “lone Wolf” – attending matches at Molineux on my own – travelling up to Wolverhampton High Level Station by train from Machynlleth in Mid-Wales – or sometimes by car with a Mr.John Kealing – a Wolves Season Ticket Holder – who lived in nearby Aberdovey.

I used to stand in the Waterloo Road Stand initially – when aged 14, 15, 16 & 17 but then I “plucked up courage” & went to stand in the “North Bank” – with the “real hard core” supporters.

It was there that I noticed an “Ozzy Osborne” look-a-like – who used to fill in a note book at the end of every match – preceded by a roaring utterance: “Votes!! Can I have your votes, please?” – to which a number of people in the area would respond with answers like “Richards” or “Dougan” or “Kindon” etc. (Does anyone remember Kindon? He’d hit 50 yard passes to himself!!)

Then one day – we were away to WBA – and I went to this match as well – travelling up from Mid-Wales – without a match ticket. To my surprise (naive) it was not possible to buy a ticket on the day – so I was wandering around looking for someone to sell me a ticket – when I espied the “Ozzy” look-a-like!

I approached him cautiously – because you had to be careful at football matches in those days – and enquired if he had a spare ticket? He did – and he asked me if I attended matches often? I told him I did – and how I often saw him in the “North Bank” – collecting “Votes” at the end of each game.

“You’ll have to join our club then, the DDCWWFCSC!”, exclaimed “Ozzy” – who I later learnt was “Chris Cox” – AKA “Coxy” – and so I did!

I joined the DDCWWFCSC – at WBA (shit) – in 1975 – and the rest is history!

And it has been a very pleasant history indeed!

Through the DDCWWFCSC I came to know many of the others who stood at that part of the North Bank in the 1975/1976 season and onwards.

For example, to name but a few, a rather tall, “Robert Plant (of Led Zep) look-a-like” – known as “Light House” – or “House” for short! (Robert Clarke.)

A scraggy lean featured chap from Leamington Spa – known as “Scarecrow”. (Ian Jennings.) Simon “Clough” Yates; Steve Yardley; Darren; Rod Ireland; etc, etc.

And “Trish”, from Flore – near Northampton.

I was doing my A-levels that year – and not very well – so a bit like Wolves I had a bad season in 1975/1976. Wolves being relegated to Division 2, and me being “relegated” from having a University Place at Leicester – chosen because it was in the Midlands – to a HND place at the Polytechnic of Wales in Pontypridd.

The following year was a successful one – and I followed the Wolves avidly – even though I was based in Pontypridd. I was a “poor impoverished student” so I didn’t have a car – so I used to hitch-hike to matches – heading down the A470 to Cardiff to start the trips – then along the M4 – to the A449 – then up the M50 – to the M5 and onwards into Wolves – via Dudley.

It was OK getting to matches on a Saturday afternoon – but hitch-hiking BACK after a match was hopeless – so I would often end up staying the night at the home of “Lighthouse”. Rob would give up his bed for me – and I later learnt that his Mum, Molly, since deceased, used to give up her Sunday Dinner to see me well fed before I hitch hiked back to Pontypridd on the ensuing Sunday in daylight.

We had a good season that year – finishing as Champions when we secured a 1-1 draw at home against Chelsea – who thus themselves finished 2^nd – in what was match 41 of 42 for us both – thus the penultimate match of the season.

It was a nice parallel when we went to Barnsley (Away) in our penultimate match 45 of the 2008/2009 season and became Champions with a 1-1 draw – before adding another 1-0 win in match 46 – at Home to Doncaster Rovers.

After getting my HND in Computer Studies 1978-79 I had to decide where to get work – and being a Wolves Fan – I plumped for the Midlands – and ended up getting a job in Coventry, with GEC Telecomms.

Suddenly, attending Wolves matches was easy! With a West Midlands Passenger Travelling Executive (WMPTE) Card you could travel anywhere in the region – and Coventry was at one end of the West Midlands – and Wolves the other!

Being a member of the DDCWWFCSC meant I actually got to go to all sorts of matches easily, and I even got to drink in the DDC itself – and meet the owner – Mr.Birch, his wife Paula, and her “special friend” Tiffy Lodge!

Our successful run in the League Cup of 1979/1980 saw me going to our Away matches at QPR, Grimsby (A Replay) and Swindon Town (Semi-Final 2^nd Leg), and of course the Final itself at Wembley in 1980 against the current European Champions, Nottingham Forest – which we won 1-0 – thanks to a goal by a certain Andy Gray, now famous for his SKY Sports TV Commentary.

For the Swindon Town Away Trip – Scarecrow & Lighthouse found it hilarious that I woke someone up to ask them if they were going to eat their sandwiches, but I could tell the person wasn’t, so thought I could give them a good home.

Every year there would be a DDCWWFCSCAD (DDCWWFCSC Annual Dinner) – and these events were often attended by the players as well!

Thus a “lone Wolf” from Mid-Wales found himself able to meet, talk with, and even have a photograph taken with John Richards & Ken Hibbitt, or Willie Carr.

At some of the more special DDCWWFCSCADs – there were guests like Steve Bull, Sir Jack Hayward, and still the old stalwarts – John Richards & Willie Carr.

On one occasion I was sat next to a Wolves Ex-Manager, Bill McGary – now in his dotage – and looking a little frail – so I asked him: “Are you sure you can eat all those potatoes?” – which was at the time – and has been ever since – a source of great merriment & ridicule to my DDCWWFCSC chums!

Clive is a member of the DDCWWFCSC, author of the Wolves book ‘Those were the Days’ and a Headmaster of a school in Worcestershire. In his words this is…….

What Wolves mean to me…

Saturday, 18^th April 2009 was of course the day that Wolves overcame Queens Park Rangers to secure promotion back to the Premier League. Important and exhilarating though this result was, that day was exactly a year since my mother died and that synchronicity reminded me why Wolves mean so much to me.

Mom and dad, both sadly now passed away, are the reasons why Wolves mean so much to me. It is a family thing where my love for the club is inextricably linked with precious family memories. It is through Wolves matches that I remember certain dates and events. I am reminded of the things outlined below and much, much more:

• Dad’s scrapbook as a sixteen year old of the glorious 1949 F A Cup winning campaign, with its yellowing press cuttings that chart the route to Wembley;
• Mom and dad spending much of their courting time on the train between Brierley Hill and Low Level stations and on the South Bank in the glory years of the fifties;
• March 20^th 1965 and my first Wolves match, watching from the Molineux Street stand in a fog of pipe tobacco and the sounds of John Philip Souser marches. Although Andy Beattie’s team overcame Stoke 3-1, we were ultimately relegated;
• Memories of the 1966-67 promotion season, parking up in Oaks Crescent and frequenting a little café in Chapel Ash before the match.
• Being raised up behind one of the South Bank’s great concrete exits on dad’s home made wooden box. I saw the home debut of a hero as the Doog scored a hat trick against Hull City on 25^th March 1967;
• Arguing in the car with my sister on the way to my first Wolves away game. It was at Hillsborough on 30^th September 1967 as we secured a 2-2 draw on the birthdays of Alun Evans and Peter Knowles;
• Boxing Day 1970 and a 2-0 Doog inspired win over reigning champions Everton in the snow. We kept warm on the South Bank sharing coffee that was heavily laden with whisky with the local police.
• March 2^nd 1974 and the joy of a trophy at last. Not only were mom and dad there, but also my granddad (a spectator in 1949 and 1960), almost unable to believe that we were back in the big time;
• The heartbreak of relegation at the hands of Liverpool in May 1977, but me and a group of university mates being consoled and put up for the night by mom and dad;
• Despair at the almost incomprehensible decline of the mid-eighties and the joy of the Bully led renaissance. A time that coincided with marriage and the birth of our two children;
• In turn having the opportunity to introduce my own children to the Wolves and the joy of continuing the family tradition;
• Having to say goodbye to mom and dad just as things at Molineux were beginning to look up – truly out of darkness..

These are just some examples of what Wolves mean to me.

John Richards writes….

Interesting challenge from the chairman – just do a piece about ‘what Wolves means to me’, that should be easy enough.

My first attempt was all about when I first came to Wolves, but it was becoming a familiar and much repeated story of my time at Molineux, so I scrapped that approach, and thought about it a bit more personally. 

my involvement with Wolves, has given me some genuine friendships which will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Great times, great pals, adventures, hilarious coach journeys, going on a plane for the first time, visiting undreamed of places, the thrill of preparing for a match. In a nutshell, it means memories that no amount of money could buy.

Great times, you might be surprised to learn, are not match related, but are all about the camaraderie within the dressing room, the banter, the characters, getting to know people on tours – people such as John Ireland (my first chairman at Wolves) who ‘fathered’ the players like they were his own sons; the entertainers such as Hughie Curran and Doog, who could both warble a more than passable song; the comedians such as Steve Kindon and Steve Daley (hardly surprising that both are now top rated after dinner speakers); and the rogues (who will remain unnamed) who did their best, not always intentionally, to disrupt the dynamics of the team and the dressing room.

I count myself fortunate that I was in era when a successful team was based on a core of players who stayed with the club for a decent length of time. There was enough time to build genuine friendships. Of the team in the early seventies, I would say that probably seven or eight of them stayed with the club for ten years or more. And I know Wolves wasn’t unique in that respect, it was the norm at other clubs as well. I don’t know what today’s statistics are, but I can’t believe that any team has that number of players staying together for five years never mind ten.

Football, and mainly as a result of my involvement with Wolves, has given me some genuine friendships which will remain with me for the rest of my life. Some of the friends still live locally, but there are others who live in various parts of the country. Even though we may not see each other on a regular basis, these are people who I know would drop everything to be here if I ever needed any help. I count myself very fortunate to be in such a position.

Coach journeys to and from away games were always great fun with Sid Kipping as our unforgettable driver. Big and mischievous, he achieved legendary status by trapping Bill McGarry’s head in the automatic closing door and by driving over his suitcase as we embarked on an overseas trip. At mealtimes it was easy to convince the hotel staff that the immaculately attired Sid was the club chairman. As such, they made a fuss of him and he got served ahead of everyone else – he made a token effort to deny his position, but gladly accepted the attention he was given – he was a gem.

Zambia was the destination for the youth team tour in 1970 – my first time on a plane, my first trip to a foreign country and my first visit to a different continent. I was 19 – my youngest granddaughter, who is two, has already passed those milestones! The trip was a real eye-opener. We stayed with families, ex-pats working in the copper industry and, other than when we went to training and matches, that’s where we were advised to remain, for our own safety. We played against lads in bare feet who could kick the ball harder than most of us and, in the shanty towns surrounding the prosperous areas, I saw a level of poverty I could never have imagined. Difficult though it was, for many reasons, I would say it was the most memorable of all my trips abroad.

Of course, there were many more trips to follow, to some fantastic places and even to countries which were, at the time, restricted. East Germany stood out, our UEFA Cup game against Carl Zeiss of Jena. After going through the checkpoint between West and East Berlin, we were suddenly in a world where there seemed to be almost as many gun-carrying police as there were normal citizens. I can’t say I ever felt frightened in any way, but it was strange to have armed officers stationed around the pitch during the game.

I could carry on – there are so many things that have happened to me or that I have been involved in as a result of my signing for Wolves. The club has been a determining factor in my life for the last forty years.

So, what does Wolves mean to me? Memories – millions of them.