Love Still In The Air – Across The Oceans

Remember the circus around the first Blind Date wedding and what colour hat Cilla would wear? The bride was from Walsall, as it happens.

Well, the drawn-out and less-publicised race to become Wolves Heroes’ first nuptials goes on – but it might be drawing closer to a happy ending.

Actually, we should be brutally honest and admit it’s a one-horse race; one for which the tapes went up as far back as 2016 when we reconnected former Wolves winger John Black and his childhood sweetheart, Roberta Finnegan, following some 40 years apart.

We put in a check call over the weekend to the north of Scotland to the fringe first-teamer from the mid and late 1970s and the man who flatteringly called us ‘matchmakers extraordinaire’.

He is still contentedly working at the age of 67 in mental health – the same line of employment in which his other half remains busy…in Australia.

“Roberta tends to come over here in a November, stay for Christmas and New Year and then we both go out to Melbourne and I stay there until maybe mid-March,” he said.

“In between times, there are an awful lot of video calls but I don’t feel ready for sitting round at home yet and she is a grandmother with a son and daughter still living Down Under. They are a big pull to her obviously.

“I am too old to be granted a work permit in Oz and Roberta is two and a bit years away from retirement, but changes in the arrangements are likely when a more relaxed lifestyle finally kicks in.

“We have talked about getting married when we can be together all the time. Where will we live? I’d have to say the attraction of the extra sunshine might be winning at present.”

Facebook posts of them together in Hong Kong, China and Fiji, as well as in different parts of Australia, highlight the attractions of a life on the other side of the world and provide a stark contrast to their first liaisons. 

They went out together as teenagers in their native Glasgow, having first met at the Boilermakers Club in Clydebank when John was home for the close season from Wolves.

The relationship petered out, though, as she was a couple of years younger and, on age grounds, her parents refused her permission to come to see him in the West Midlands.

She subsequently moved to Australia and, after each of them had gone through a divorce, she was encouraged by her family to try to track down her first love.

All Internet searches failed until she clicked on to a Wolves Heroes story in which he was mentioned. She emailed us, asked if we could pass on a message to him and the rest, as they say, is sweet and happy history.

Watch this space!

*We at Wolves Heroes have been extremely upset to read confirmation today that Phil Parkes will not walk again following his serious fall three and a half months ago. More on this development will be published here soon.