Loved And Local – Lofty Was One Of A Kind

By David Instone

Where do you begin to sum up the legend that was, is and always will be Phil Parkes?

Homing in on the 382 matches that made up his Wolves first-team career is to tell only some of the story, an outstanding part though it may be.

As compensation for the desperately bad luck he suffered in missing out on a League Cup final place in 1974, there was also a terrific career across the Atlantic for several summers, with pots and plaudits along the way.

So that massive Wolves appearance tally was swelled overall to around the 500 mark by the time we have taken in the Canadian and American clubs who jostled for his services in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some career, that!

More important than anything he achieved on the pitch, though – and we say this partly because the post-football decades stretch considerably longer for most than those actually spent in the game – he was an absolute gem of a bloke.

In my experience, Lofty didn’t instantly light up a room by entering it because he very rarely walked in firing from the hip or making sure everyone knew he was there. But, boy, get him warmed up over a beer or two and he was hilarious without appearing to try.

John Richards has already said how this giant of a man was always first to put up a big hand when volunteers were being sought for appearances in the community.  

Meeting members of the public is, or was, a duty expected of a professional footballer. Fans love to see their heroes and Lofty clearly loved seeing them. Considering he didn’t drive, he was here, there and everywhere across the patch. ‘A cheque presentation? Yes, when do you want me?’ ‘A book signing? Ok….put me down.’ ‘Yes, I’ll do it for free….as long as there’s a bar!’

No player had a bigger heart and feel for Wolverhampton and its people and no player loved chewing the fat more than he did. Whether it was reminiscing over Wolves under Allen and McGarry, the golf or cricket on TV or even the tennis, he was wonderful to listen to.

Two lengthy afternoons with him spring to mind by way of examples. Some time in the second half of the 1990s, I shared a lift with him to a Wolves game at Ipswich when he was working as a local radio pundit. Those long A14 and A45 miles had never passed as quickly. His stories were priceless.

Around the same time, I asked if I could have a good chat with him, notebook open, so he invited John Lalley and I to join him in front of the pavilion at his beloved Fordhouses Cricket Club.

It was just down the road from his home of 55 years and, having kicked off by telling him I was relieved to have taken guard against him in the past only on a leisurely Sunday afternoon and not in the cut-and-thrust of League cricket on Saturdays, he showed he was much friendlier company on this side of the boundary rope.

He opened a picnic hamper, handed us each some pork pie and cheese nibbles, a glass and poured out the white wine. Pure class. Did I say? Phil did have quite the thirst! 

Listening to him holding court was wonderful….that day and, over many, many more afternoons, nights and years, at dinners, more informal events, signing sessions, alongside Terry Wharton in a hilarious double act at the Wolves Former Players’ golf day, even on the doorstep of what began as his Wolves club house.

You just didn’t want your strait-laced aunt at your side when he was at a microphone because he was also adept at bringing the dialogue of the dressing room to the wider audience.

We had the ‘They Wore The Shirt’ night put on in his honour by Steve Plant in the autumn of 2021, his induction to the club’s hall of fame way back and walk-on parts at any number of tribute nights to others.

At the launch of the film about the victorious 1967 Los Angeles Wolves, he described all the wet-behind-the-ears Molineux-based youngsters revelling in the Californian and coast-to-coast sights they never dreamt of seeing. He had never been abroad or flown and, immensely grateful for the experience, brought the house down by adding: “And I was from West Bromwich!”

Lofty, like Bert Williams, grew up as an Albion fan, admiring the likes of Ronnie Allen (later his manager at Molineux), Derek Kevan and Ray Barlow at his local club.

But it was Wolves who made the tellling overtures and he served them as an amateur before signing his first professional contract here in autumn, 1964.

Parkes played under Southall’s captaincy in the Wolverhampton Amateur League side who beat Coventry Intermediate League in the Birmingham County FA’s Featherstone Cup final at Wednesbury Tube. If that was a long entry for the CV – did Lofty ever bother with one of those? – ‘First-team debut: Wolves 3 Preston 2’ was much more succinct and straightforward.

That red-letter day came on November 19, 1966 and provided more material for his stories. He and former Manchester United forward Alex Dawson clattered into each other and, shall we say, exchanged a little industrial language; probably something similar to when the young keeper was sent off for ‘chinning’ Jeff Astle in the Black Country derby draw a few months later.

Parkes had by then reeled off 13 successive appearances on the way to Wolves going up as Second Division runners-up and Allen and his squad built on the success with their triumphant criss-crossing of America and Canada that summer.

Having initially had Fred Davies as a rival, he strengthened his grip on the position in the following couple of seasons and we saw more and more of that pre-match ritual of kicking the base of both posts as he slowly saw off the claims of Evan Williams and John Oldfield to the jersey. 

From the night he was the top name on the team-sheet for a 3-2 League win at Bill McGarry’s former club, Ipswich in September, 1970, though, the role became very much his.

Noel George’s record for consecutive games for the club (135) had stood for four and a half decades but Lofty went past it and took the new mark on to 171 before the newly-signed Gary Pierce was given a first crack away to Newcastle in September, 1973.

Steve Kindon reckons the best he ever saw Parkes play was in a goalless draw at Leeds in 1973 after which McGarry rather grumpily said in an interview: “He was just doing his job.” John Lalley eulogises over the keeper’s heroic work in the 1-1 FA Cup quarter-final draw at Manchester United in 1976 and the man himself had a lovely story from his starring role in a 0-0 draw at Liverpool in November, 1969.

Lofty was still living at home in West Brom and, after overnight snow, was late reporting for departure to Anfield after his bus was delayed. McGarry administered a swift and painful blow to the pay packet, then saw him perform wonders in defying Hunt, St John, Callaghan and Co in a 0-0 draw. The manager often didn’t waste words and, not wishing to lose face with the players, quietly said to his keeper after the game: “Forget the fine, big man.”

“I lived a hundred yards from Lofty so I gave him a lift into training each day,” Kindon said. “Danny Hegan lived over the road from him, so the three of us travelled in and home together in the years we were all at Wolves.

“We got changed for training one Thursday and McGarry asked Phil and me: ‘Where’s Hegan?’ We said we had no idea. We had called for him and he wasn’t there. He told us to get dressed again and not to come back in until we had him with us. Lofty knew the places to go asking for him and, sure enough, we found him, making sure we didn’t report back until training had finished….”

With Pierce on board, the chopping and changing years were here as far as McGarry was concerned, tinged with massive misfortune for the more senior man in 1973-74.

He was very much in situ that season and had played seven League Cup games out of seven when he suffered the cruel training-ground ankle injury that enabled the young challenger to step up and become a Wembley hero.

Lofty, having already played in the side who won the Texaco Cup final but lost in the UEFA Cup final as well as the semi-finals of the 1972-73 FA Cup and League Cup, deserved much better than to miss his and his mates’ big day. True to form, he went along, did all he could to support the collective cause and was thrilled for Pierce that he played brilliantly on his 23rd birthday.

The two men had alternate spells in favour during the two years up to relegation in 1976 before Pierce remained an ever-present in League and cups in the promotion-winning 1976-77 season.

Parkes, by now in his early 30s, had one more run in the side and then a final isolated outing in a win at West Ham, when his loyalty to Sammy Chung and the club persuaded him to risk the move to Vancouver Whitecaps that he had already signed and on which he was about to embark a day or two after.

What a stay it was! All 15 years of it, rewarded by a testimonial and containing numerous memorable points-winning highs. Saving a penalty home and away against Ferencvaros in the UEFA Cup semi-final wasn’t too shabby, either.

The trans-Atlantic seasons underlined something else about him; how easily he made friends. Les Wilson can’t speak highly enough about a close pal he knew way back to their time at Molineux together as teenagers and Bruce Grobbelaar formed such a bond with him at the Whitecaps that he came to Wolves in 2021 for the tribute night to the man whose sons he used to baby-sit in Vancouver.

Alan Ball, Roger Kenyon, John Craven, Kevin Hector, Trevor Whymark and Ray Lewington were other team-mates, as was Willie Johnston, who Phil crossed the West Midlands to see at an Albion night hosted by Frank Skinner at Birmingham Town Hall in the summer of 2013.

Alan Hinton, Bob McNab and Wilson were all in senior off-field positions at the Whitecaps, where Lofty shared in the glory of the club becoming Soccer Bowl champions and winners of the Western Conference and National Conference. 

The Soccer Bowl against Tampa Bay Rowdies, in New York, drew in a crowd of nearly 60,000 and the side were greeted by around 120,000 supporters and citizens on their journey from the airport to the city back in British Columbia. 

“They were special memories,” said Phil, who, along with Wilson and McNab, were among the Vancouver legends feted as the 2011 Team of Distinction inducted into Canada’s soccer hall of fame. Wolves Heroes had the pleasure of handing to Phil a commemorative certificate that Les had posted here for him. The squad and backroom staff were already honoured in the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.

Parkes was previously named in the 1979 NASL first All Star Team and Wilson, who was then the Whitecaps’ team administrator, says: “I was so proud of Phil for his outstanding performances over here.” How thrilled Lofty was to go back to Canada for a reunion a few years ago,

Including three extended visits with Wolves (in the summers of 1967, 1969 and 1972), Lofty had no fewer than nine stints across the Atlantic as he also subsequently played for Chicago Sting for a season and a half, San Jose Earthquakes and Toronto Blizzard.

He later had a dug-out career of his own by coaching at Hednesford, Bromsgrove, Marstons and Lucas among others.

His working life ended when he had an accident out on a job around a decade and a half ago but he walked most days for a cuppa at Gregg’s in the Three Tuns Area and, with mates, ambled round the Race For Life course in West Park in aid of Macmillan nurses in 2023. There’s that community spirit again.

He needed more care himself – loads and loads of it – after breaking his back in a fall at home in March last year. Within weeks came the appalling news that he wouldn’t walk again but his magnificent spirit was undimmed, as a long stream of visitors to his bedside discovered.

John Lalley and I saw him both in Oswestry and when he was transferred to Wolverhampton’s Royal Park Nursing Home a few months later, a physical decline having set in but thankfully not any deterioriation in his capacity to entertain. 

The 79-year-old, who passed away in New Cross Hospital on Saturday on what was, coincidentally, the 76th birthday of the other Phil Parkes, is survived by two sons, Greg and Dean.

He leaves a massive goalkeeper-sized hole in the lives of so many. Thousands have been rocked by his death – thank goodness he created so many epic memories while he was here.