Are Wolves destined for something special to celebrate at the very start of the year, irrespective of their result at Brighton on Saturday?
Is another major award on the way to Molineux….one that even points or victories can not directly bring about?
If the signals are correct from what we used to call Fleet Street, we are likely to be raising a glass over the next few days to Ron Flowers as the holder of an MBE.
The Sun have been busy suggesting that the Wolves and England wing-half and another member of the country’s victorious 1966 World Cup squad, Jimmy Greaves, will be named in the New Year’s honours list.
We fervently hope that their information proves accurate, so Ron – at 86, one of the club’s oldest surviving former players – adds to his already huge collection of prizes.
Already in recent years, he has belatedly received a World Cup winner’s medal and been presented, in his absence, with an award to mark his outstanding contribution to the national team.
No-one can argue with that judgement. Flowers won 49 senior caps and scored ten goals, his debut coming in a defeat alongside Billy Wright and Bert Williams in France in 1955.
Which leads us nicely on to what a significant honour this would be for Wolves as well as this proud Yorkshireman. Those two departed but much-loved BWs are two of the four heroes from the Molineux playing staff of old to have been recognised by The Queen.
Billy received the CBE in 1959, the summer of his retirement, and Bert was handed the MBE in 2001, in tribute to his fabulous charitable efforts as well as for his football career.
Likewise, Steve Bull was made an MBE in 1999 but all of those legends have to doff their caps to Bill Slater, who received the OBE in 1982 and the CBE 16 years later, for services to sport.
A look at the Legends area of this website shows that, come the weekend, the men in positions three, four and five should all have been honoured by The Queen.
And Wolves’ pride does not end there as Sir Jack Hayward and fellow directors Rachael Heyhoe Flint and Derek Harrington were all recognised, too.