Overhaul Time For Our Popular Site

Wolves Heroes has undergone a massive makeover for the start of 2023-24 – our 15th season in cyberspace.

In an effort to make the pages of this site more user-friendly, we set ourselves the mid-summer challenge of bringing in extra technical expertise.

And we were delighted to be connected with lifelong Wolves fan Chris Richards and to start tapping into the skills he has developed during 25 years in the field.

“We made an appeal through Andrew Clews at the excellent Facebook group Wolves-news to find a keen supporter who may wish to join us and were delighted when Chris came forward,” said lead writer David Instone.

“I quickly brought our co-owner, John Richards, into the dialogue and we arranged an extremely productive meeting that mapped out how we might update and improve the site.

“Chris was so keen to get cracking that he had already drawn up some redesigned pages for us to consider and has continued to see it as a real labour of love over the few weeks since.

“One thing we had become aware of was that the site was not easy enough to view for those using mobile phones. But there was also a need to introduce a more modern look after a decade and a half.

“Work is on-going and we hope our loyal followers like the changes while also accepting that some alterations are still being made or finalised.”

Wolverhampton-born Chris is now in Gloucestershire after 14 years of living and working in Spain and has a highly impressive business background.

He initially trained as an accountant, reached the post of managing director after switching to the building society sector, then spent seven years with Iberia’s largest sportswear manufacturer.

“I moved into IT when I was asked to help set up a website over there and have stayed with it into what might be called my semi-retirement,” he said.

“I would love to say I am related to John Richards or scored half as many goals as he did but just having the chance now to exchange some positive ideas with him has been brilliant.

“He has exciting thoughts of his own following all his years in business and we immediately formed a good connection. The content and depth of Wolves Heroes is terrific – it’s such a valuable resource for supporters, especially those of a certain age, and it has already been a pleasure to come up with some new ways of showing it off.

“I met John a long while ago when I was a regular at matches and have since enjoyed golf with Kenny Hibbitt as we were members of the same club down here.

“Sadly, we don’t have family in Wolverhampton any more and with the difficulty in getting tickets, my attendance at games has ceased. But my allegiance very much remains, as other members of the Wolves-news group will be aware.”

John Richards played a major part in the set-up of Wolves Heroes in 2009 by introducing us to the appropriate people where he worked at Pitchcare in Wolverhampton Science Park.

The company were later renamed and relocated to the Wellington area and we remain very grateful for all the technical support they have provided.

“The Internet has moved on greatly and we felt this was the time to develop the Wolves Heroes site further,” John said.

“Chris immediately impressed us greatly with his vision and willingness to help, so we were delighted to welcome him on board. He has great knowledge of web development and we very much hope he will stay with us beyond this redesign phase so he can share in the site’s success in the future.”