Big Night For Reunited Pals
When George Berry and Bob Hazell each had a foot hard to the pedal in their working lives, Don Gardner seemed to have been lost to the Molineux family forever.
Decades had passed with the Birmingham-based Jamaican absolutely off the Molineux radar – a sad and unsatisfactory situation considering he was the first black player ever to appear in Wolves’ first team.
With the valuable help of one of our readers, though, we tracked him down in his mid-60s and interviewed him by phone in the summer of 2021.
Without any further persuasion from us, he subsequently returned to the club with whom he flickered in the mid-1970s as a pioneering talent.
He turned up one day at the ground for a look-round and now, dare we say it, he is increasingly back in the Wolves fold.
And, at the same time, there are signs that his counterparts at and around Portland Timbers – the American club to whose successful 1975 season he was one of five contributors from Molineux – will soon be reaching out to him as well.
Gardner’s re-emergence has been helped by the friendship and encouragement of Berry and Hazell, two other Wolves first-teamers from a few years later.
The trio were together at the funeral of Phil Parkes at the start of September and had a half-time walk-on at Molineux in midweek as part of Black History Month.
Before that, they were in each other’s company again at an event in Wolverhampton to promote October as the time each year for celebrating those around the globe who have broken down so many barriers and helped fight back against racism.
The trio have been joined at different times in recent weeks by Carl Ikeme, League One title winner Scott Golbourne and 1980s reserve Joe Jackson, who made a single first-team appearance here and now has a son in the club’s academy. The latter two were also introduced to the crowd at the game against Portsmouth on Tuesday.
Berry featured on the front cover of the programme and no fewer than nine inside pages were given over to words and photos homing in on the trio and friends – among them current captain Toti. Page three showed a super colour picture of Paul Ince lifting the silverware after Wolves’ play-off final victory over Sheffield United in Cardiff in 2003.
Our readers may also enjoy this evocative short video Bing Videos which comes complete with narration by Don Goodman.
We trust that the personal appearances of all those highlighted here will continue to become more regular in the coming months and years.
Berry was also at the Wolves v Stoke game in late August as a corporate guest and Hazell has attended several fixtures here in recent seasons as well as turning up at the annual Former Players Association golf day to meet up with pals from his career here almost half a century ago.