The Most Moving Of Tributes For Kenny

Another game, another tribute and another minute’s applause.

Wolves fans have become depressingly familiar with mourning those from the distant on-field past, John Farley, Fred Kemp, Phil Parkes and Hugh Curran all having been lost over the summer and then the funeral of Mike Bailey taking place in the Home Counties less than a fortnight ago.

To be paying tribute at the weekend, though, to someone from the much more recent past seemed even more sad in its own way. Kenny Jackett was only 64 when he died in June.

Saturday was the day he returned to the very forefront of our minds. Wolves v Watford was HIS fixture; the club with whom he amassed no fewer than 428 appearances visiting the one at whom he had the best of his managerial times.

He spent an entire playing career at Vicarage Road, picking up 31 senior Welsh caps by way of a bonus of his time there, so very few in Saturday’s 29,000-plus crowd needed any explanation about the individual we were honouring.

Not only were all four sides of Molineux on their feet applauding but all corners of every side were doing so. It was total appreciation. Touching and sincere.

In the long line of VIPs at pitch-side alongside Kenny’s widow, two sons, a daughter-in-law and a grandchild were Kevin Thelwell, who impressively oversaw the recruitment process for Dean Saunders’s successor here, Sam Ricketts, Scott Golbourne, Carl Ikeme, Richard Skirrow, John Richards, Steve Bull, Robert Plant, Joe Gallen, Nathan Shi and his fellow directors. John Gough and John Bowater.

They were the ones with the cameras directed at them but 2.55pm on Saturday was a time for everyone to show their appreciation for the man who impressed us all.

Totally without spin, he had said on his appointment day in the summer of 2013 that he was there to deliver a promotion place. How many managers before and since have danced around the subject of high expectations?

Wolves were in a mess following back-to-back relegations and the ‘disconnect’ from the shock Championship relegation – underlined by the send-off for a disgraced squad at Brighton a few weeks earlier – was obvious.

Kenny, having learned much about good PR from Graham Taylor at Watford, set about restoring that precious, essential link between players and supporters. A training run through Wolverhampton city centre was a small gesture but one of huge symbolism. Bridges were quickly rebuilt.

The start was slow – a League One draw at Preston and a League Cup exit at Morecambe – then Wolves took off and won the title with a record points tally of 103. They had a massive buffer of 17 over third-placed Leyton Orient, who they beat handsomely in East London on the day promotion was secured.

No wonder that picture of a champagne-soaked Jackett (and jacket, as it happens) looked down on the gathering from both video-walls two days ago, the champions’ silverware in his hand serving as a heart-warming, shiny souvenir of his three years in these parts.

Wolves TV paid their own terrific tribute with this film Remembering Kenny Jackett | Club | Latest News | Wolverhampton Wanderers FC – one that all Wolves fans need to watch and enjoy.

The words of his close friend and assistant, Joe Gallen, are particularly pertinent. Yes, Kenny was intense and was ‘always immaculately dressed and clean-shaven, never late.’ Taylor was like that, too.

But the somewhat serious face he showed to his squad, the media and the wider football world was not the only one Gallen saw. He also experienced a more jocular, light-hearted side behind the closed door of their office. “Some players would say he was blunt, others would say he had a lot of clarity,” the assistant said on camera.

There were platitudes aplenty on there from Dave Edwards, who attributed the salvaging of his Wolves career to the manager, Conor Coady (who was bought by him from Huddersfield) and keeper Ikeme. 

The chant of ‘One Kenny Jackett’ from the South Bank early in the second half was a lovely spontaneous echo of one of the afternoon’s most powerful themes but quite what he – and Graham Taylor – would make of the present-day Watford, with all their hiring and firing of head coaches and lack of British players, we can only imagine…..

Cesar Peixoto was restrained during the aftermath of Saturday’s victory, as Wolves’ fans were. But it’s difficult to imagine Kenny ever being comfortable with playing up to the crowd in the modern way if he were still in charge.

*Kenny Jackett qualified for Wales through his father Frank, who played for Watford from 1949 to 1953 and was born in the village of Ystalyfera, north of Swansea.