Support Cast Underline Another Quality Turn-Out

Let’s start for once with a shout-out for the ‘substitutes’. Norman Bell, Willie Carr and John Richards didn’t compete in the Wolves FPA golf day but were in attendance nonetheless as organisers or supporters.

But the players who did tee off made up the usual stellar early-September cast at a course that was always close to the hearts of Molineux stars in past decades.

In alphabetical order, Colin Brazier, Steve Daley, Mel Eves, Don Goodman, Kenny Hibbitt, Phil Nicholls, Geoff Palmer, Phil Parkes and Terry Wharton were the men pounding the fairways – or in some cases zipping along them on buggies – in perfect Oxley Park sunshine.

Goodman, playing alongside his Sky Sports colleague Johnny Phillips, is easing his way back into the domestic game after spending five weeks of summer at the European Championships.

His stay in Germany included co-commentating on the final in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and the England v Netherlands semi in Dortmund, so the close-season break has been briefer than usual for him.

Of slightly shorter duration – but with massively more travelling – was the family trip to New Zealand that Bell has made since cheerfully manning the ‘half-way house’ refreshment hut alongside Gerry Farrell and Paul Walker at this gathering last year.

The other two members of the northern trio were absent this time and will have to wait to learn more about the striker’s meet-up Down Under with Keith Pritchett – a club colleague of his at Molineux in the early 1970s and the Kiwis’ national team manager 25 years or so later.

Bell has played at Farrell’s request in a competition at Morecambe in the last year or so and was interested to hear, while serving others’ needs on Friday, how we had been royally entertained by Gerry on a visit to Blackburn’s pre-season trip to the North Lancashire coast a month and a half ago.

Hibbitt, as usual, was striking it very nicely and found room on his buggy for his good midfield pal, Carr, before an overnight stop with the Richardses. Then it was on to Molineux yesterday for him to watch the FPA chairman perform his charity abseil.

And, who knows, Wharton might be a published author come the time of next year’s golf day. He is currently compiling his autobiography with Tim Nash and, if his story-telling in print is anywhere near as good as it is in verbal conversation or at a microphone, it will be a terrific read.

Nineteen teams of four took part in Friday’s event, including an Albion quartet of Joe Mayo, Mark Grew, Nicky Cross and Micky Fudge.

Cross, like Brazier and Daley, was a mid-1980s Walsall team-mate of the recently departed Craig Shakespeare, who was chosen by the striker more than 30 years ago to be Godfather to his son.

The golf day, also attended by Wolves general manager of marketing and commercial growth Russell Jones, raised just over £6,500 – one of the event’s highest ever amounts.

The beneficiaries are The Haven, Good Shepherd and Compton Care while Richards’s daredevil descent yesterday was in aid of Wolves Foundation and all the wonderful projects they assist.

Any readers still interested in supporting John at the end of what has been a serious weekend of fund-raising by anyone’s standards can still do so here Wolves Foundation: Molineux Abseil 2024 (enthuse.com)