Haaland Heroics Spark Echoes From Golden Past

Erling Haaland’s feat of reaching his first century of Premier League goals in record-rewriting time has set us thinking…..

Not about any reason whatsoever as to why we should not add our own congratulations to all those extended already by so many in the game.

We are more interested in how these extraordinary deeds bear some comparison with the career of Steve Bull three and four decades ago because there is very much a gold and black context to this story.

Haaland, amazingly, reached three figures in 111 top-flight games – that’s 13 fewer than it took Alan Shearer, the previous fastest man to accomplish the landmark.

Who knows where the Norwegian’s career will take him and Manchester City from here? At the age of 25, it’s tempting to think he still has his peak years ahead of him.

So, at a time when Wolves are struggling to score, we look back at the similar deeds lower down the divisions of Bull, who netted the first of his 306 Wolves goals 39 years ago this month.

The Molineux no 9 reached his first hundred (in league and cups) in 126 games, spread across just over three years of mayhem from the day in November, 1986 when he joined Wolves from Albion.

That tempo is more Shearer-like, than Haaland-esque, but the Wolves man had staying power in abundance, too. He went on to reach 200 goals (in 295 matches) and 300 (in 528).

Here’s a reminder of how he brought up a few of his individual milestones:

50: The first of his brace in Wolves’ 4-0 Sherpa Van Trophy romp against Peterborough on February 9, 1988 (a close-range shot into the roof of the net following a Nigel Vaughan corner) took him to his half century.

100: Steve McClaren was in the visitors’ defence on a night on which the first goal of a Bully hat-trick clicked his goal total over to 100. January 24, 1989 was a doubly happy occasion, with Wolves defeating Bristol City 3-0 in the Sherpa Van Trophy.

150: A near-post finish gave the striker the second goal of his brace in Wolves’ 3-2 home defeat against Oldham on the opening day of 1990-91. It was his first competitive club game after returning from that summer’s World Cup in Italy and proved it was business as usual.

200: A misplaced header from his old adversary, Steve Walsh, let Bully in to drive a shot past Carl Muggleton and get Wolves’ home programme off to a pleasing start in the form of a 3-0 victory over Leicester on August 18, 1992. 

250: Eric Nixon, the goalkeeper who played on loan for Wolves on the day Bully made his debut against Wrexham in November, 1986, was beaten by a right-foot shot for the equaliser in the 1-1 draw at Tranmere on May 3, 1995 that ensured Graham Taylor’s side their place in the play-offs.

300: Off came the gold and black jersey to reveal a ‘300 goals: What a Good-Year’ t-shirt in celebration of achieving the last of his personal landmarks. This was a last-minute diving header on February 18, 1998 that secured a 2-1 home win over Bradford.