Tickets, A Lift And Some Bubbly On The Road To Completing The 92
Dave Bassett was at the World Cup final. No, not that Dave Bassett and not at that bore we yawned through last weekend.
We’re talking instead of Germany in 2006 and Italy’s triumph in lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy thanks to a victory on penalties over France.
He was there with three close pals, including Bill Hatton and Brian Lester (long-time former commentator and match-day assistant respectively at Wolves games on The Wolf), after they won tickets in a prize draw.
And the showpiece fixture in Berlin has a place in a new book we suspect many of our readers are likely to be intrigued by.
’92 Grounds For Divorce?’ is the story of a lifetime’s trawl round all the venues in English football’s top four divisions and is written by a Dave Bassett with strong Wolverhampton connections. This one used to be Mick McCarthy’s next-door neighbour in Seisdon and ran a financial services business from an office in Chapel Ash.
The Wednesbury-born businessman is a ground-hopper of some renown and, while many have beaten him to this sort of completism, few have had the chance to tell the tale of it at such length – and with such colour.
On his travels, he once had dinner with Kylie Minogue and found himself sitting next to Cyrille Regis twice in one day after taking in two games 40 miles and an hour and a half apart.
Mick sent him a bottle of champagne round to further fuel the promotion celebrations on one occasion and sorted out some match tickets that meant he and wife, Jan – they have been happily married for nearly 50 years despite the book’s title, by the way – would have another day apart.
“I had by this time (March, 2007) been to over 80 of the 92 grounds but one glaring omission was Hillsborough,” Bassett wrote. “I casually mentioned this to Mick one day, knowing full well Wolves were there the next week.”
The response was heart-warming: “Mick arranged for me to travel with his wife, Fiona, and a good friend of theirs, and I sat in the directors’ box between Fiona and Rachael Heyhoe Flint.”
The 2-2 draw with Sheffield Wednesday came two and a bit years before McCarthy and Wolves were celebrating a Premier League place and three and a bit years before Bassett uncorked the champage. Oh, before we forget….some important disclosure: The author is an Albion fan!
That said, his football journey started with Wolves’ 3-1 home win over Tottenham in February, 1962, when he recalls a group of fans around him on the South Bank goading Spurs keeper Bill Brown.
Success over the previous season’s League and Cup winners was Wanderers debut day for new signings Peter McParland and Chris Crowe, who both scored, and there was another notable win over star-studded opponents when young David was taken by his Walsall-supporting dad to his second match in November, 1963.
That was a 2-0 win over Manchester United at Molineux and, with the book project gathering pace around 12 months ago, we were delighted to facilitate a chat between he and Terry Wharton, who played in both matches. Alan Durban and Willie Carr are others to have been spoken to during the writing process.
Alas, the early 1960s Molineux experience was clearly not as intoxicating for the youngster as it has proved to be for many like him before and since. When he was subsequently taken by his brother to an Albion game against Sheffield United, he became more hooked and his main allegiances have remained for decades on the other half of the patch.
’92 Grounds For Divorce?’ nevertheless contains sections on several other Wolves games, purely out of their significance to the author or to the League table.
Among these are the 3-3 draw with Albion in August, 1967, the League title decider against Leeds in 1972 and the goalless League One draw at Stevenage in 2014.
And there was a further humorous twist in the friendship with Wolves’ former manager, the author adding: “After the dust had settled (on the 2007 play-off games between Wolves and Albion), I couldn’t resist placing my Albion garden gnome on his side of the fence. Mick saw the funny side of it but did suggest that it may end up next time through our lounge window.”
Bassett’s book costs £14.99, is available from 92 Grounds for Divorce? – JMD Media Ltd and is a fund-raiser for various charities helping the families of suffering or late former footballers. Dawn Astle MBE and Hayley McQueen, daughters of the late Jeff Astle and Gordon McQueen, have written the forewords.
If any of our readers wish to buy a copy and are struggling to do so, please email us and we will happily act as go-betweens.