Fifty Is In Sight For Popular Midfielder

David Edwards is closing in on two notable landmarks as he continues the most fruitful time of his football career.

A 12-month spell that began with his selection for Wales’ memorable assault on last summer’s European Championships finals in France has continued with him taking his club goal tally for 2016-17 into double figures.

And his prolific run in and around opposition penalty areas has come despite the fact he failed to score in any of his first 11 appearances of the season.

Edwards’ effort in Saturday’s victory at Fulham means he has scored ten times this term and 44 times in all for Wolves.

We are indebted to former Wolves Fans Parliament member Laurence Westwood for posing the question of who the last midfielder to bring up a Molineux half century was.

Robbie Dennison and Jim McCalliog fell just short with 49 and 48 goals respectively and we believe Mel Eves (53) played too many games as a striker to fall into this category.

That therefore takes us back to Kenny Hibbitt, who still stands tenth in the club’s all-time marksman list.

The much-loved Yorkshireman scored the last of his 114 Wanderers goals in the draw at Rotherham almost 34 years ago, so ‘Dangerous’ would probably need another 15 years of service on top of the decade he is due to complete next year in order to get anywhere near that total!

Edwards is still six short of bringing his Wolves total to a round 50 and, assuming he gets there, might start to wonder whether the 64 scored by Peter Knowles in the 1960s is attainable.

His effort at Craven Cottage meant he moved one clear of Steve Daley to stand only one behind Andy Thompson – signed initially as a midfielder but converted to great effect to a penalty-taking full-back by Graham Turner.

Hand in hand with his goal-scoring heroics, Edwards is in line to achieve a major appearance milestone before the end of the season.

He has now played 295 first-team Wolves games and, all being well, will in the next few weeks become the first man to bring up his Wanderers 300 since Lee Naylor. Please see our Legends area to see the standings in the list of all-time record appearance makers at the club. Our Goal Aces section shows where Edwards and others are placed in the marksman stakes.