‘Hometown Boy’ Back Among Us

Saturday, January 3: Would like to have seen and heard Richard Stearman when he returned to the city of his birthplace for the 3-0 victory over West Ham this afternoon but media room duties called. ‘Stears’ is well known to Paul Berry, who had him as his guest in the various Billy Wright Stand corporate rooms a few weeks on from his departure from the backroom set-up at Swansea in the wake of Alan Sheehan’s sacking as head coach.

Wednesday, January 7: Thoroughly enjoyed the company of BBC WM’s excellent Wolves specialist, Mike Taylor, on the way to and from our first visit to Everton’s eye-catching new stadium. The fact Rob Edwards’ side took a useful point added extra enjoyment to an experience also highlighted by meeting up with Derek Mountfield, Michael Branch and Matt Murray in the media room before kick-off. 

Friday, January 9: Disappointing to hear reports that Graham Turner has had surgery on possible after-effects of his long football career and will not be present at tomorrow’s FA Cup meeting at Molineux of two of his former clubs. He is currently less mobile than usual but would surely have wanted to be present – and been given a VIP invite.

Saturday, January 10: If this looked a potentially prickly tie when the draw was made a few weeks ago, it panned out very differently in the flesh today. The sight of six goals flying into Shrewsbury’s net, including three from Jorgen Strand Larsen, made Molineux a happy place to be….an interesting assignment for David Edwards to reflect on in his role as BBC Radio Shropshire’s summariser.   

Thursday, January 15: Interesting to see that Jamie Smith has been retained as lead first-team coach at Port Vale despite the departure of his long-time boss, Darren Moore, earlier this month. ‘Jinky’ oversaw a 1-0 defeat at Bradford and a 5-1 slaughter of Blackpool in his two games in caretaker control and the side have started promisingly under their new boss, Jon Brady.

Tuesday, January 20: Gee, this has been a tough time for saying goodbye to the football heroes of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Early in the month came the announcements that Martin Chivers – scourge of Wolves in the 1972 UEFA Cup final – and Terry Yorath had died. In the final weeks of 2025, we lost Billy Bonds and John Robertson. Today, four days on from Terry Wharton’s funeral, we hear that former Everton and England full-back Tommy Wright had passed away, aged 81.  

Wednesday, January 28: Interesting to see that Conor Coady, who we predicted would be on the move this month, has gone to Charlton on loan for the rest of the season. Just as newsworthy is the fact that his debut for the struggling Londoners will be at his former club, Leicester, on Saturday.

Saturday, January 31: Around the disappointment of the Molineux defeat against Bournemouth, Wolves Heroes have had another successful day. Twenty-four hours on from our upbeat post of yesterday, visitor numbers for the month not only reached 20,000 for what we think is the first time but actually crashed well through the 21,000 barrier, boosted by 811 visits on Friday and 824 on match-day. And that’s our last word on the subject for quite some time….we prefer to write about others than ourselves.