Parliament In Session – And Very United!

Tuesday, October 3: It was positive vibes all the way at tonight’s first meeting of the season of the Wolves Fans’ Parliament. It hasn’t always been this way, of course, but there was general contentment and high anticipation in the room as chairman Jeff Shi, managing director Laurie Dalrymple and director of football Kevin Thelwell took their places at the top table.

Friday, October 6: Delighted to hear that Bernard Shaw had made it along to the dinner held in honour of Derek Parkin at Molineux tonight. We featured him on these pages a few weeks ago and, in that conversation, detected enough interest in the tribute to his former full-back partner as to forward his contact details to the organisers. It was his first time back in decades, apparently.

Tuesday, October 10: Enjoyed doing some research on behalf of one of the Fans Parliament members, Dave Benton, who was keen to know why his first match at Molineux – 50 years ago this autumn – took place on a Monday night and not on a more recognised home-match evening. To my surprise, it seemed we DID have international weekends then because the one that preceded Arsenal’s 3-2 defeat here on October 23, 1967, was given over to the Home International Championship, in which England faced Wales in Cardiff while Northern Ireland took on Scotland in Belfast. Those games doubled up as qualifiers for the European Nations Cup, which is why the First Division programme took a break on the Saturday.

Thursday, October 12: Popped into the city to pick up some Euros and just missed seeing Jody Craddock – always an excellent ambassador for the club – helping to cut the ribbon at the opening of the excellent new Debenhams store in the Mander Centre.

Saturday, October 14: Finally acted on the advice of Paul Lambert and made a match-day visit, with the Express & Star’s John Lalley, to one of the Scot’s former clubs, Borussia Dortmund. What a brilliant experience, even though they lost to Leipzig – a name familiar to Wolves from their 1970s travels in Europe. In a manic 36 hours, we also took in a game across the border at Standard Liege and a Bundesliga 2 fixture at Bochum.

Saturday, October 21: Relieved to see Wolves get the job done against Preston this afternoon, when Andy Thompson and Richard Skirrow were among those in the press room and Jim Barron was nearby among the scouts. Mel Eves was the man interviewed on the pitch by Steve Daley today and was given warm applause after saying that the All Stars team with whom he has been strongly connected for many years had raised more than £500,000 for worthy causes.

Tuesday, October 24: Another sighting of Mel……this time in the press box at the gratifying Carabao Cup clash at Manchester City – a great, gallant effort by the young Wolves! He had to sign off from his radio summarising duties straight after penalties as he had travelled north, like Phil Parkes, on one of the coaches run by The Tatter.

Saturday, October 28: Good to hear Paul Simpson interviewed again on 5 Live in the build-up to the epic World Cup win achieved in Kolkata this afternoon by an England under-17 side containing Wolves’ Morgan Gibbs White.