Programmed To Please

Wednesday, March 7: Have enjoyed making plans to give away the bundles of Wolves programmes that were handed to me last year by the widow of 1958 FA Youth Cup winner Les Cocker. Nice to have had some keen collectors come forward in response to my post on Facebook, among them Kelvin Weatherer, who operates his memorabilia business near the Molineux subway on match days. Bergen-based Odin Henrikssen is another with whom I look forward to sharing some of the souvenirs Les left behind following his many visits to the club in the last 20 years.

Tuesday, March 13: Was disappointed to discover that Adrian Williams and Mick Gooding were not among the visiting media corps for Wolves’ comfortable home victory against Reading this evening. Both were on the list to attend but didn’t show on a night on which I did briefly renew acquaintances with David Edwards and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, neither of whom can have enjoyed their first competitive return to Molineux.

Thursday, March 15: Molineux is not always a vibrant, noisy place…….late at night, it can even be a little eerie. Some floodlighting was on when I exited the ground after tonight’s Fans Parliament meeting and it was strange experiencing the stadium as quiet and lonely as it was after the euphoria we have known there at almost all other times this season. The excellent turn-out of club officials ensured the International Lounge was very busy, though, with Jeff Shi, Laurie Dalrymple and Kevin Thelwell leading a high-powered top table at the regular meeting with nearly 50 Parliament members.

Saturday, March 17: Gee……when did we last have a match-day as inhospitable as this? It was bitingly cold at Molineux for the win over Burton this afternoon……sufficiently so for Matt Forman and I to pull the plug on a planned meet-up by Billy Wright’s statue when a blizzard struck the area half an hour before kick-off. Our press box was a treacherous place and I had to apologise to Mikey Burrows and his co-commentator Andy Thompson for clattering into the back of their seats as I slipped on some snow that had blown in around us. Another radio guy, BBC WM’s Mike Taylor, referred in his commentary to the man from the Express & Star spilling some tea and watching it freeze on the work surface in front of him.

Tuesday, March 20: Never an issue of Backpass goes by without some interesting and unexpected Wolves mentions. Among those in the newly-published issue 58 is a reference to how Tony Currie, as a youngster moving north after a stay at Watford, was met off the train at the start of his highly impressive Sheffield United career by none other than Jack Short, a former Wolves defender who was by then on the coaching staff at Bramall Lane.

Wednesday, March 28: No doubt John McAlle watched the news footage with great interest today as Merseyside and the wider world paid its respects to Liverpool’s most-loved comedian, Sir Ken Dodd. We reported on here in November that the 2017 knight used to be the coalman to the McAlle family in Knotty Ash. Time for a bit of back-tracking if you missed that story from us four and a half months ago….

Friday, March 30: Not at all surprised to read that Mick McCarthy has decided to bail out of Ipswich in the coming weeks. From a distance, it seems he has been unappreciated there by fans who might – if the club make a poor appointment – belatedly realise what a steady job he has done with not much by way of funding for players. Birmingham away for them tomorrow and I will be very surprised if the manager doesn’t look out all the members of the Midlands press he remembers from Wolves and greet them with a hearty handshake. That’s what he does.