Ups And Downs Of Derek’s Football Life

Wembley excitement, promotion aspirations and relegation worries……Derek Jefferson has them all covered as the season moves into its final third.

In the next three months, his boyhood favourites will be playing in one and possibly two major cup finals, the club closest to his home are almost certainly going up as well as contesting the EFL Trophy final and one or more of his other former employers are likely to suffer the drop.

“I don’t go to many games at all these days but still follow the results with interest and see that Wolves and Ipswich are both in danger but battling hard,” he said.

“I don’t know whether they can both survive. I obviously hope they do because they still mean a lot to me after the years I spent at the two clubs.

“We live in Solihull and there are a lot of happy Bluenoses round here because they are confident of going back up in addition to playing at Wembley in a few weeks.

“And the team I grew up supporting, Newcastle, are in the League Cup final and still in the FA Cup, so it is going to be a very interesting end to the season.”

It was Jefferson’s Molineux connections that helped him on to the St Andrew’s pay-roll after he returned from a stint in America almost 50 years ago.

He had got on well in these parts with reserve team coach Norman Bodell, who was subsequently on the staff across the patch by the time the central defender dusted himself down after the disappointment of missing out on the player-manager’s job at Yeovil.

“I think Norman put a good word in for me with the manager, Jim Smith, and I became Blues’ reserve coach for three or four years around the time Trevor Francis was sold to Nottingham Forest,” he added.

Football involvement these days is much lower-key and conducted around the importance of his religion. Derek found God following the tragedy of losing his young daughter in the 1970s and goes to the same church as Darren Moore and the former Blues forward Dennis Bailey.

For four or five years, he has also coached at Solihull Moors, initially at after-school clubs and then more recently with Down’s Syndrome youngsters. Among the participants is Lee Carsley’s second son, who has the condition.

Jefferson played 52 first-team games for Wolves, the first a League Cup win at home to Sheffield Wednesday in October, 1972 and the last a League defeat at Ipswich in February, 1976,