How Greg Drove Wolves To Victory

From the larger-than-life – and certainly larger-than-average – Greg Fellows comes the tale of just how low Wolves had sunk in the mid-1980s.

Greg was back in the Molineux fold in mid-August for the funeral of Sammy Chapman and proving himself as adept as ever at holding court with his stories.

One tale we haven’t aired on here yet concerns the night Wolves reserves had a fixture at Grimsby. They had a coach (Greg) but no coach (bus).

He explains: “Don Everall’s turned up as usual but told us they were going nowhere until we had settled our bill with them.

“I went in and informed Derek Dougan of the situation but our efforts at asking for a little more time to pay fell on deaf ears and we were in a hole.

“We couldn’t afford to hire a vehicle from another company so the lads had to jump in an old minibus which I drove. There was barely room for us really and I had to name myself as sub because there certainly wasn’t space for a 12th and 13th man.

“It was a wonder we got there in one piece…..it was no kind of preparation for a team and I promised myself that I would not be going on.

“But, you can guess it, we had an injury about ten minutes from the end, so, amid a few comments about my size, I did some limbering up along the touchline and trotted on.

“Somehow, we won – I think it was 2-1 – and I recall that sense of achievement in the dressing room; the feeling that, despite all the problems and the on-going worries about the club’s survival, we had dug in and taken the points.

“We were absolutely buzzing on the way home and we stopped off for fish and chips, washed down with some cans of lemonade or whatever.

“I kept the receipt and presented it to the club and was surprised to be told there was no money in the kitty to pay even that.

“So, up to this day, I have a bill in my wallet for 12 lots of fish and chips totalling around £39!”

The gallows humour was not confined in those days to Fellows, who had been a young player with Tommy Docherty at Villa and was later taken by him to Manchester United.

We recently asked the Doc for his insight and were told: “Greg could trap the ball as far as I could kick it but was great to have around.”

The minibus story, in more abridged form, appears in Johnny Phillips’ excellent new Bitten By Wolves book.