Guy Talks

Striker Back Among Friends At Molineux

Graham Turner, the first of no fewer than four managers for whom Guy Whittingham played at Wolves.

Wolves v Portsmouth tonight wouldn’t have been the same without him – he did, after all, total a remarkable six spells at the two clubs.

Ray Crawford and Darren Anderton are two of those to have served at both Fratton Park and Molineux – as well as earning England recognition – but neither of those has the claim to fame that Guy Whittingham does.

The former Army recruit had three playing stints with tonight’s Molineux visitors and was such a prolific scorer there that he was nicknamed Corporal Punishment.

For good measure, he then had a caretaker stint as their manager a decade and a half ago and briefly became a permanent apppointment.

Now, though, he is a long-standing summariser on Portsmouth games and affairs for BBC Radio Solent, so he was back here this evening with the headphones on – and renewing one or two acquaintances.

Steve Bull was down in the media room before kick-off to look for him and there was a meet-up with our own long-time man at the microphone, Andy Thompson.

Evesham-born Whittingham, now 61, was a colleague of the former Albion pair during both of the two loan spells he had with Wolves.

He arrived in the latter weeks of the Graham Turner era in the spring of 1994 and, despite failing to help him out with any goals, he quickly hit a bountiful seam of form under the manager’s successor, Graham Taylor.

He struck eight times in 13 League games to briefly reignite the club’s challenge for promotion, missing out in the process on going with the Villa squad to their League Cup final victory over Manchester United at Wembley.

Whittingham also had considerable Premier League experience with Sheffield Wednesday, having already netted at well above one per every two games across around 160 appearances in his first and best Pompey spell.

He later returned to the South Coast for two loan stays to take his career goal tally up towards 200 – an excellent return for someone who didn’t enter the full-time game until his mid-20s.

He served in an altogether bigger team, the British Army, and played non-League for Waterlooville and Yeovil before Pompey took a punt on him in 1989.

Wolves fans also had a second glimpse of him in 1998-99, again either side of managerial change. He was brought back here by Mark McGhee on loan but this time mustered only a single goal in ten matches, most of them under Colin Lee.