Sales Season – And Now the Road Show Moves On

Jim McCalliog today bid a fond farewell to Wolverhampton as he headed south for the next phase of his promotional book tour.

The former Molineux favourite and wife Debbie have spent three or four days in the city attending signings, many of them with question-and-answer sessions attached.

And he was full of happy memories as they checked out of the Mount Hotel this morning, not far from the address he had on the Compton/Tettenhall Wood border for part of the time when playing for Wolves from 1969 to 1974.

“It has been just like old times,” he said. “Almost like starting my career here all over again.

“I have met quite a few people I knew when I played for Wolves, including a few lads from the Three Tuns side I used to coach on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

“It is lovely that several of those guys have shown up at the different locations we have set up in. The session we had in the lower mall of the Mander Centre was particularly good but the whole experience has left us feeling very good.

“There was a q and a at Penn Golf Club which was organised by Steve Saul and a Michael Woodhouse, who was a youngster at Wolves when I was there.

“And, at The Wheatsheaf, they were belting out the Jimmy Mac song, which went down very well. It was all very nostalgic.

“It has been overwhelming at times if I am honest. Everyone has been very welcoming and the business we have done with selling copies of my autobiography has been pleasing, too.

“Put it this way, we have a lot fewer copies than we did when we arrived here on Sunday and that van will be going a bit faster on the way down to Southampton.”

The McCalliogs have attended more than a dozen meet-the-fans sessions in Wolverhampton and an additional one at the WR Davies Toyota showroom in Telford at which Derek Parkin showed up to lend moral support.

They have a similar number of events in Southampton over the next few days, starting tonight and continuing with his appearace in the corporate rooms at Saturday’s home game against West Ham.

They then head to Sheffield to reflect the fact he was an FA Cup finalist with Wednesday exactly ten years before making the only goal of the Saints’ Wembley win over Manchester United in 1976.

The couple are not due back in Scotland until a week tomorrow to reopen the Langside bed and breakfast establishment they run near Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. Because he was taken to Old Trafford from Wolves by Tommy Docherty and was an international who scored against England on his debut, they are then planning some events around Manchester and in Glasgow.

We at Wolves Heroes played a small part in the production process of Wembley Wins Wembley Woes, a £20 publication that is also now on sale in the Molineux store.

Among those to help on the ground these last few days has been Peter Crump, from the Wolves Museum, who Jim described as the perfect ‘roadie’ as he helped direct them from location to location.