Captaincy Role Conferred A Long Way From Home

Our story about honorary Wolves captains six days ago has already smoked out further information on the subject.

We were disappointed to learn in a conversation with Steve Kindon that he didn’t skipper the club when going back to Burnley in December, 1973, but he went on to surprise us greatly.

“I did once captain Wolves, although Mike Bailey was playing,” he said. “We were on tour in Norway, with Bill McGarry as manager, and visited a place called Skien for one of the matches.

“My dad had been a professional soldier and was in a platoon in he war years who helped liberate the town from the Nazis.

“So when I went with Wolves, the locals made a big fuss of me and took to calling me Dick as his name was Richard and I looked just like him facially and physically.

“Bill McGarry wouldn’t have invited me to be captain in a League game – he didn’t like me! So it didn’t matter whether or not I had spent several years at Burnley and that I was back there playing in a First Division game in 1973.

“He did agree to me being skipper in that tour game, though, and the lads celebrated it by playing a prank. When I ran out on to the pitch, I realised I was all alone and they had held back in the tunnel area!”

A look in the record books shows that Wolves were in Norway with McGarry in the early summer of 1975. Apart from facing Odds Ballklubb in that game in Skien, they also travelled elsewhere in the country to play Mjondalen and Alesund, with Kindon among the scorers in all three games.

On the subject of honorary captains, we were also grateful to be reminded of the night Eddie Stuart was invited to lead Stan Cullis’s side out in September, 1953.

The first floodlit game ever staged at Molineux was against a South African X1 and the powerful defender was not only handed a starting place by Bill Shorthouse’s selfless offer to stand down for the evening, but made captain as the opposition were the strongest line-up able to be raised from his homeland.

“It was a wonderful experience for me,” said Stuart, who was working his way back to form and fitness following a long spell out with a tropical illness picked up on his travels home. 

“I went on to play a lot of games for Wolves as skipper but this was the first time. I was incredibly proud just to play against the national team from my home country – and to lead the side out made it even more special.”

*The first episode of the excellent new podcast featuring Dean Edwards and Colin Lee can now be accessed at https://backontheball.co.uk/listen