Prize Guy Delivers Another Winner 

We wrote at length on here a few weeks ago about the excellent Revolution At Wolves book by Johnny Phillips and Paul Berry and are delighted to have generated a few extra sales of it by doing so. Now, we have little hesitation in recommending another title that has been on the bedside tables of this website’s two co-owners these past few weeks – a weighty read, as well as a highly compelling one.

Right, how much should we give away here? There’s enough in Jason Guy’s latest literary offering to fill three or four posts but our aim is to whet the appetite of potential buyers, not satisfy it.

Respectful as we are, we will therefore be selective in how much we disclose so as to ensure there is still considerable curiosity about this outstanding publication among our readers.

The author needs little by way of introduction as he has been a magnificent charity fund-raiser over the years and reminded guests at the Bobby Gould evening he hosted in early October that the overall total accrued had climbed well past £350,000.

This work is a follow-up to his Tales From The Tape volume one, so, among his substantial talents, what does he regard as his qualification for writing Wolves books? 

“I still don’t see myself as an author and am certainly not a journalist,” he says in the acknowledgements. “Tales From The Tape was first published in early 2021. A global pandemic had engulfed us and we were all given time during lockdown. I used mine to write a book, thinking that, once printed, they would raise a few quid for charity and then clutter my garage for years to come. I was wrong.”

A thousand hard-back copies were sold within five weeks, a follow-up print run of 250 paper-back versions went as well and, with the help of a major donation from an appreciative, anonymous reader, £20,000 was donated to Breast Cancer Now and The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Neonatal Department.

Buyers of this £20 book, of which available pre-Christmas copies are already dwindling fast, will be supporting the same two wonderful causes, plus The 1P36 Family. In addition, they will be vastly increasing their knowledge of Wolves and being richly entertained along the way. 

“I have dug even deeper for Tales From The Tape volume two,” adds the man whose Wolf Whistle podcast has had well over 100,000 downloads in 40-plus countries. “It covers mental health, severe illness, abuse, gambling, alcoholism….death and taxes. I was given guarantees that the subjects would open up and they didn’t disappoint.” To his interviewees, he offers the heartfelt message: “Thank-you for telling me your story and leaving nothing out on the Molineux pitch.”

Guy can write a hundred times better than many of us career media folk could do his day job and carries a lovely turn of phrase throughout the 320-plus pages. He’s not afraid of a pun either – the section on early-1980s reserve John Teasdale seems to mention half of Rod Stewart’s back catalogue – but the warmth of the subjects towards him is crystal-clear.

Partly through his work over many years with the Wolves All Stars team but also because of his affable, easy-going nature, players feel comfortable in his company, which is a sizeable part of the battle in drawing good stories from them. It helps also that so many are heroes to him and even those who played only a handful of games for the club lived his boyhood dream.

One such character, Londoner Brian Owen, whose work here 50 years ago was largely as a coach, talks of the club’s unfulfilled interest in Paul Mariner. What a signing he might have been! Owen also says that his mum was always a Wolves fan but two other men later explain why they went to the League Cup finals of 1974 and 1980 praying that the gold and black ribbons would NOT be needed.

Owen, Teasdale, Mick Bennett, Dennis Pearce – players didn’t need to be world-beaters to make Guy’s final edit and some of the best tales are from those we knew the least about.

And what about Denis Conyerd? We were aware through interviewing the club’s early 1980s physio in October that he is a wonderful raconteur but we’ve been scooped here with his revelations about gathering discarded sock-ties off the pitch after matches, his gratitude to Mel Bird (later the club’s ticket office manager) for procuring strapping and other items from the Sunday team he ran, even his words of support for the Bhattis.

Some interviewees no doubt found reflecting on their Molineux lives a cathartic exercise. Others found it highly emotional. “‘The Reverend’ (Les Wilson) broke down in tears,” Guy writes. “The memories were flooding back. Sometimes, it’s easier for us to look forward than behind us.” Bobby Gould was another to have filled up while going all nostalgic and John Pender’s powerful chapter contained reference to a temporary breakdown in dialogue.

A huge raft of new revelations have certainly been extracted here in a title that has this time been printed only as a hard-back and was reviewed by David Harrison in the programme for Saturday’s Wolves v Nottingham Forest clash.

Veteran Wolves writer that I am, I can confirm that there are any number of exclusive angles among the 32 chapters – that’s one section each for almost three teams’ worth of Molineux figures, beginning with Ted Farmer and Alan Hinton, ending with Johnny Gorman and coach Steve Hodge.

Jason admits that his favourite answers are those that are preceded by the words: ‘I have never told this story before.’ That’s a time to sit forward and pay even closer attention….manna from heaven!

John Burridge’s chapter is simply wonderful – just read it and giggle, even if you have to twice read the bit in which he insists he hasn’t retired from playing and believes he could still do a job at 72 for a PREMIER LEAGUE club! 

Jackie Gallagher is a mere slip of a lad at 65 and also still plays, however unlikely that might seem to those who remember his late-1980s frame.

Kevin Keen, Mark Burke, Chris Marsden (who surprises me by revealing he did get on with Graham Taylor) and John de Wolf are all featured, too, and the section on Paul Stewart is, like the earlier one on Geoff Thomas, a tough but essential read.

We could go on and on with these tasters but, in mentioning in passing that the Jamie O’Hara podcast was the most downloaded of all the ones the author has done, will close with Iwan Roberts.

The striker was only a modest success at Wolves despite an early hat-trick at Albion and I thought a trick had been missed with the overlooking of how Norwich had subsequently shown Wolves up by improving his fitness so much that he became a big enough success there to be inducted into the Canaries’ hall of fame.

Not to worry….whether that tale was left out by accident or design, it was dwarfed by the one explaining how Roberts had been fined for admitting in his autobiography that he had injured Kevin Muscat on purpose in a revenge mission. Compelling reading, as we said at the start.