Death Announced Of Star Keeper

Paul Bradshaw, one of Wolves’ best keepers since the 1950s glory years, has died.

The tall 67-year-old played in Wolves’ victorious 1980 League Cup final side and in losing FA Cup semi-finals in the seasons immediately before and after.

Imposing enough to have a trial with Manchester United and win England honours at youth and under-23 levels, he totalled 243 games while at Molineux from 1977 to 1984 – a figure bettered by only two other Wanderers keepers.

He was twice the club’s player of the year and was hugely admired by team-mates and supporters alike.

As a Blackburn player shortly before Wolves broke their transfer record by sending a £150,000 cheque to Ewood Park during Sammy Chung’s managerial reign, he produced a stunning performance in a 2-2 draw at Albion in March, 1976.

Whether or not Wolves had a scout at that game, we don’t know but he headed south with the club newly returned to the top flight and was sufficiently impressive to largely end the first-team careers here of Phil Parkes and Gary Pierce.

Bradshaw missed only one game out of 37 in his first season at Molineux and maintained a similar hold on the senior jersey in the following four seasons.

As our Player of the Year section shows, he was voted Wolves’ top performer in both 1980-81 and 1981-82 and he returned to the first team for a dozen games in the nightmare 1983-84 top-flight season amid two years of entertainment and excellence from John Burridge.

Bradshaw played 243 games for Wolves, including exactly 200 in the League, and briefly sampled European football in the narrow two-leg defeat against PSV Eindhoven. He stands 50th in the club’s all-time list of top appearance-makers.

We will be writing much more about Paul soon and wish to express our deepest condolences in the meantime to his friends, family and Wolves team-mates.