Revealing Molineux’s Most Senior Marksmen…
It’s all James Milner’s fault. Had he not scored for Brighton earlier this season, our deep dive into the record books may never have been considered. It would, at least, have been substantially delayed.
But by netting the equaliser against Manchester City at the end of August and setting The Seagulls on the way to an unlikely home victory, Milner attracted all manner of publicity.
It ended his six-year Premier League goal famine and made him the competition’s second oldest scorer, having also become its second youngest marksman when hitting one of Leeds’ three goals against Sunderland in 2002.
So that set us wondering: Who are Wolves’ oldest and youngest marksmen in League or cup and which players have had the longest and shortest time spans between their first and final goals in gold and black?
To give this matter some background, Archie Goodall is commonly listed as the club’s oldest player and was 42 when signing off his senior career here in 1906. But he played only seven senior games while at Molineux and didn’t score.
These next two managed a mere 500 goals between them and are worth close scrutiny in this context. But Steve Bull was still only 33 when he plundered the last of his 306 Wolves goals and John Richards was three months on from his 32nd birthday at the time of what proved the final instalment in his 194-goal Molineux career.
No-one alive or dead has notched more often for the club than those two but quite a few were more advanced in years when they indulged in the last of their personal celebrations.
We will limit our highlighted goal men here to those who scored in Wolves’ senior team in the second half of their 30s, starting with Cyrille Regis, who was among the marksmen in a 3-0 home win over Birmingham in February, 1994 only 13 days after turning 36.
Lawrie Madden netted at home to Grimsby in 1991 a few weeks after himself celebrating that same birthday and another defender, Keith Curle, struck from a penalty against Stockport at Molineux in the spring of 2000 when he was a few weeks more senior.
Many of us will remember Gordon Cowans’ fine effort in the drawn FA Cup quarter-final tie at Crystal Palace in March, 1995. Well, he was as close to 36 and a half at the time as makes no difference.
And Derek Dougan was 36 and nine months when he struck at Middlesbrough in the autumn of 1974 with what was the last of his 123 Wanderers goals.
George Hedley and Billy Harrison also both scored in Wolves’ first team as 36-year-olds, in 1913 and 1920 respectively, and, moving forward to the glory years, Johnny Hancocks was a month and a half short of his 37th birthday when netting against Luton in March, 1956.
Right, enough of the dancing around the issue. Two men we haven’t yet mentioned – good friends and contemporaries, as it happens – are ahead of the rest in this particular list.
Denis Irwin was five days away from his 37th birthday when he scored with the direct free-kick that drew Dave Jones’s Wolves level at home to Grimsby in October, 2002, and set them on the way to a 4-1 victory.
And it was also from a set-piece, this time 25 yards out, that Paul Ince scored at home to Coventry on April 8, 2006 – a time when he was nearly 38 and a half years young. And no Wolves player, before or since, can match that.
So, for clarification: Paul Ince is the oldest player ever to have scored a competitive first-team goal for Wolves.
We are greatly indebted in the compilation of this article to Blackpool-based Scott Pritchard, whose magnificent www.wolvescompletehistory.co.uk website somehow continues to get better and better. And we will be leaning on him again in the coming weeks to throw light on other aspects of the club’s goal-scoring past.
If any of our readers think any deserving players have been overlooked in this search, possibly because they have good reason to doubt any of the birthdates commonly given in the record books, we very much hope they will make their thoughts known to us.
Just to round off this story, James Milner was 16 years and 356 days when he netted against Sunderland 23 years ago and was 39 years and 239 days when he converted his penalty versus Manchester City recently. Teddy Sheringham holds the ‘oldest Premier League scorer’ record at 40 years and 268 days after scoring for West Ham against Portsmouth in December, 2006.