Charity Drive Well On Course

A golf day is to be staged later this year in support of stricken former Wolves forward Barry Stobart.

Friends and one-time team-mates are rallying to help the 73-year-old Yorkshireman, who is in a home suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.

His condition has worsened considerably in the last couple of years and his long-time pal Graham Newton – himself once a Molineux youngster – is confident of a good turn-out.

“I’m sure we can attract something like 20 teams for a great day out at one of the local courses,” he said.

“When I came back from playing in America about 35 years ago, we lived next door to Maureen and Barry in Lanesfield, where they had a general store at the front of the house and we had a ladies’ fashion shop that also sold wool.

“We were neighbours for quite a while before they moved to their house at Ettingshall Park, near Sedgley.

“Barry and I have always been close and I think he followed me in as manager of Willenhall Town and took them to Wembley in the FA Vase.

“He’s a lovely man who I know many of the other former players would love to support. I’m speaking to some of the local clubs now to see what sort of deal we can get and I already have around 15 teams lined up for the event.

“I will also be speaking properly to Maureen about where the proceeds will go but the Alzheimer’s Society is one obvious option.”

Stobart, yet another Wath Wanderers product, came virtually from nowhere to play in Wolves’ victorious FA Cup final side in 1960.

He was only 21 and had then made just five first-team appearances. But he was preferred by Stan Cullis to Bobby Mason at Wembley after playing the previous weekend in a 5-1 First Division win at Chelsea that took the club agonisingly close to a third successive League title triumph.

The inside-forward’s debut was a goal-scoring one in a 2-0 victory at Manchester United in March, 1960, and he kept his place for the win at Leicester in the Cup quarter-final a week later and for a home bow against Preston – another game in which he was among the marksmen.

A phenomenal performer in the Central League side at Molineux with 110 goals in just under 200 matches, Stobart went on to net 22 times in only 54 senior outings – nearly half of them in 1962-63. Braces against United, Albion, Leyton Orient and Nottingham Forest were the highlights of his impressive contribution to the season.

He was transferred to Manchester City for £20,000 in August, 1964, just before Cullis’s controversial departure and subsequently moved to Aston Villa and Shrewsbury.

Newton failed to make it beyond Wolves’ junior teams but still had a colourful career with Blackpool, Walsall, Coventry and Atlanta Chiefs among others, as we reported in late March.

The Pattingham-based former centre-forward is an ex-captain at nearby Patshull Park and finished second recently in a tournament organised by Coventry’s Former Players Association.