Quartet Turn Back Clock At Nordic Celebration

They toured there several times in the 1970s and now a group of Wolves players from that era are back on their travels by popular demand.

John Richards, Kenny Hibbitt, Steve Daley and Colin Brazier are spending the weekend in Norway, where they have been entertaining fans from both sides of the North Sea with their stories and recollections.

The quartet are special guests at the Viking Wolves’ 30th anniversary celebrations in Bergen and enjoying retracing some of the steps they took in their playing days.

Wolves last visited Norway when they were under the managership of Dave Jones in 2004 but made summer tours there much more frequently in the past and spent time there in 1975, 1977 and 1978.

Daley even stood in as captain in one game in an era in which it was not unheard of for Wolves to play games in Norway at the end of one season and in Sweden before the start of the next.

Richards returned to Norway – to Bergen, in fact – when touring Scandinavia as an over-age player with an England under-21s squad also containing Peter Daniel, John Deehan, Peter Barnes, David Peach, Peter Reid, Gary Owen, Laurie Cunningham, Steve Sims and Steve Williams.

But he has again referred to the airport-training-ground-stadium nature of that and other football trips and gave us a hint in a text today of his delight in being able to go back now with much more leisure time.

The players, with wives, had today free in one of Norway’s most beautiful cities and a boat trip is being planned for tomorrow as a way of experiencing the area’s well-known fjord setting.

From a distance via social media, we were able to monitor some of the goings-on at the dinner in a marquee at the home of organiser Odin Henrikssen.

Odin, a frequent flyer and Molineux visitor despite his journey time, took the mic to conduct a question-and-answer session, which we have seen a few minutes of in the West Norway Wolves group on Facebook.

Fans from England have been among the gathering – maybe they have planned flights home in order to be at Everton tomorrow – and we look forward to hearing more about the get-together in due course.

As Viking Wolves president, Wolves Heroes’ David Instone sent a filmed message congratulating the club in anticipation it would be played at last night’s dinner.