It's a rare thing indeed to hear football fans who are happy with their club,it's even rarer to hear those same fans say that the current football their team are producing is the best they have ever witnessed in their life,unless they're twelve years old where that statement can be revised almost weekly,but to hear forty,fifty & sixty year olds say it means there is something extraordinary going down...this is what's happening at Wolves...
I have been watching Wolves on a regular basis since i was a kid in the late sixties.Molineux was my bi-weekly Woodstock if i'd known what the hell Woodstock was.Sometimes it was my Altamont...I was too young to remember the all conquering team of the fifties.The team that fifteen years earlier had been crowned unofficial world champions thereby forcing UEFA to instigate the European Cup giving the world some of the most thrilling games ever and,frankly,some of the dullest too...so next time you hear that god awful cod operatic muzak UEFA insist all competing Champions League clubs play you can thank us.You're welcome...
Looking back that team from 1969 to 1974 was superb.I did'nt appreciate it at the time of course,when you're a fickle freckled yoof you don't.That's the law.But those names trip off the tongue of fans of a certain age(ie old bastards) Richards,Doog,Waggy,Munro,McCalliog,Bailey and my hero Hibbitt.That team were almost a permanent fixture in the top eight.Won the league cup.Lost in the final of the UEFA cup to Spurs(where i learnt that the Seven Sisters road is fucking long especially when being chased by unruly Cock-en-nees) Lost to the rightly hated Leeds in the FA Cup semi final at Maine Road where i'm convinced we would have hammered Sunderland in the final.Even though they were a great team there's a nagging feeling that they under achieved.the club rested on it's laurels and never effectively replaced aging stars...ah well it was good fun.
Football fans love to compare players and teams from the present to those of the past.It's impossible of course but that does'nt stop us.The game has changed totally in the intervening years.Physically the players of today are unrecognisable next to our hero's of the early 70's.Even the most plodding of hairy arsed lower league defenders of today would probably make a fist of playing for a team in the top division from the 70's just by dint of being twice as fit and faster than those long haired lager swilling lothario's of times past...
When i watch games from that era on You Tube they look so slow compared to today's game.The skills are there but would they be able to live with the pace? I doubt it,especially after chowing down on steak & chips two hours before kick off.But that was then and that's what we had.Those players rightly hold a special place in the history and folk law of the club but honestly after watching this young,exciting,skillful,committed,intelligent and pacy team play this season i don't think the 70's team would last the pace.They'd be blowing out of their arse on the hour ready to be picked off at will...
It's not just about the players of course.There's the manager too.Having grown up watching football from the late 60's onwards i have got used to viewing football managers as nailed on tea cup throwing obergruppenfuhrer types.We still have a few of these Jurassic behemoths knocking about of course but thankfully not at Wolves any more.We have a thinker,a philosopher,a half time smoker...he has his players playing his game.Converting his ideas from cranium to the pitch.He may well chide them in private but in public he's nothing but encouraging to his charges.A pat on the arse rather than a clip round the ear,As long as they play the game his way he's happy and so should we be...don't be fooled though,he has passion to burn but it's channeled correctly.To officials and opposing gin swilling directors...
So the big question: Is this the best football i have ever seen a Wolves team produce? Yes without a doubt but with the caveat of needing to produce it against the best in the land.I think they can and i think they will...
