Just how good were/was/is/are (Wolves Edition)

[darlowolf64]

I'd compare his style of play to very similar to what Raul does for us now.
Richards was good in the air, good hold up play, had some pace, good finisher and not TOO selfish

 

[Paul]

Just veering the conversation off a bit, the reason we should worship the ground Raul walks on I think you would be hard pushed to find a striker as unselfish, has anyone compared the assist rate of comparable strikers ?

Sorry I'll shut up now

 

[nimrod]

JR was my boyhood hero though was just past his best by the time i saw him live at end of 70s.
scored lots of different goals like any good striker getting into good positions
played well in a partnership - dougan, gray
played the critical through ball when we beat Leeds 1972 - as featured in the world of football mags gifted to me by my uncle in the mid 70s
one of my favourite goals when we beat liverpool 1-0 in 1980. coolly into corner past clemence, probably his only chance in the game
i must have mentioned him a lot as a kid as my sister weirdly named her teddy bear after him

 

[Doctor Doog]

Great goalscorer, unlucky to only get one England cap. Better than Bully in my opinion (lights blue touchpaper and retires to a safe distance....). Nice bloke by all accounts, but didn't do a good job for us when he was on the board in the 90s, possibly because he was too nice.

I'll post more later if I have time.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

He'll always get tarnished by the Robbie Keane deal and lack of a sell-on clause but:

a) Villa's mooted offer of £5.5m plus 10% of profit on sale (assuming he'd have left for the same club for the same fee at the same time) wouldn't have seen us much better off

b) I don't blame him for getting pissed off with dealing with Gregory and Ellis

c) We badly needed the money, we had a team to build and it was evident he couldn't stay at this level any longer

We did well with the Keane money. Pretty much all those signings came off at least to an extent, in the short term anyway. With the Akinbiyi money....less so though Jez was at the club by then. He always likes to take credit for getting a big fee for him. In reality it wasn't that flash, there wasn't that much profit in the deal and you can't endlessly repeat the same trick. Keep selling your best players and eventually it'll trip you up. Plus it's the manager who picks the signings or at least it was then.

Can't contribute anything on his worth as a player. Saw him at The Old Gold Club at the Grand last year with Kenny and Quirk, he comes across pretty well though his memory is a bit hit and miss. He reckoned Andy Gray was going downhill when we signed him. He was only 23! Another one of the 70s crowd who insists they were far better as a team than evidence would tend to suggest, but I suppose he's always going to have a natural bias.

Going off clips, looks a good all-round footballer. Bit of pace, good finisher, good work rate. Kind of like Kevin Doyle but with more goals. He's no Raul though

 

[Kenny]

a) Villa's mooted offer of £5.5m plus 10% of profit on sale (assuming he'd have left for the same club for the same fee at the same time) wouldn't have seen us much better off

But then we missed out on all the other 10%'s as Robbie moved again and again and again...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

But then we missed out on all the other 10%'s as Robbie moved again and again and again...

:icon_lol:

Think of all the coin!

(Incidentally how does Scrooge McDuck not injure himself doing that)

 

[Tony Towner]

As Deutsch says the Keane deal was £500k now rather than the lower figure later, which was a lot more then than it sounds today. I don't think anyone envisaged Coventry more or less doubling their money in under a year.

It's used as a stick to beat him with as people put arbitrary figures like 25% out there, but JR said it was 10% and cost us £50k in reality and that assumes Villa selling him which was a bigger club than Cov isn't a given

As a player he was my first favourite but to be honest that's because he was the centre forward who scored the most goals rather than anything else.

 

[The Bear]

:icon_lol:

Think of all the coin!

(Incidentally how does Scrooge McDuck not injure himself doing that)

https://youtu.be/viDL2W0HcJw

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

King John was awesome, and for me slightly better than Bully.

He was my boyhood hero, my cousin's middle name is John, after I begged my uncle to name him John after King John.

I met him years later and was a tongue tied idiot just speaking to him.

I met Hibbitt, Bully, Mutch etc and they never quite had that effect on me as meeting King John. I used to see them quite regularly, as I was really good friends with Colin Taylor when he played with Bully.

I remember being at Villa Park for Wolves V Arsenal we did not turn up that day, but always remember 1 guy shouting at the Arsenal fans, Slick Johny slips round big Willy.

Richard's, Doog, Hibbitt, Waggy etc was a tremendous team that were only one or 2 players short of a serious title challenge.

 

[Doctor Doog]

:icon_lol:

Think of all the coin!

(Incidentally how does Scrooge McDuck not injure himself doing that)

Because he's a cartoon character?

Seriously, on the board stuff, it's not just the Keane deal. Having an executive position at the local council and being on the board of a lawnmower company is very different to being MD of a large second tier football club. He never came across as being able to deal with the cut and thrust that was obviously going on given the characters involved. Always seemed to be put forward as a fan friendly apologist, who didn't really have much influence.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I demand realism from er, Ducktales.

It wasn't an easy situation. Sir Jack wanted the club to be run properly rather than as an expensive folly, his idiot son had made a right Horlicks of things, so there was a lot to do in a very short space of time. We also had a manager who clearly no longer had the faith of those in charge, but equally we didn't want to pay him off. It was at a point where rather than us outspending most of the division year on year, it was now cutting your cloth and spending what you could bring in, by and large. Took our fans a while to adjust to that mindset.

Ultimately SJH should have taken a backseat and if he was appointing an MD, let him run the show day by day. I never got the impression that was actually the case.

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

I demand realism from er, Ducktales.

It wasn't an easy situation. Sir Jack wanted the club to be run properly rather than as an expensive folly, his idiot son had made a right Horlicks of things, so there was a lot to do in a very short space of time. We also had a manager who clearly no longer had the faith of those in charge, but equally we didn't want to pay him off. It was at a point where rather than us outspending most of the division year on year, it was now cutting your cloth and spending what you could bring in, by and large. Took our fans a while to adjust to that mindset.

Ultimately SJH should have taken a backseat and if he was appointing an MD, let him run the show day by day. I never got the impression that was actually the case.

I know football is different.

You dont get to be a multi millionaire by letting other people have a free reign.

His son let him down badly, they I believe he decided to keep a closer watch over things.

I believe if SJH had put someone better in charge right at the beginning, we would have got promoted earlier

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Sir Jack was a great guy (albeit out of step with modern life) who loved Wolves. There's an argument to be made though that he got every single managerial appointment wrong (he had no hand in Mick whatsoever, he was 83 by then and Jez was 99.9999% running the club). In fact Colin Lee was probably the one that stacks up best out of the lot.

 

[Johnny75]

Jez Moxey gets management wrong?

You don't say.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Jezward got Mick right tbf. I don't think he had much to do with Hoddle, that was a vanity appointment by Sir Jack.

DJ was a shit, shit choice by whoever it was. Mind you, better than Harry Bassett.

 

[Templeton Peck]

I was in the same class as his daughter at primary school for a bit. I have nothing more to contribute.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I was in the same class as his daughter at primary school for a bit. I have nothing more to contribute.

You'd have like to haven known his daughter when she was older! Top class.

John Richards was a very, very nice man. Although I remember his later years better, a good player and a Wolves great - unlucky not to get a few more caps in an era when we failed to qualify for back to back World Cups. Definitely held back by playing for an unfashionable club.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Who were England's main front two at his peak? Keegan I'm guessing, and...

 

[Tony Towner]

Alan Clarke, Martin Chivers, Mick Channon earlier
Latchford, Mariner, Pearson, Francis later