The Wolves Archive

[KiwiWolf61]

Today's update:

1997/98 Season (57 matches)

Season Summary:
Division 1 = 9th
FA Cup = Semi-Finalist
League Cup = 3rd Round

Wolves never really seriously threatened to make the play-offs and with it a promotion challenge, despite the near miss of the previous season, finishing in ninth place 9 points behind Sheffield United in sixth place.

With Steve Bull nearing the end of his career with persistent knee injuries a new Wolves hero emerged in the form of 17yo teenager Robbie Keane who scored twice on his debut in the opening season fixture away at Norwich City. Keane was the most precocious young talent seen in a Wolves shirt since Peter Knowles way back in 1964.

But the most striking feature of the season was that Wolves managed to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in 19 years where they lost to eventual double winners Arsenal.

However, the highlight of the cup run was undoubtedly the 1-0 win at Leeds United with the winning goal scored in the 83rd minute by Don Goodman from a peach of a pass by Carl Robinson.

Further tension occurred in the 90th minute when Hans Seger saved a penalty from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink after Robbie Keane had brought down Hasselbaink.

For me this game is always etched as one of my favourites as it was the first game I saw Wolves play for 16 years and watching it in the wee hours of the morning I woke the entire house up when Goodman scored and then repeated the dose again 7 minutes later with Seger's save.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Today's update:

1998/99 Season (49 matches)


Season Summary:
Division 1 = 7th
FA Cup = 4th Round
League Cup = 2nd Round

The season began with Mark McGhee as manager but he left "by mutual agreement" on 5 November after a run of two victories from fourteen games; the team having begun with four consecutive league wins.

Upon McGhee's departure his assistant Colin Lee was placed in charge of the team which came close to finishing in the play-off positions but finished in 7th place, one position short of the play-offs. Results on the final day, including their own (losing to Bradford City at Molineux who secured promotion), failed to go in their favour.

The season was not without its highlights, probably no more than Colin Lee's first game in charge where Wolves won 6-1 at Bristol City with David Connolly scoring 4. This game also got worldwide attention with the half-time mascot fight between Wolfie and the 3 Pigs . . . "C'mon Wolfie".

I still recall the game got coverage on the news even in NZ !

Although Wolves didn't go on a FA Cup run losing at home 2-1 to Arsenal in the 4th round, they did put up more of a game than the previous seasons semi-final defeat.

So that wraps up the 10 seasons of the 1990s - 500 matches covered out of a possible 542. Now onto the 2000s where I have 502 matches to upload out of a possible 507.

I'm also in the process of finalising a goals compilation for Andy Mutch (I have 47 goals). Do I prepare 1 video (just over 10 minutes long) or 2 (each approx. 5 minutes in length) ?

Bully will be next goals compilations - I have 224 goals so that will definitely be a number of videos.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

One for Mr Mutch I would say

 

[1986]

Always liked Mutch , the ' other lad up top ' so to speak . Total over shadowed needless to say by his partner in crime , but perfectly understandably , but didn't let it bother him and scored plenty himself along the way .

Played on for a good while after leaving too at various clubs and played one season I think in the top division .

 

[Lupo]

Played on for a good while after leaving too at various clubs and played one season I think in the top division .

Yeah, Swindon

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Today's update:

Andy Mutch: Wolves Goals

Compilation video of 47 top goals scored by Wolves legend - Andy Mutch.

2013 Wolverhampton Wanderers Hall of Fame inductee.

During September I'll be uploading a a number of compilations videos I have compiled including 5 videos for Steve Bull detailing 224 goals, a video of all of Robbie Keane 29 goals for Wolves and one for the oldies in highlighting goals scored for Wolves by Andy Gray.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Today's update:

Season 1999/00 (51 matches)

Season Summary:
Division 1 = 7th
FA Cup = 4th Round
League Cup = 2nd Round

For a second consecutive season Wolves finished in 7th position, missing out on the play-offs by one place. Defeat in their penultimate match to play-off rivals Bolton Wanderers (Notlob) ultimately doomed them to miss out; although Wolves did spend most of the season just outside the play-off positions.

Teenage sensation Robbie Keane was sold for a club record transfer of £6 million to near neighbours Coventry City who were playing in the Premier League.

A fair portion of that fee was spent on 2 new incomings in George Ndah and Ade Akinbiyi, who played the one season for Wolves top scoring with 16 goals. Although his best strike was surely against Tony Vaughan of Nottingham Forest:

Arguably Wolves best performance of the season was their 4-1 demolition of Manchester City (who were promoted in 2nd place).

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We lost two home games early on to Walsall (Christ) and Huddersfield before we had the team set properly after Keano's sale (we couldn't spend anything until he went). After that we only lost one more home game all season, to Charlton who won the league by a mile. We were very good at Molineux and when people go on about Colin Lee's spell being "dull" they're being more than a little unfair.

Less so away with just six wins on the road. Still unlucky not to make the playoffs as we got robbed at Bolton in the penultimate game (and they finished 6th, two points above us). We scored in the dying seconds but fat, bent Kevin Lynch blew for full time as the ball was bobbling around in their six yard box. If that goal counts to make it 2-2 then we finish above them.

 

[Alan]

This is really important work tbh.

@KiwiWolf61 how do you store all of this? I assume you have a backup somewhere locally.

Also, re-checked the OP; how are you handling the conversion to digital? You mentioned “tapes” so I’m assuming VHS out of hand.

I’m nosy!

 

[KiwiWolf61]

This is really important work tbh.

@KiwiWolf61 how do you store all of this? I assume you have a backup somewhere locally.

Absolutely Alan - all the videos are stored on my Apple iMac desktop - and I have 2 separate daily backups of all my data, files, videos etc so all good.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

We lost two home games early on to Walsall (Christ) and Huddersfield before we had the team set properly after Keano's sale (we couldn't spend anything until he went). After that we only lost one more home game all season, to Charlton who won the league by a mile. We were very good at Molineux and when people go on about Colin Lee's spell being "dull" they're being more than a little unfair.

Less so away with just six wins on the road. Still unlucky not to make the playoffs as we got robbed at Bolton in the penultimate game (and they finished 6th, two points above us). We scored in the dying seconds but fat, bent Kevin Lynch blew for full time as the ball was bobbling around in their six yard box. If that goal counts to make it 2-2 then we finish above them.

It's a pity there was no "highlights" of the goal scored in the dying seconds.

From what you say, the match highlights don't really do the team and Colin Lee justice.

Now for dull football the following season (2000/01) is a standout - very insipid.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Once we'd got all the transfer business done we went along the lines of:

------------------Oakes------------------

Muscat------Curle-------Pollet------Naylor

Bazeley-------Emblen---Sedgley**----Sinton

---------------Akinbiyi----Branch*--------------

*Would have been Ndah but Matt Carbon did what he did.

**Got Allan Nielsen in on loan towards the end of the season and he really elevated us a level.

Doesn't look too flash on paper and it lacks a bit of genuine quality in central midfield (we had Osborn, Robinson and Scott Taylor too - all gave it their best and had their moments but again, they're short of that extra bit of class) but Muscat and Bazeley linked up superbly down the right hand side, Sinton had a real Indian summer of a season with us where he rolled back the years to his QPR pomp, Akinbiyi and Branch formed a decent partnership with bags of pace and that's two of my favourite centre halves of the pre-Fosun days. It's basic late 90s/early 00s 4-4-2 but it was genuinely decent to watch a lot of the time.

Fell off a cliff the year after - Curle left on a free, Ludo kept getting injured through his own selfless bravery, Muscat's form dropped off after being given the captaincy, Bazeley's form completely collapsed and he never played for us again after December 2000, Sinton was finally coming to an end, Akinbiyi was sold (understandably, but we used the money largely poorly) and Branch's confidence in front of goal never recovered after the Dave Beasant incident.

 

[Alan]

Absolutely Alan - all the videos are stored on my Apple iMac desktop - and I have 2 separate daily backups of all my data, files, videos etc so all good.

Other clubs would be lucky to have an archivist like you!

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Other clubs would be lucky to have an archivist like you!

I'm actually quite surprised that it appears no-one or a club has attempted to do this.

There are numerous sites say for ManU and Liverpool which detail historical match highlights but they're never complete or only cover a few years or a decade at best.

Given football is such a passion in England and every club has a fanatical supporter base, whether it be small, medium or large, you'd of thought someone, or the club would have done something like this.

Imagine if this was ManU or Liverpool and the huge amount of coverage they got in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Look at own club's YouTube channel - plenty of content and matches (albeit mainly from the last 10 years), but the structure and organisation of the videos on the channel is simply haphazard and lazy IMO (which to be honest is pretty standard for most clubs YouTube channels).

In fairness to YouTube they do provide very simple to use tools for you to organise and present your channel in a professional manner which I hope I've managed to do.

Also, re-checked the OP; how are you handling the conversion to digital? You mentioned “tapes” so I’m assuming VHS out of hand.

I’m nosy!

I had numerous Wolves VHS cassettes from the 90s and early 2000s which I had already converted to DVD and then to digital.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Once we'd got all the transfer business done we went along the lines of:

------------------Oakes------------------

Muscat------Curle-------Pollet------Naylor

Bazeley-------Emblen---Sedgley**----Sinton

---------------Akinbiyi----Branch*--------------

*Would have been Ndah but Matt Carbon did what he did.

**Got Allan Nielsen in on loan towards the end of the season and he really elevated us a level.

Doesn't look too flash on paper and it lacks a bit of genuine quality in central midfield (we had Osborn, Robinson and Scott Taylor too - all gave it their best and had their moments but again, they're short of that extra bit of class) but Muscat and Bazeley linked up superbly down the right hand side, Sinton had a real Indian summer of a season with us where he rolled back the years to his QPR pomp, Akinbiyi and Branch formed a decent partnership with bags of pace and that's two of my favourite centre halves of the pre-Fosun days. It's basic late 90s/early 00s 4-4-2 but it was genuinely decent to watch a lot of the time.

Fell off a cliff the year after - Curle left on a free, Ludo kept getting injured through his own selfless bravery, Muscat's form dropped off after being given the captaincy, Bazeley's form completely collapsed and he never played for us again after December 2000, Sinton was finally coming to an end, Akinbiyi was sold (understandably, but we used the money largely poorly) and Branch's confidence in front of goal never recovered after the Dave Beasant incident.

Thanks for that - very informative from the Wolves resident mastermind of the 1990s !

Dave Beasant's reaction to Michael Branch was an utter disgrace. It was quite clear that Branch did not know that Naylor was injured (and Louis-Jean should have got a red not a yellow). Branch was substituted at half-time for his own safety.

Why was Keith Curle released on a free ?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

From memory I think he wanted to have a coaching role as well as play on for a bit and we wouldn't do that. Sheffield United did. He was also on decent money and nearly 37.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Today's update:

Steve Bull: Wolves Goals (Seasons 1987/88 To 1988/89)

The first of 5 compilation videos to be released this week depicting 224 goals scored by Wolves greatest ever goalscorer - Steve Bull.

Enjoy.

 

[Tredman]

Today's update:

Steve Bull: Wolves Goals (Seasons 1987/88 To 1988/89)

The first of 5 compilation videos to be released this week depicting 224 goals scored by Wolves greatest ever goalscorer - Steve Bull.

Enjoy.

God I bloody loved him.

 

[KiwiWolf61]

Some interesting facts re Bully.

• He sits in equal 45th place of footballers who have scored at least 200 domestic league goals in English league football - he scored 250 league goals.
• He played 561 competitive matches for Wolves and scored 306 goals - only Derek Parkin (609 games) and Kenny Hibbitt (574 games) have played more games for Wolves.
• He is of course Wolves record goalscorer (306 goals). The next best is John Richards with 194 goals.
• He scored 18 hat-tricks in competitive games for Wolves (a club record).
• He was Wolves top scorer in 9 seasons (another club record) - only John Richards comes close to him being top scorer in 8 seasons.
• I can't confirm for sure (but I'm 98% certain though) but I don't think any player has scored 50+ competitive goals in an English season twice which Bully achieved in consecutive seasons 1987/88 and 1988/89.
• He was capped 13 times by England, and scored 4 goals. He was still technically a 3rd Division player when he won his first cap, at the end of the 1988–89 season, as Wolves had not yet played in Division 2 after their promotion that season. He remains the last player to be capped by England from outside the top two tiers, and one of only five post-war players from the 3rd tier so honoured
• Wolverhampton Wanderers Hall of Fame inductee in 2009 - one of the first six along with Stan Cullis, Ron Flowers, Jackery Jones, Derek Parkin and Billy Wright.
• One interesting tidbit that isn't pointed out re Bully - he didn't take penalties for Wolves (Andy Thompson was Wolves penalty taker, and a damned good one, during most of Bully's time at Wolves). This is quite unusual as pretty much all the top goalscorers took the penalties as well (think Jimmy Greaves, Alan Shearer, Harry Kane etc). Andy Thompson scored 45 goals for Wolves and I'd guess around 40 of those were penalties. Say Bully would have converted 35+ that would have put him in the 280+ goals which would have put him in the top 20.

 

[Sniffer]

Today's update:

Steve Bull: Wolves Goals (Seasons 1987/88 To 1988/89)

The first of 5 compilation videos to be released this week depicting 224 goals scored by Wolves greatest ever goalscorer - Steve Bull.

Enjoy.

I was hoping that an overhead kick he scored in a 3-1 win against Chester would be in there as I don't think I've seen it since . A Manchester United fan I know collared me in a pub one night talking about the goal and how he'd helped to film the game so a tape would have existed somewhere.

Not your fault though Kiwi.