The First Time Ever I Saw Your Ground: the company of Wolves

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Malcolm Dawson writes……the last time I went to Wolves, if I remember rightly, Stephen Elliot equalised with about 10 minutes to go and it was the last time I was seriously worried for my personal safety at a football match.

I had arranged to go with a female friend of mine who had been born in the Black Country and claimed to be a Wolves fan, even though she was more into rugby and mixing with the hooray Henry types that sport attracted in rural Leicestershire. I should have known things were going to turn out awry, when I arrived to pick her up at mid-day to find a note (or by then it might have been a text) saying she had nipped out to the shops. The shops being Tesco and her weekly big shop, which of course all had to be unpacked first, then she insisted on a cup of coffee and a sandwich, all the time my fidgity unease becoming a virtual panic. Eventually we set off at around two but by the time we got near the ground, the designated away parking had all gone and I ended up having to leave the car some way away, near the centre of town. We made it just in time for kick off. Wolves led for most of the game then with minutes to go we scored.

As I left the ground in my red and white shirt I was spat at and called a Geordie b*****d! Of course the stock reply is “call me a b*****d but don’t call me a Geordie!” but it was then a more amenable home supporter advised me to remove my Sunderland top before venturing into the underpass that led to the car park. That was the last time I accompanied that particular lady to a game.

Now, in the latest part of his series in which he recalls his own first encounters with the grounds SAFC visit this season, Pete Sixsmith  remembers Molineux from a year when The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde, The Mighty Quinn and Cinderella Rockerfeller were all topping the charts and the nation held its collective breath to see if Congratulations would see Cliff come back to the UK with the Eurovision trophy …

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