At 5pm on Bank Holiday Monday, all the season’s worries and woes of the Wolves fans seem to just melt away – well mine did anyway.
We now have one foot in the land of milk and honey and, with the cork slowly edging its way out of the promotion champagne bottle, our fans are ready to go completely chicken oriental.
It would probably be hypercritical of me to start dishing out plaudits to Andy ‘The King’ Keogh after his fabulous man of the match performance against the Rams.
But in that one game, Andy took all this season’s vicious bile spouted by the moronic boo-boys and shoved it right back down their throats.
I have never questioned his commitment to the cause. He is probably the hardest working member amongst manager Mick McCarthy’s army. But I have sometimes questioned his ability to score his quota of goals as a forward, but what do I know?
Perhaps he is the cliched confidence player that we hear so much about. I’m yet to be convinced that he has a long term future at the club, but for the performance at Derby alone, Andy, I salute you.
His first goal, the sublime volley with the ball dropping over his shoulder, has quite rightly been nominated for Wolves goal of the season, which fans can vote for by text until 5:30pm this evening, with all the details on the Wolves official website.
Out of the shortlist of eight goals chosen by McCarthy and his coaching staff, for me the winner is a battle between Chris Iwelumo’s sublime overhead kick away at Preston in probably our best away performance of the season, and Michael Kightly’s 25 yard rocket against Nottingham Forest in our best home performance of the season.
Fans can also vote for their player of the season at the QPR game this weekend and it’s looking like a bit of a formality, with Sylvan Ebanks-Blake likely to quite rightly walk away with the honours.
Kevin Foley should be the runner up, and at least we don’t have a sea of Senegalese flags to muddy the thoughts of the people counting the votes!
But there are many players who have stepped in, helped Wolves get back to recent winning ways and get us close to that terrific earlier season form.
Jody Craddock, Christophe Berra and Matt Hill have plugged a leaky defence, the two Dave’s – Edwards and Jones – have come into midfield to give us a bit of creativity and when they have been called upon, Sam Vokes and Keogh have not let us down.
The timely dogged and resilient recent performances from the team have echoed the fans desire to see this wonderful club back where it belongs, another tilt at competing with the world’s best players in the top flight.
The three year plan that McCarthy and chief executive Jez Moxey set out in the summer of 2006 is ready to come to fruition. There are many from planet JIWAL that will be probably be gutted that Wolves are now on the brink of the Championship title.
The rather dour JIWAL type of fans will probably point to the fact that promotion isn’t down to the tenacity of this young, hungry and talented squad at all – but is in fact because of the atrocious standard of football served up in the Championship this season.
Well, pah! When Mick joined the club in the summer of 2006 we had half a football side at best.
He rebuilt the team with hungry whippersnappers who over achieved that season. Expectations increased amongst the fans and when the football in the following season failed to live up to the same giddy heights. A lot of fans, myself included, stop believing that Mick’s plans would succeed.
But like Keogh, Mick has proved his doubters wrong and is now delivering the success we all so desperately crave.
QPR come to Molineux on Saturday with only a sliver of a chance of a play-off place, but will be no pushovers as they aim to play the role of party poopers.
They are having a rotten end to the season and have even bizarrely allowed their top goal scorer, Dexter Blackstock, to join Forest on loan for the rest of the season, which seems like a really perspicacious thing to do when you could still make the top six!
Paulo Sousa suffered at the hands of the over expectant billionaire club owners and was dismissed as manager after a measly 26 games, as QPR look set for another season of championship football.
They outplayed us and beat us 1-0 at Loftus Road back in December when Wolves were in a rich vein of form. The mitigating circumstances were that the game was live on TV, and how often do Wolves perform well on the box?
Before I finish up, I just wanted to send out a heartfelt plea to help save the Wolves fanzine, ‘A load of Bull’. Currently short listed in the top ten for football league fanzine of the year, my match day wouldn’t be the same without a copy of the excellent ALOB to read at half-time.
Unfortunately due to evening kick-offs and the increase in online forums, the fanzine has seen a decline in sales and it faces an uncertain future.
I think it would be a crying shame for a top flight club – ahem – not to have their own fanzine.
So please, buy a copy at the QPR game from one of the many vendors that editor Charles Ross, strategically places around Molineux. It’s the final ALOB of the season and it only costs two quid, don’t let it be the last one ever!
These next two weeks could be amongst the happiest and proudest times in my lifetime so far to be a Wolves fan.
If Wolves deliver the impossible dream with a win against QPR and are crowned champions, I’ll be posting a special blog on the day to mark the occasion.
With a full house at Molineux on Saturday and with Sylvan likely to be back to lead the front line, this could be a very special weekend.
Enjoy the game and hands up, who’s starting the conga?
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