‘You’re basically sports reporting’ she said. No, this blog isn’t about ‘sport’ it’s about Wolves, a subject far important than sport. But hey! A friendly against Crisptown. What a strange place Leicester is, so strange that I can actually spell it first try with right clicky red squigglies. Cool as fuck. A team full of strangers Leicester are. Like Walkers Crisps they promise (on the packaging) a taste sensation, a luxurious dip into the world of the thinly sliced deep fried potato. Until you open them and find a sad little collection of over flavoured, overpriced  spud. I never liked them since I was doubled over laughing in the 80’s when their fans ran down a dual carriageway (at our away support) dressed in dungarees. Mad Clampett fashions. Relegation for them this season. Their Kwan is gone.

So I’m engaged with other football fans of various teams over the whole financial fair play thing. Of course I am well versed in the complexities of the regulatory initiative of European…..ok I’m not, but if you type loudly and offer perfunctory violence then the steam and fume from these strangely dressed social media-er-rers becomes muted and unsure, they start to nibble their finger nails, they start to question their own knowledge. Money is King in football, chuck enough money into a club and they will gather the necessary players to do that. 20 squillion squids on Alberto Nicetan from some sun drenched shit hole in France or Spain will be good. He sprays passes around as an afterthought, he runs like a man possessed. Welcome Alberto and the media team go ‘say Wolves ay we’ so the freaks on Facebook get semis. Alberto doesn’t give a fuck and to be honest neither do I. What I want is Alberto to lash a few goals in, make the plays, listen to Nuno who seems like he has a fervour, or Fosun showed him videos of what happens when the third Dragon Tong from Honk Kong are called in.

The thing is, there’s no other club in the UK that deserves the thrills and spills of top quality football than Wolverhampton Wanderers. We invented football, we invented floodlit night games, we invented passion, we invented everything to do with football. So why aren’t we playing the likes of Barcelona and Madrid? Let those questions drop where they may. Scouse Mafia, Compton Mafia a cosa nostra of fuck ups and circle jerks. We deserve top flight football because simply put we really are the greatest team in the world. We may not have the trophies and the honours to prove it (lately) but trust me we are the fucking Godzilla of English football. Thus awake we trawl through the sludgy depths, eyes blinking at the bright lights and attention until announcing our arrival with a roar and a quick left jab at some high rise office building.

But what about the Kwan? What about the game? I had to skip between feeds, I had to phone people, I had to stitch together uploaded videos.

Douglas. I like the cut of his jib and at a million quid he looks like an absolute bargain. His link up play going forwards was a joy. Constantly watching the movement of players in front of him he has second sight when it comes to moving forward. No hesitation in him at all but a feeling, a metaphysical knowledge of when to move forward, when to hang back, constantly watching and probing.

Commander Coady. After being shifted around like a shit ornament last season he has grown. Grown or realisation? I’m not sure, but his voice booming over the pitch, shouting, giving out the orders reminded me of someone but I can’t remember who at the moment but it will come to me. Coady is a dude that will flourish under the tutelage of Nuno because A. He’s not daft and B. He’s not daft. Put Boly in there too and you have a unit. What is Boly? He’s not human that’s for sure. Playing against Boly must be like trying to wrestle telegraph poles or shuffling skips. What is Boly? Who knows so far but I tug my forelock at him. Same with Miranda, he didn’t look like he gave a shit. His undoubted knowledge of his position was amazing. All of a sudden a player that had an almost telepathic understanding of how an opposition player was going to move. Who were these people? Why weren’t they falling over like normal? Running into strange unthreatening positions making the defendable undefendable. I don’t know. Next week when Boro come down here I’m seriously thinking of staying sober so I can work out what in the fuck is going on. If only so I can watch Boro players arseholes squeak when the Bolynator comes out for a fifty-fifty. It must be like getting hit by a UPS van.

Neves was a thing. A thinker obviously, undoubted athletic ability, a quality and a breath of fresh air. Searching the variables of the midfield he had it sussed in minutes and thus as all greatest workmen he crafted a pass here and a run there, a little dink of the ball on his left foot, shift weight gently and he was off again, searching, looking for movement. Of course as he envelopes the whole team and understands how they move those passes will become as natural and unconscious as the greatest teams.

There are probably other players I should have mentioned but shout out to Jota, Cav, Saiss and a shout to Costa as well even though he’s injured because I love him too.

On a final note we are searching for a striker. I see that, we’ve had some misfires, misfits and misanthropes since Bully. This stage is set for a Hero so the picking has to be correct. What Pro striker wouldn’t love to be at the sharp end of those foot juggling lunatics from Portugal. Mate, you’ll be shouting for the ball running full tilt towards the Southbank and it will bonk you on the head before you get a word out. In fact I think the striker we are after should fucking pay to play with such a team.

Anyway. It’s a week away. Contain excitement, stop dancing around when you get up, stop acting like you’ve found a box of kittens. Time to get that stern face on. The Southbank is our Church and Saint Nuno our Holy bringer of joys, its a fucking long season, blood will fall, icons will be torn from their alcoves, new heroes, new villains, the madness is soon come.

I don’t really know anything about football. I’ve been going to the Molineux since 1972. We were playing Leeds and Billy Bremner booted the ball into the Northbank and knocked my mate out who was standing right next to me. I was hooked. I hate Leeds and I still laugh when somebody gets a good whack in the face off a booted ball. This blog is not going to be coherent. A mix of Eastern Philosophy and English football will not be comfortable bedfellows. Neither will my analysis of games be comfortable. My mind wanders during games. People talk to me during dull periods. My views are often the views of others who have concentrated in the moments when my attention has lapsed. But I am an observer, of body language and of dynamics. A metaphysical view of performance and the greater subject of ownership and the relationships between the team and our mighty stand ‘The Southbank’.

This blog wont be about the intricacies of the tactical game and the complex variables that all fit together to make this great spectacle an occasion to laugh with joy….. or as I do most matchdays at the Molineux last season,  watch the fucking Seagulls flying around, great swooping circles in the blue sky above the John Ire…er Steve Bull stand. Underneath, on the pitch last season I didn’t feel the Kwan. Numerous players not doing their thing, a lack lustre Lambert fuck around and that in my infinite wisdom I knew it would happen. I didn’t like Lambert the day he turned up for the signing thing. His suit looked like a Bookies and the scruffy bastard was wearing trainers. I thought about Stan Cullis, impeccable, when the Board were made up of local well suited and booted local businessmen. These Monochrome men, stern faced, what would they think of this man? I think Lambert wouldn’t have got his foot on the first step of the stairs into the heart of the Waterloo Road stand. Those days we had a Commissionaire, ex Soldier, medals standing guard.

The new signing were cool. Costa could move about a bit, he looks quite normal, he says the right things to keep the Facebook knuckle biters happy albeit sounding like the kid who robs your camera while you’re sunbathing on a beach in Rio. I’ve never been to Rio.

Cavaleiro was a solid looking dude. Championship football was a fucking confusing thing to him. What were they doing? Why are my team mates running around aimlessly? Why does the ball keep flying over my head? Of course he got some neck. Maybe his heart dropped a little…..maybe I should concentrate on the metaphysical aspects of this great pantomime? I’m not sure.

Last season was a weirdly esoteric run around. The Cup run was strange as was Coady (against Liverpool) actually running without looking like he was trying to beat the flames out. I know it wasn’t his position but running is genetic not memetic. I would like to see more from him, I suspect his love and laughter may carry through to his playing if he allows his Kwan to flow. Don’t forget Conor Coady, you must leap over the barriers they have placed in your way. Concentrate and forge a path in harmony with the Kwan of the team.

Swapping Wallace for Jota fills me with love. Jota makes my nipples go hard, Wallace made me feel like my tit was caught in a mangle. What great things his fans said when he signed for us and then? Lacklustre and often pointless meanderings, unsure, no confidence displays peppered with a peek of potential. A sideboob of a player, Look! oh. Shit no.

Saville gets up from the golden throne and while still warm enter Neves. Oh sweet stroker of the ball, that ability, that silken touch. As Saville runs as if there is an earthquake happening see Neves glide and position himself. A touch here a touch there, a stroker a veritable positioner, a much finer artiste honed in the glaring desolation of the Portuguese desert where the only things of note are the ability to impress the Gods with a ball.

Willy Boly. What finer example of a defensive player does one need. As Xerxes he is. A giant among dwarves. His physical presence not yet defined but as many times last season when our defence collapsed to the ground under the shoulder of some low brow opposition team, i suspect this will not be the case under Boly. If we could put the heart of Stearman into the body of Boly there would be statues commissioned and kids starting school in five years time called Willy.

Jack Price. Wherefore art thou Jacko? This is your time my friend. A time to flourish and make that hallowed center ground your own. A General you could be, or a great artist, the tools you have to hand this season would make Picasso blush. These Portuguese signings are your brush to define how the team plays, to stroke those broad passes, to dab a splash here and there, to hold up your hand and tell the opposition ‘Thou shalt not pass’ and verily it would be so. It is your time and the great Wolves players of the past sit upon the golden stairs and hold out their hands to you. Will you take them? Will your Kwan flow?

Kwan yes. The best teams have a flowing Kwan but the Kwan is not a river it is the sparkling self belief and dare I say the telepathic ability to define your own play within the dynamics of a team. Last season we lacked Kwan. You could tell in Cavalieros face that he knew the Kwan was being diverted by the incessant dourness of the trainer wearing clown Lamberto. The style of play was the luxury sandwich they eat in the Billy Wright stand. It looked good on the menu but looking at it in your hands you wonder about the complexities of it, the strange new sauces you’ve never heard of. The weird bread. The way the waitresses tits jiggled as she brought it to you. The doughnuts in the other seats watching you eat it.

We resist of course. We in the Southbank, hence this blog is called ‘the resistance’. What does it resist? Everything. But the most important thing we resist is the idea of support as a commodity. I am inclined to believe at this moment that it is vitally important for anybody that buys a season ticket in that hallowed stand, that they keep it in the family. There are ghosts in that stand. Those ghosts bellow and sing even now and if you listen to the wind in the gaps between the songs and the plaintive wailing from the North bank you will hear them.

So this season what? What amazing things will we see from those acolytes of the demon Mendes? What delights will our jaded eyes be assailed with? There is an assemblage here, of players who understand Kwan better than Stan Hardknock ‘tackler’ and midfielder of cold English Winters will never fathom. From Compton our little funky brothers like Ronan and Enkobahare will flourish if they open their minds to the blue sky cocktails on the beach football of our new additions. There will be funky jazz chords underpinned by the relentless percussion of Ronans undoubted ability. The splash of vermillion activity across our hallowed green turf from Enkobahare…..maybe.

I have studied the I Ching for 30 years and use its poetic beauty to define what may happen this season. It’s a Chinese thing and I take my hat off to the owners the Fosun conglomeration. They have spent, but what does the ancient philosophy say? I of course deliberated on the new signings and the dynamics of the team as of now. I use Yarrow sticks to determine the Kwan of the team and the I Ching has spoken…

Hexagram 3 (Chun) Difficult beginnings. The receptive or us the fans, and to some degree the previous teams. All new endeavors encounter difficult beginnings but it is a beginning that was mean’t to be. It is the dream that is coming true by overcoming obstacles in its way. Chun is a seed which has sprouted and has to fight through the rocks and soil to reach the sunlight. It is a time to be fearless to examine your heart and see no barrier that is too tall and no enemy worth your time. With no enemies it is time to move forward with power. To be confident of our success. Eventually. There must be a power of commitment. Nuno must be given the time to flourish. The team must seek advice and not be afraid to utilise that advice as moving forward will provide barricades unless the advice is listened to.

Enjoy the Blog please. Don’t take it too seriously.