International breaks are weird and strange things aren’t they? Like all voids in our Wolves related lives we tend to fill that void with awful shit. I was arguing with somebody about Danny Batth last week. I don’t really care about Danny in many respects. I’m not sure about his current skill set but that’s it. I just wasn’t sure. I didn’t have the data or the skillset to comment about the whys and wherefores of Dannys footballing groove. But…international break. The void. Of course I waxed lyrical. Then the doughnut disagreed with me. Then we started arguing. This was in Poundstretcher too. Nans and fat women getting their multipack groove on. Buying shit lampshades and shittier rugs. Christ almighty. And there was me and Sid Snot going at it like hammer and tongs. International break. We fill the void with shit because we love throwing stuff in holes. Amazing offers on Pringles today, Sour Cream and Chives £1.50 for two. Amazing. Love a handful of Pringles at night. Having a scoff. Danny Batth a distant memory even though Sid is still waxing.

Thing is folks. It’s been a bloody long season and to be fair to myself I thought it was too long by October and I’m sure I waxed about it somewhere. It was long because of expectation. It’s cool all the Nuno chilled out vibes and the team getting it together. The funky videos we watch on Social media and the chats we have when we have won. It’s brilliant. But underneath all that shiny happy people bollocks is a deeper angst. We are expectant and we are ready. We have been for months. We have been for fucking years. We know that the season is running out and we are getting angsty and a bit crazy. Are we there yet? Kicking the seat in front. Not letting your siblings have an extra 1mm of space on the back seat. Your Dad is on a slow boil watching the thermometer of the engine which is creeping up because of this fucking traffic. The kids are getting angry and nibbly in the back. You’ve packed half of the house into the boot. The duvet on the parcel shelf doesn’t block out the twat that’s driving a few feet off your bumper. Wolves. End of season shit this is. Madness. What even is a caravan in Great Yarmouth? This division of course. Next season the wife and kids will fuck off somewhere else and it will all be voluptuous models in San Tropez, red snapper and a divine saffron scented salad with fresh olive oil. You hold your gut in as the beautiful people walk past your table but we deserve to be here too for sure. Even if we are eating our ice cream dessert with the soup spoon.

Who is a bigger Wolves fan is a current favourite purely for the entertainment of course. How do you quantify it? I know an old fella that gets to maybe six or seven games a season when he can afford it and when his health is good. He’s 86 years old. I know the pain he has going to the match. I know he hardly has the strength to lift his pint if I see him in the pub. He watched Stan Cullis and Billy Wright years ago. Remembers things, important things. He remembers matches when I cant even remember last weeks. He’s a Wolves fan. So is a dude I know who lives in student halls a stones throw from the ground. He will hit two or three games a season because the ticket money is all he allows himself for food. He doesn’t flush his toilet for days because he’s on a water meter. He dresses like a freak in a video game. He’s a fan for sure. I could go on. Dudes who get to every away game and home. They attend the dinners and the hand shaking ex player stuff. That’s cool too. Most of them have their own businesses and can afford it. They can afford to dedicate their existences to Wolves and they become in essence Wolves. The club is everything to them. But the attendance at these games and events doesn’t make them a bigger fan than my old fart mate and my student mate. There is more to these two than football. More to them than spending their hard earned money razzing up the motorway to games hundreds of miles away. Sometimes it is more important to watch your daughter careen around at dance class for three hours on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes you have to watch your lad play some weird under 11s football in a dog shit splattered pitch in the cold rain. Sometimes the hall stairs and landing have to have that fresh covering of autumn gold emulsion from Untouchables while your team are getting beautiful on a pitch somewhere while you try to balance on a milk crate and you notice the dog is speckled in Autumnal hues too.

The angst is amplified by the unknowing void of the weeks when we don’t have a game because England and other national teams are playing and to be honest we really don’t care about what England are doing. I care even less about Portugal and what part Neves has to play in that squad. I don’t even understand the magic Neves ladles out at Molineux yet alone on some pitch I’ve never heard of. Amplification of Angst is further strengthened by Social Media. Fucking hell what a place that is. This week I have watched meltdown after meltdown as fans have been at each others throats over the wrong word or opinion. Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one. And boy those little errant letters tapped out by a gnarled thumb on a phone screen don’t half get some knickers in a twist. I’ve just read another threat of violence in a tweet over some comment lost in the fog of the timelines. On Facebook I know there has been a straightener offered. So two doughnuts will be rolling around on a pub car park somewhere punching the fuck out of each other. Be constructive lads, offer tickets, proceeds to Carls charity. Lets make it constructive at least. Raise some money. Offset the horror of pallid guts spilling out of polo shirts wrangled from the wrestling section of the straightener.

Remember we are on the last lap now. It’s nearly done you know. A few games and that promotion is just there at our fingertips. This next few weeks will define what we are to be in the future and we have to hang tough, we have to close together because that’s what a Wolf pack does under duress. This is the time when all those away trips to these featureless Lego stadiums in business parks make a little sense. This is where we wave goodbye to Reading, Preston, Barnsley all those shitholes. The Premier league eh? Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester etc. We are going to have to be at the top of our game at these places for sure. If you think the Talksport propaganda is harsh just wait until the Premier league mouthpieces start spewing the bile. Wait until those creativeless donkeys at Match of the Day or SSN start on us. Now we should be consolidating what we are as fans, linking arms and discovering who we all are and again in essence what we are, the link that drives all of us is that we are supporters of Wolverhampton Wanderers and we all share that love regardless of what financial position we are in and how many games we got to. They are going to be coming for us and if we are in a state over some off the cuff tweet or some derogatory post about uber fans then it’s all going to go to shit there’s no doubt about it. We have to stick together, we have to be strong.

Here we have owners who have firmly nailed their colours to the Wolves mast. We have a Manager/Coach who is part Philosopher and part Footballer. We have assembled a team that stupefy me every time I watch them. They have made me cry during games. I have begun to love certain players and have favourites again. I look upon this team and that includes all of the staff at Molineux as something we haven’t had for a long time and I am amazed by it. It’s a once in a lifetime experience this is. We will tell tales of it to our Grandchildren hopefully. We will spend idle moments thinking about Neves or Coady or Bennet or Douglas or Jota. We will think about Nuno too and say ‘Ah well, when Nuno was Coach…’ and people will roll their eyes again, the same as us when an old ‘un goes on about Peter Knowles or Mike Baily. These are precious times.

So in conclusion. Just take what you read on social media with a hefty dose of salt. People have had long seasons. Some people have Wolves that firmly entwined in their DNA that any post will provoke a reaction. Don’t judge people unless you have walked a few miles in their shoes. Everything will come good I promise. When we get promoted I promise you that you will be hugging strangers next to you with tears in your eyes. You will be running on the pitch next to people you have spent the last few weeks threatening on Twitter or Facebook. It’s all cool man. Take some deep breaths and trust each other. It’s coming.