Sean Dyche. Jesus fucking Christ, what is he? I went on the Internet, YouTube, it was late and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to listen to music so I grabbed the Laptop to watch some stupid videos to occupy my head for a while until I felt sleepy enough. It’s a good place to see what the freaky humans are up to in the real world. I ended up clicking a link and soon I was link crazy clicking away until I ended up on a Doctors video channel. She was a Dermatologist. She had set the channel up to present to the world the crazy and interesting world of skin problems she faces at work. That work was in glorious high definition technicolour and there was Comedy as well as Tragedy within its video after video of zit-boil-cyst popping madness.

I watched for about an hour, video after video of pus running in rivulets, in thick waxy excretions, in blood curdling horror of infected boily bollocks. There was pain and drama, latex gloves, safety glasses against the risk of exploding zits, in armpits, in groins, on backs and in cracks. It was horrifying but ultimately fascinating too. My finger clicked next-next-next until after an hour or so I had to turn the fucking thing off. She should have called it the Sean Dyche show.

As I am not very well lately I have been ushered to the Billy Wright stand where I can sit in the family enclosure and keep my mouth shut. I am practically behind the Dugouts. I am twenty or so meters from The Dyche himself.

It was brilliant, fascinating and gross. Just like the cyst removal shizz. His bright-white and tight shirt was dazzling in the sunlight. He was a fucking walking Persil advert. It was hurting my eyes to be honest and I kept thinking of the little horrible woman in the movie ‘Poltergeist’ shouting ‘Don’t look into the light!’. His shirt collar was strangulation level shit and erupting from it wasn’t a normal neck and head of a human but what seemed like a Plasterers knee shoved through it, and on it was the rudiments of a face that seemed as if a seven year old had drawn a face upon that frazzled purpled knee with a box of Aldi felt tips.

Yes, it was ‘The Dyche’ back again at Molineux like a suspicious rash that wont clear up despite all the ointments you slather on it. Look at The Dyche standing there on the touchline, hands on hips surveying the golden fields of Molineux. He was here to conquer mate. I half expected him to cock his leg up and piss on the Home dugout. Watch the Dyche dart his hips forward so he can show the Locals his massive balls. He turns towards the Billy Wright as the players shake hands in pre-match pleasantries. The Dyche can’t watch that shit mate. No way mate. No chance. He hates that friendly stuff. It does his head in. That great misshapen Aubergine head is pointing right at me for a second and I am transfixed by him. He has the look of a 150.000 miles a year Gearbox Gasket salesman, his Vauxhall Insignia is an extension of his psyche. The air freshener that dangles from his mirror is a giveaway ‘Gaston Gasket Company’ Fir tree. It stops smelling nice within minutes but The Dyche doesn’t care. The Dyche has a body that PureGym designed. So big bulging soya muscles stretch his shirt arms, his shoulders defined by how much they hide his rudimentary neck. He needs those muscles to bulge the material on that £80 Brookes Brothers tailored Lizard shirt. The material is under tension, thank fuck for those Indonesian sisters and their sewing skills. If this was a Primark shirt it would explode into a blast of white confetti and everybody would think the match pyro was about to start. Fucking hell, Shouty PA Woman walks past. She doesn’t look happy. Our ear drums will be fucked at half time. But his arms…

Fucking hell did they do some work. It was hot within Molineux and the sun was painful. Certainly for the well lubricated on the way to this Bank Holiday match it was heaven as they rolled and strolled to and from in the mass of throngy-Song singing mass of ‘Gold’ and Black shirts. I got straight in the ground. I think if I had hung around too long I would have been lead away screaming about scrapping a coachload of Burnley fans on the car park at Wembley after the Sherpa Van game, the fat lad who said “Please stop hitting me” so I did. But I’m watching the match here and now, and it’s different now too. We don’t hit fat blokes in car parks. We clap and cheer, I want a foam Wolves hand and a Wolves shirt with ‘Horrible Cunt’ printed on the back and my squad number ‘666’. The bits I watch are horrible on Burnleys part and a bit dysfunctional on ours. If you want a blow by blow account of the match you will have to look elsewhere, but for the record we won 1-1. Or you could nick a copy of my first Viva Nuno book (available on Amazon) and read about the Preston and Barnsley away matches. 

But Dyche. Wow. He never stopped opening that fucking mouth of his. It looked like a split in that forgotten lost casey ball kicked on the asbestos roof of a row of abandoned garages thirty years ago. White. Powdery. Flapping in the wind which when it blows through that horrific split moans and groans. 

15 minutes into the match and I know the 4th official is having a deep existential crisis after being exposed to the rambling psycopathic rantings of The Dyche. The officials face looked carved on, as if the face had been blasted so much it could only offer a simple hard look. When he did smile it looked as if his face had forgotten how to pull those muscles into a rictus of jollity so he just looked in pain. I sense the spirit of Neil Warnock here. The contorted anger of Dyche seethes across the pitch like an oil of despair. The arms outflung in a mock crucifixion after a decision he didn’t agree with, he shakes his head, he can’t believe it. He goes to the 4th Offical and diatribes flow from his gaping maw as the Official fiddles with something in his hands and smiles again. The incident was Jota being sliced down once again, Burnley player booked…I mean it was the 6th or 7th time he had done it. 

The Dyche has a stink of that Touchline football Dad about him and I have no doubts about that. Be amazed at ‘Apoplectic Sean’ maybe ‘Unbelievable Sean’ or ‘Fucking tackle him Sean’ perhaps the ever popular ‘Fucking Hell Ref Sean’? We also have ‘Clench fists Sean’ and ‘Sad Sean’ and the emotions just ripple off him and across that desolate over inflated head. His neck veins bulged like waste pipes and at times his eyes bulged out that much that you could have hung a wet duffel coat off them. Jesus Christ.

I had to take my eyes away though, sometimes. I might have got something like welding flash and had to sit at home with tea bags on my eyes. So I looked at Nuno too. Placid? Calm? Zen like? Nah mate, was he bollocks. Nuno had that internal monologue going in full swing. Where Dyche would broadcast emotion, Nuno held it firmly inside. A storm of thoughts, about tactics, movement, shape…everything. This was Soduko football, fitting variables inside other variables, constantly questioning himself. The tongue darts out and is on his moustache again. He pulls his beard. Glances back at the bench. He is about to say something and checks himself. Turns back to the match. Hand movements are violent and aggressive, finger jabbing here and there, his palm chopping, everything is knife like until he cajoles and sympathises, then the hands are sweeping and gentle showing movement and artistry. Then his jaw thrusts forward and his beard becomes a weapon too, thrust out erect and threatening. Nuno scares the fuck out of me sometimes. 

As Burnley possess the ball he stands still, legs planted firmly on the astro turf of the technical area a shoulder width apart. Arms folded protecting and defending in spirit, his leg muscles jerk and spasm as he kicks and passes that ball with his team. 

Dych also has shapes of course. He looks like an angry and bald David Lee Roth there are that many shapes. Unlike Nuno, Dyches shapes are all meaty thick and fat with much froth and drama. This is all about Dyche. It’s a false passion made for an audience. The black trousers, the white shirt, the shaved head, the crap Goatee beard that makes his mouth look like a bumhole. I bet he buys Kouros aftershave, he never changes it, he loves the smell, he throws a lot of it over that overstuffed neck before he goes on the razz.

Around him his backroom staff, the technical boys are all Dychean clones. Little angry Monkeys that exactly mirror the shapes and despair of the big Monkey himself. When he erupts they also erupt, when he shouts they shout. I half expect Dyche to pull his trousers down in the technical area and do a massive shit in his cupped hands to throw into the stand behind him, showering the Billy Quiet faithful with his slightly warm shit. How they would scream. I would cry with laughter. Dyche is a Dudley Zoo Chimpanzee in spirit and I am laughing to myself.

Sean fucking Dyche eh? Are our team knackered after their days out in Europe? Playing twenty games in three days or whatever it is? Of course they are. Travelling knackers you out. Running around tires you out. Their poor brains must be fucked. Poor Raul must feel like he’s been playing football non stop for two years. But they are Athletes of course. Their bodies will recover quickly, but the mental strain? That most important bit of flesh, the three pounds of watery gunk we call our brain? I’m kind of thinking that Nuno looks for mental fortitude as well as athletic prowess with a bag of wind. Who fucking knows eh?

But I’m thinking about this as I stand outside the Billy Wright after the game. Looking at the statue of Billy Wright and remembering when he ran over my foot in his Rolls Royce after a night game with my autograph book flapping around like a limp dick. Then I have a weird existential experience. I’m standing with my back to the crowds moving down Waterloo road and it seems like everybody is moving away from me, the people, the football club, the Molineux and the people walking towards me are an anthropomorphic mass of new shirts, old shirts, and it’s all blending into one mass.

I really don’t think I belong here any more. I feel like an anachronism, an errant variable. I feel fucking historical to be honest, like an artefact from another age. I think I never truly belonged here but for a few moments when I shared joy or disgust with thousands of other Wolves fans. I’m feeling that this whole shiny FOSUN lead experience isn’t for the likes of me any more, I look down at my feet and my little toe has finally poked through my training shoes and I can see my toe nail because I’ve also got a hole in my sock. My little toe is open to the elements man and I laugh to myself.

It’s all changed, the whole experience has become too dynamic for me and my simple bent brain can’t comprehend or afford it any more. I get back home and the first thing I do is take the dog down the cut. Gaz Mastic is down there having a quiet smoke watching the Perch swim underneath Devils Elbow Bridge. I roll a one skinner and he passes me his can of Karpackie to have a swig. I do. We watch the Perch and don’t say anything.

 

Welcome To Electric Nunoland

Conor Coady gets a shove off a Torino body early on. The little passive aggressive push to the chest is puerile and Coady knows it too. I like to think Coady tells this angry little twat to ‘Fuck off’ but I know Coady is wise to this. It’s the first few minutes of the game. It is angular in it’s passionate pre game aggravations. Torino looks scared straight away and when an Italian is scared, he gets feisty. A few minutes later Zaza who looks like a really budget Genie clatters Rui. Patricio doesn’t care either. I wonder if this is the way Torino players fuck, by dinking their loved one in the chin first. 

‘Orite bab (SMACK) get ya knickers off’

I don’t know, but it’s funny to think about it. There are many Wolves fans in attendance. I know for many it will be a minor thing to spunk out a grand or so on a match, for some less financially salubrious then the credit card will get whacked and a few weekends at work are on the cards for sure. But despite their relative cash issues they all look beautiful. Noisy too. You can hear them rising up through the Torino noise gurgling through the laptop speaker. The Italian commentator keeps calling Coady ‘Coddeye’ which is making me cough.

This is the last but one of the Play Offs for the Europa League group stages. I remember telling Ian Winters of the BBC that ‘We will be playing European football in three years and we will win it too’ and how he laughed. So did I, but not about the comment, more about how the fuck did we get into this position? I had a dream the other night about Bennett at Bristol City, that header, being soaked in beer, having a little knobhead in a duffel coat front me outside and me laughing my tits off at him, then he stole my false leg….sorry I’m waffling.

Torino are definitely crotchety here. There are a few elbowy moves, a bit late a bit chewy to be honest. But isn’t that a part of Italian football where it’s all a bit macho and man-weird? Jota keeps tangling with them in midfield as he drops back. Torino have watched the Manchester United match the other night so that’s their idea, loon around with the angles of elbow knee and ankle, tangling and getting enmeshed, close and personal with the Wolves. There isn’t a Gnats fart of a second to try and do anything with this ball and play at the moment. So we are knocking it about a bit quite happy to play football without a ball as we push and move Torino around the field however we like. You can see this with Dendoncker where he is pushing and pulling players from positions and then erupting into dangerous and now closed off space for a possible Torino through ball and a chance. But our idea is now slowly coming to the fore in dribs and drabs, slowly of course but we warm up and the ‘habit’ of dinking the ball around is becoming familiar again and everything seems to be settling down.

Coady or Saiss, I can’t tell, has just gone through Belotti who looks like he just fell through a factory roof. That’s a bit of an answer to your earlier bollock mate. Don’t give it out if you can’t take it back ay it. Old school shit that was. Belotti looked like he had been sucked into the ground by a giant Earthworm. 

Vinagre (who has started) is throwing shapes down the edge. Crosses are starting to boom in now but there’s nobody there yet, Vinagre is rapid. He shifts and often (like Adama last season) nobody is home. All of a sudden Traore offloads to Jota in the area. Shot. Nothing in it but Adama just fucking walked through their defence like they were small kids at a Wolves Trust kickaround in a Primary school. That bodes well. The Italians are moaning at each other as they walk upfield for a goal kick. Man they ay half moaning, one is spitting as he talks, the animal. So Traore finds this such an agreeable thing, this static childish defence that he fancies doing some dancing around the place which he does to great aplomb. He’s loving it mate. They regain the ball and Coady says ‘oi’ and whips it away to somebody in a Gold shirt. Coady looks like he has played European Football all his life. Immense…in fact I’ve written ‘Immense’ in my notes. Saiss is deep sitting just in front of Coady. As I watch Saiss for the first time in ten minutes he goes through somebody again. Get’s up like it’s the other blokes fault, the one writhing around because of some Saiss love. Saiss is having a right moan i’m crying with laughter. I think Saiss might be my number 2 player after Coady. 

But Torino bounce one off our crossbar. Fucking hell. Close. I stop laughing now, I’m so deranged that I suspect our team is going to walk this match. I’m forgetting about the hard work and the adding to skillsets, the whole Nuno idea, the fucking hard work. Torino are a handy team. I am denigrating them for sure, but they are floating some balls around. Was it Belottis header? The Cameraman is following him as he walks back. The dude hasn’t got much of a neck, I wonder if it got pushed in by the header? Not Craig Bellamy levels but fucking hell. Weird. No neck man.

We have a Free kick and it floats over and I think Donk connects, wide anyway but accurate stuff from Wolves here. Dangerous at set pieces for sure. Practice practice. Coady intercepts a pass again in our box. He’s so alive to threats it’s mad, he’s right there. Zaza the shit Genie seems to be quietly floating into the box behind everybody the sneaky little git. We don’t seem to be picking him up and he goes straight in to contest a header with Willy Boly, which is stupid really. You need ropes and oxygen to climb Mount Boly the highest mountain in Torino Land at this present time. So Boly crashes through Belotti and the poor bastard is again eating the Turin turf and wondering what he did to Wolves in a previous life. We are breaking fast when we have the ball. I don’t think Torino will have an answer to this in the second half. The Torino players are sweating profusely and on our side only Jota and Adama look like they have got a shine on. Genie Zaza kazaams the ball over the bar, a header, then Saiss loses Belotti and another chance. It’s ping pong time, it bounces off everybody and the ball is being punted everywhere. Rui looks like he’s playing Professional Whack-a-Mole. But ball away and we are moving up, a great Golden flood upfield. Moutinho goes to collect a high ball, he knows he has a Torino head behind him, he knows this dudes arms are also going to be flapping around his neck. Moutinho knows he shouldn’t try too hard to stay upright either and the foul is given. Joao picks himself up and he’s looking, watching already see who moves where and why. He’s fucking forensic. Corner, Moutinho walks over to take it and we have bodies in there ready. Ball in Saiss rises, goal. Fucking hell. I’m giving that Saiss regardless of this own goal bollocks. Saissy you fucking beauty. Traore is booted in the face at start of play. It’s a bit weird this bit because I’m shell shocked. I’ve realised I’ve just watched Wolves take the lead in a European match against a top Italian side. Then I feel a bit shit thinking about the people we’ve lost who would have loved this, then I laugh again because, well, it’s what you have to do. Ref blows for half time and I go to put the kettle on. 

Yorkshire Tea is the omnly good thing to come out of Yorkshire. Maybe KitKats too. Immediately Coady is put under pressure by a Boly badly weighted pass and a Torino player is on it like a Goth in a Vape shop. Adama is off again into Roadrunner territory, ‘Beep Beep’ cross in, Saiss is there but well over. I remark to the Dog that it’s end to end stuff and he pricks his ears up and then goes back to sleep. Their Goalie has the ball and Jota and Jimmy are both aggravating him. They really want that ball, they are so hungry it’s scary.

The Camera pans to Mazzarri who is getting really irate, his tie is flying around like a limp dick at an orgy, camera pans to Nuno who is arms crossed watching, sublime on the surface as to let his passion out would probably flatten the stadium. But Torino are moving now, trying new things out. Every time they press forward the Torino crowd raise their voices, exhorting and passionate but again in the gaps of the Torino narratives you can hear the Wolves fans going through the repertoire of songs we have. But Wolves break at the high point of some mad Torino song and Adama shuts them up, he’s gone, his electricity soaks up the power of the Torino voices leaving them dumb and silent as he cuts back the ball to Jota. 2-0 mate. Fucking easy. Adama smashed a hole straight through them, balanced poise like Bruce Lee he Shaolin grooves his way to the byline and boom, Jota waiting, no mistake. Jota is an Assassin. No way could Torino do anything with that. I’m still laughing at Mazzarri moaning after the goal when here we go. Cross in and that crap Genie Zaza I think bullet headers it right past Rui who had no fucking chance to be fair. OK 2-1 to us. That’s cool even if it is the most horrible score in the world to try and defend. So the tune isn’t all about Wolves is it? Torino also have things to say. We’ve played a lot more games than they have so far this season and we are getting into the groove quite happily thank you. Torino and Wolves are doing end to end stuff here, it’s brilliant football from both sides, this is what it’s all about mate, didn’t I say that? I don’t remember myself, but I do remember the ball boys at Barnsley farting around getting the ball into play for some weird advantage. Now we are in Italy playing a great team, it’s insane mate.

Torino are bringing a sub on, his name in the glitchy pixels on screen look like ‘Ringworm’ so that’s his name from now on. I think Adama comes off and Jonny is on now. Nuno consolidating the defence. He doesn’t want any drama now. Torino have shape, Coady again flicking the ball away from a Torino foot in the box. Coady is immense…I think I’ve already said that. Boly too. Everything he goes in for he wins….most the time.

Jimmy is onto the goalie, one on one, didn’t see where that came from but Jimmy swaps feet and the chance is gone. That would have finished the Italians off for sure. Pedro is on for Jota. Good shift by Diogo. But Jimmy still has things to say so he takes off towards goal when most of the Torino team are getting feisty up the front. Jimmy is off on his travels with four Torino fellow travellers that watch as Jimmy jinks the ball from side to side, even with the ball he is outstripping the Torino quartet. This time Jimmy doesn’t fart around and slides the ball past the Torino goalie. 3-1 mate. Best in the world he comes from Mexico.

I’d love to say Torino gave up but watching Saiss now get all tangly with Torino necks is definitely a thing. Torino don’t care, they push on and have heart. I would have expected them to give up but their new bloke Aina is getting in everybodies faces in front of our box. Little dinked balls from them that get past our defenders, a few errant feet. Vinagre chasing and nibbling at one and he’s over in the box. The Referee is looking noncommittal at first then points to the spot. Fuck off. Rui will save it but doesn’t but he is bloody close and aggravates himself that he was a finger away from it.

I will be honest with you, this European football is hard for me to get my head around at the moment. Hard because it’s a whole footballing world I never really expected Wolves to be playing in. I’m still stuck in fourth division grounds with a thousand other people watching us get dicked by plumbers and Plasterers. I haven’t caught up yet and I don’t think I will. I think if I had gone to Turin I would have had a nervous breakdown at least. So they will come down here then to try and get a result and in the meantime we have the Sherpa Gollums from Burnley to sort out. I bet Wolves feel like a one armed paper hanger at the moment. I’m knackered from just writing about them.

Wolves bless your hearts and thank you for beautiful football again.

 

Nuno giving a mean evil eye to some shit going on during the press conference pre Torino game but there is humility there also and some trepidation underscored with a self confidence we have grown to love.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Lazio in Italian football something that absolutely horrifies many of my friends purely for the clubs connections to Fascism and a few other Isms. I don’t care about that stuff, what I do care about was the madness of their fans during games against rivals. There was often the odd punch up but for the most part there was a quasi religious feeling to any event that involved football. Italian football in those days was viewed by me often nursing a heavy hangover on a Sunday afternoon stuck in front of channel 4.

So we are moving into those kinds of football now. Years away from the concentration camp atmospheres of Barnsley away, it’s almost sexual this whole zeitgeist of the European experience and one that confuses me a bit too so let’s have a look and a learn together about what Thursdays match might all be about eh?

First of all it’s being Refereed by a Portugeezer Mr Dias and most of his assistants are also Portugeezers. This is good, it means that he will love us more than them seeing as we have half the Portuguese side in the team. Much hilarity ensues, I mean I’m not saying that he is going to give us any love, in fact he might decidedly not love us. I don’t care, at least he will understand the football we are playing from a Portuguese sense anyway. Might be a plus. There have already been some big noises on the Torino fans Twitter pages and on their forums. Thank God for Google translate. “Fuck Mothering these national idiots playing strange friends of Wolfs this is not the way” and other dysfunctional shit. But what about Torino?

They are a bloody good side mate for truth. This season they have already seen a draw with a bloody good Juventus side, and battered Lazio 3-1. It’s still early days for them but already they have navigated a lack lustre Europa League opposition with some definitive results including a 5-0 score against Shakhtyor but interestingly only managed to draw on the return ‘home’ match. Each game was a chilled affair split with some really weird moments from Torino as they I suspect ran out of things to do…how can I explain that better? They didn’t seem arsed to be honest. 

Mazarri is their Coach and he is carrying a 45.31% win ratio. He likes attacking play and we saw that with….hang about, the fucking Elton Gollums themselves! Watford! So he is one of those tight suit Lizard managers of course, but he knows how to play and coach a game for sure. What can we expect? Fast bursts from Midfield into the final third, they tend to play wide and cross balls in for some of their necks to get on the end of. I watch about 15 of these moves during the game against Juventus. They haven’t met Jonny though. I think he will be integral to our game tonight, I hope he plays, but what do I know? I can just see Jonny chopping down any chances they have at getting that ball looping across the box. 

I’m reading and watching Belotti and Berenguer their main dudes of the moment. Belotti is a weird one, he’s the Captain. Good in the air and capable of whacking absolute pearlers towards the Onion bag when he fancies it. Not great in moving though I notice. He seems to have a Strikers flare for sure but often tends to have some sort of penchant for fannying around with the ball a lot before he knows what to do with it. Is he one of those ‘tens’? I dunno, seems like it to me. Definite holder up of the ball while he waits around for everybody else to catch up. Boly and Coady will zip him up good, just don’t let him have a crack on the edge of the box. Thunderfoot. 

Berenguer is a Spanish winger, a little whippy bastard very fond of just jinking into the box when nobody is looking, waiting for an errant ball and making life uncomfortable. He’s very much in the same mold I suppose as Jota but obviously not as good but he seems to have settled into some sort of comfortable role under Mazzari. He’s a good crosser of the ball and will often go for the nearest post for some reason. He’s often replaced via substitutions by Simone Zaza another quite tricky dude who’s a little quicker but a bit more clunky when it comes to getting a ball back or chasing a game. 

Iago Falque is often the playmaker for the attacks. Wand of a pass on him for sure loves to float accurate balls into the box for Belotti to get on the end of. I’m feeling that Torino like to get the ball into the box utilising big choppy crosses into the danger area. Rui will be happy, I don’t mind Patricio in the air and Boly will not be messing around if one does float in. 

I’m not going to wax extreme lyrics about what Torino have to offer in terms of a player by player break down. Just pick out a few faces I’ve noticed playing certain shapes in YouTube videos of matches. This is going to be a tough as fuck match however other people see it but remember we are really an unknown quantity for these teams. I don’t think Walter Mazzari will be looking forwards to playing against a Nuno team, in fact I will bet on it. I’m expecting Vinagre and Cutrone to have a role here not because of squad rotation but because Cutrone especially will have experience on his side when it comes to playing teams like this. I’m expecting Vinagre simply because Torino don’t like rapid attacks. They often seem a little confused by rapid movements into the final third and the defence tends to be stoic and a little statuesque for my liking. Also if you tend to play the high press attacking game we are good at then Torino will start to crack. Many of their games I’ve seen have a sense of when they attack they look slick and assured but as soon as a team starts to give them a little back they tend to fold a little and retreat back until they are playing some sort of Brighton game where they wait for a break or a gap in the attacking groove and then press forward on mass. 

What do I predict on Thursday? It’s going to be tough of course, this is where the mettle of the Wolves Nuno nexus gets its teeth into the whole Euro experience but…there is nothing here to be afraid of by any sense. They have a good organised defence, a decent if unimaginative midfield and a half decent attack too. But there is truly nothing to be worried about too much, Nuno has confidence it will be a good well fought game, Nuno code for there is nothing to be massively afraid of unless it’s like playing Brighton or Huddersfield which I see this Torino team as being like…maybe Everton at a push.

We play beautiful football that the Italians of course will fall in love with because it’s all about beauty to them, and a little blood too. Little old Wolverhampton is a moot point…we were here forming European games when these games were not heard of. We were there at the start and don’t forget too that we were the Champions of the World once. We will be again, but I see this as a start if you like, a beginning of something entirely different to what we are used to as Wolves fans. I will take a draw quite happily and then in the cauldron of Molineux we will finish them off. It’s early Euro days yet and we still have to get our heads around the travel and the conditioning of players, their welfare and their capacity to play the football they do. If we extend our experience in the competition then the training staff behind Nuno will have played the perfect part. Right…time for the traditional search for an illegal stream. Gew on me Babbies. 

 

  Photo (AMA/Sam Bagnall)

 

Where did you come from, baby?
How did you know I needed you?
How did you know I needed you so badly?
How did you know I’d give my heart gladly?
Yesterday I was one of the lonely people
Now you’re lying close to me, making love to me

Hot Chocolate ‘You Sexy Thing’

It was a turgid day, match day. I don’t think the weather could be bothered to weather. Instead it was ‘temperate’ I suppose and kind of instilled a greyness into the day that was lacking to be honest. I had gone over on my ankle before the FC Pubic game and every step I made was sending bolts of pain up my bad leg and into my hip and the grin was plastered on to be honest. But football day eh? It was what got my fat arse off the chair and upstairs to clean up, get my whack trim in some sort of semblance of normality as I was in the ‘Posh end’ the Billy Quiet and I don’t think they would groove to my gyppo hair. We had given our season tickets to a couple who wanted to experience the flavours of a Wolves V Manchester United mash up from the Southbank. So I was in Albion Shauns seat as he was off to France for a Holiday for this match. The Billy Quiet stand is weird but there are many beautiful and friendly people ready to say hello and chat about my books. I love this to be honest, not for egos sake but it’s nice that the books have found some ground for people to just say hello and chat about Wolves a little as we get jostled out of the way.

Same team out and I’m right on top of the madness as they line up. I’m only looking at Wolves at first. They warm up in their cow print tops which are horrible to be honest. I am reminded of someone I know who bought a Gucci top with a cow print, he paid £400 for it. The first time he wore it everybody called him ‘Moo’ and he never wore it again. I am giggling to myself as I remember it. Cutrone is shaping his warm up into delicious half hearted steezy shoulder juggling. This kind of tells me the lad has been told he is a cameo only job tonight. Same with Gibbs-White, Saiss and Vinagre who tip the ball at each other in a game of keepy up that is hypnotising me a little. It’s old school night so we have the squad out. Doherty looks pale…paler than he normally does. Traore looks like his normal bulging vein mode. I watch Coady for a bit warming up. He looks relaxed and cool, same as Boly, Bennet looks a bit stressed out though. It’s a big game having United down here again after lashing the skin off them numerous times last season. I watch 80 Million quid slab head warming up in front of the Northbank. He doesn’t move half as well as Boly. I’m surprised nobody has come in for Willy in the close season to be honest. The rest of United kind of blur into sulking faces, they don’t look happy at all but I can hear Coady and Moutinho laughing about something. It’s good being this close.

In the depths of Heredfordshire one gloomy Winter I stood beating apiece of red hot metal on an anvil made out of two welded pieces of railway track. Around me were bits of vehicles and the detritus of scrap metal, bits of pipe, tyres, cable. In the ‘shed’ was a forge my mate Alex had built years ago when he first started making swords and knives. The shed was made of Pallets and tarpaulin, some brickwork, old wood, it was full of crap.

I had watched a lot of his videos on Youtube between the UFO videos I was wont to gaze at for hours. Watching sword and knife making videos can get you into trouble. Sometimes you fancy having a crack yourself. So I sent him an email and he invited me down to have a go by myself. It’s tough. My arm felt like falling off chucking a three lb Lump Hammer around for a few hours. My face was burning after looking in the fires of the forge looking for the right colour on the steel. Then Alex would pull it out and I would continue to whack the steel as he moved it this way and that. It was a case of ‘whack it there…no, right there, no…it’s cooled…back in the forge roll a fag, it’s ready’, take it out and whack it for another ten minutes. I was tired and the novelty of making something for yourself had worn off. My cup of tea had black flakes of carbonised steel floating on top and I didn’t care, slurp, whack. I kept trying to channel Joe Mallen and failing.

Just as I was ready to jack the whole thing in, all of a sudden the pain in my arm and hand had gone and there was a certain placidity around me and Alex. I was tapping the anvil three times, then the steel. I don’t know whether this made any sense of metaphysical difference to the act of forging but there it was. A knife was taking shape and the steel in the tongs was like butter and every blow was the correct blow and there was something that resembled a knife there, now the hammer was kissing the steel.

Sorry I went off on one a bit, but you will understand in a minute why it was in my mind. The first half of this game was just that. Endless hammering that made my ears buzz like the Southbank was doing. They were loud for sure. What a beautiful stand it is. I was proud to just stand back and listen to them. Everytime we had a taste of the ball there was a United player waxing knobbly lyrics in whoevers face. Moutinho has the ball and he controls, looks up and there is a figure or two in red getting all leggy in his face. The ball, released is knee height at Jota who struggles, the ball is in the air and it’s heading time. Brought down the ball is a Red one and they press high and hard, quick. Rashford is miserable in his play and it’s fast but hasn’t got any purpose at all. Martial is throwing himself into gaps and yes, this is a new United from last season but the team look like they would rather be somewhere else. Their signing Daniel James is a laugh riot. He goes flying through the air after a ‘challenge’ and the Ref books him for simulation. I laugh to as it was right in front of me and no way was there any contact. It was comical. So for me any intent United had disspipated away in the humid air of Molineux. Thankfully despite James and his play acting the United team kind of carried on the narrative of pressing and finangling the ball so that we were having difficulty pinning down any semblance of a typical Wolves game. Perhaps this was the tactic Olly had penned on his whiteboard pre game. I know Wolves tend to start games half stoneed and chilled out while they gather steam and the rythyms become real concrete things on the pitch again. Now Wolves weren’t being given that opportunity. Instead we were chasing the ball at times, at others while in possession we were given no quarter, no time to impinge our game on the evening. It was tough. Neves was spending time tracking back, Boly was throwing himself at everything. Coady running, spacing out the attack, pushing off into neutral space. Doherty wasn’t going anywhere, as soon as he had the ball then he had two United players nibbling away on him. There was no space to run everything was 100mph. This dude in front of me was trying to look after three little kids who kept running around and wanting a piss or a pie. Wolves looked like him, wondering what the fuck was going on. As it was Martial booted one in. Lovely goal to be honest. I would love to have the skills to describe what was going on in Wolves defence but I’ve drawn a blank. I would happily say it was just Manchester United doing the Manchester United thing. They are a quality team that just lack any idea of why they are doing what they are doing. I think you could tell this by the fact they spent ten minutes after the goal man loving each other in front of their fans while the Wolves players discussed the relative merits of Aldi V Lidl Cinnamon swirls.

Pogba stamps on Moutinhos leg in a nasty display of Pogbaness. Joao grimaces and rubs the sore appendage, stays down for a bit. He doesn’t do this kind of football our Little Wizard and I’m shitting bricks for a few seconds until Joao is back up. Jota is staring at Pogba with ‘that’ look. I think if Jesus or Saiss was on the pitch our Poggy baby would be wearing his arse ring for a headband at some point. Boly has a stud print on his head. It’s a bit niggly out there I think. United are being twats.

The first half was gone and they were one goal up and I was annoyed…not by the result but some fucking fruit loop in front of me that thought it was funny to draw metaphysical VAR screens with his none too clean fingers every fucking five minutes. Jesus Christ…I mean Bully came on to give a fan some prize or something during the half time chill out. I stared at the sky for a while then waved to Horace who was sat at the top of the New Stand…er John Ireland…er Steve Bull stand. I’m sure he was flicking the V’s back.

But Mr Volt jogs onto the pitch for a warm up. He’s got his kit on ready. Adama ‘Juice’ Traore Ladies and Gentleman. I can feel the ground rumble as he jogs up and down, jumping around warming up. Vinagre is removed from a huddle of Wolves subs playing juggling and told to whack the ball at Adama for a while get him ready.

Now United are fucked to be honest. That high pressing thing has taken the wind out of them especially Luke Shaw who I can hear breathing heavily thirty yards away from me. Rashford is sulking about something. Lingard is running around without any real purpose and Slabhead is giving me a headache just looking at his mishapen head. Within the first ten minutes of the restart Old Slabhead and Traore are not getting on at all and Slabheads new lyrics are falling on Adamas deaf ears. Luke Shaw gets involved too and is waxing eloquent bars that Adama is not listening to as Adama starts tearing holes through the Manchester United defence again and a fucking gain. This is Adama Traore in the Nuno mold. Passing the ball back, laying it off, watching and waiting for things to open up. Spaces where he can visualise his run turning Shaw inside out again making Slabheads attempts to close him down an abstract attempt where only Slabheads experience stops a chance or a half chance. But Adama is sticking in a few crosses and shapes for sure. He’s electric this lad now, moving into spaces of his own violition instead of standing waiting with his hands on his hips waiting for the standard ball to come to him…it’s not like that now. Nuno has juiced him up and thrown him out there with Nuno bars rattling around his head. Stay there, wait, move, collect a space opens up and he is gone through United like a Tramp through a bag of chips.

A chance for Jimmy, header, it kisses the inside of the gaol post and safe, but we are moving and seem to be free of that shackling high press and our shape hardly changes to be honest. It’s the same relentless shaping of the midfield, the defence, the attack into something breath taking and sexy. We move fluidly through them at times it seems easy, then United gather themselves for another short period of attacking intent before again we gather and press back moving upfield towards the Southbank who raise their volume with every move. Will it come? Of course it will.

Our shapes press and we get a corner. United are deep, too deep. This is respect of course because we have packed the box with talent, scary talent apart form one personality of course. Not far from where that magical goal against Derby was born into the fires of Molineux what seems like years ago. But Ruben Neves is waiting and the Wolves team know where he is even if Manchester United are unaware. At the time I haven’t a clue who gets him the ball because all of a sudden time has stopped again. I’m getting goosebumps writing this now as I remember. The Southbank have stopped what they are doing and time is rolling backwards slowly to that night when magic spilled across the pitch. Ruben Neves adjusts his position, he collects the ball. There is a Red wall in front of him like a Rugby scrum bearing down on him. They will be there in a split second. Perhaps their own hearts were racing as mine was still between beats. Ruben adjusts the position of the ball with his right foot and ping. Ruben Neves puts ‘memory’ into that ball. Now it’s ‘Neves time’ when everything is slow and everything becomes magical slow motion, hands slowly rising and from the depths of every persons solar plexus the first beginnings of something that will be loud. That’s why you have to prepare your body to emit this Nevesian noise. It will rip eardrums and we have to prepare because even if that ball is hanging above the United players in the Manchester United Box and even if they are gawking at it like it’s some sort of alien artefact…we have to prepare. I think if we didn’t then one day 30 thousand odd Wolves fans would just explode in a red mist flecked with Balti pies and half digested beer.

Neves time mate. David de Gea is alive to it and aware but it an itch he will not scratch, not today anyway. Because it’s a Nevesian ball and doesn’t quite follow the Newtonian Laws of motion. De Gea stretches and the ball nestles in the top right hand corner, a forensic shot like you rarely see twice and yet every time this lad anoints the ball with his foot in this position we are ensconced in a luxury of velvety football we are ill prepared for. I had to sit down. There was a VAR thing again but I knew in my heart the Gods would not allow this Satanic technobollocks to mar and spoil this. We cheer again as the Ref allows the goal to stand. It will be a point for sure. As when Pogba dramatically tumbles over our Captains foot I’m secure in the knowledge that at least justice will be done and Rui Patricio will erupt on that goal line and clear the penalty awarded to United. They argue of course that Rashford should have taken it but the outcome would have been the same of course because Rui is probably the greatest goalkeeper in Europe. He stretches out a hand and scratches the itch de Gea could not and the ball is headed away after his stop and the game rolls towards the ultimate end.

Now the analogy of the knife making time that was in my mind earlier can be explained a little. I was wondering as I limped away from the game holding onto little DeeDee why I was thinking about forges and hammers. Of course we kept hammering away regardless of how the opposition played. Some periods felt like we were under the cosh for sure, other times we looked like the greater team. At times when we are under attack like this it seems everything is going wrong but deeper insights tell us everything was going right regardless of possession. Because even something hard and tempered like this Manchester side will buckle eventually under the endless rythym of the hammer and that is exactly what happened. United did become more malleable in the second half. They had thrown all their tricks at us and it took an errant tumble in the penalty area to give them a chance to pull a win out of a game they did not really deserve to win. We remain of course a thorn in their side when it comes to playing each other and I hope this continues. As the United fans made their way to their homes around the West Midlands they should think themselves lucky they have seen Neves and company in action and that they saw the start of something that could well dominate the world in the next few years.

I fucking demand that you watch Wolverhampton Wanderers. Drop everything you are doing right now. That is unimportant shit. This is what’s important. Nuno Santo a Holy man dragged from the bucolic farty depths of Portuguese football where nobody pays their bills and fucking everybody is owed money. Throw in a Chinese buyer who have their Headquarters on a Chinese Island with Missile defences and dudes with hard hats running around and everything is fucking nefarious. Guo GongChime the CEO laughs, menacingly as he rolls around on his electrical powered chair of power thing, with knobs and levers that do evil things we know nothing of. Add this to a fanbase that have that many mental instabilities I could write a book about that alone. 

Fuck having melancholious, sad sentimentality over the past. Fuck the past. Who cares any more. This….this is everything now. This is fucking everything. Little Gold and Black maniacs this is distilled football, where everything is a little brighter and louder than went before. No more plastic pretend shit but real deal football. Squint and look through the rays of sunshine that spill over the Billy Wright stand. Squint and peer and see the hormonal football. Hormone ball. Sweaty football, for us who stand and sit. Madball. 

Is not this club righteous? Of course we are, we chant that enough to make the fucking thing as real as anything so it becomes a stupid question. This is a sacred time and a dignified time too as well as a finger licking experience. Always again and again and again I watch the ball kicked and moved between our players. I want to bathe in it, in this football I want to become it totally. Fuck fake football. fuck the football that is cleverer than us and more street wise, fuck menial forelock tugging to these Charlatans who we destroyed not a year ago or maybe more than a year…who knows? Who cares?

Monday night. Fucking hell they will come again. This is a thing. They have an offensiveness that offends me. Pretentious but not preening this Manchester team. They are undifferentiated as a squad trapped in the great red machine. There is charisma but no character. Yet any way. Rashford who was fossilised last season may have reached a crossroads and maybe about to sell his soul to the Red Devil, accept the dogmas of old Trafford, they may show him Sir Neville and Sir Ferdinand and there new fine things. Sell your soul Rashford join in the joke. They always come up from London in droves don’t they? The train will be full of them. That tart with the sausage on her lip will be here probably. I met her on the train to Old Trafford last season. She is typical of their support. Dragging dead relatives into it, hearsay from dead parents…’Oh yes he used to support Man United’ when he had little interest in them. Now the legend of Grandads allegiance to a Manchester team is writ large in the annals of family history. He probably watched them once or twice on a black and white telly because he liked George Bests hair or something. Fucking hell. 

You have to realise that Manchester Uniteds football is monotonous and generalised. It bears the needle tracks of Committee decisions. Of whispered telephone calls between Lizards and texts at 3am from the men that do not sleep. The only man that could properly run this madhouse of a club is a psychopath. Ferguson was a lunatic and he certainly took over that asylum. He won everything. He won because his ego was so large Old Trafford could not properly encompass it. Not even the insanity of Cantona and Beckham swirling around could blow out the fire of old Purple nose.

We fucked them up last year. They didn’t know what to expect and there arses got burned good. Wolves were sophisticated and debonair. They played subtle and with flair at times that tore new arseholes all over the pitch. Look at our many arseholes they wailed as they went home. Or something. Fuck. We pulsed all over the pitch like a heartbeat. Bump bump bump the ball regular and incessant. There were groans of pleasure within the crowd. I could hear them, I listen. The team shone in the halo of Nunos idea and everything was fucking illuminated. In the one game anyway…I didn’t go to the home game against them. I gave my ticket to somebody who was desperate to see this team of Wolves. Fucking desperate. They stood there not me.

Monday will be beautiful in many ways. Nuno will be controlling the distortions and amplified insanity that goes on in the stadium. This is football in a form that is available to everybody regardless of who you support. It is an adventure and a madness for sure and it’s roots run deep and fucking everywhere. It is football that you must have ‘taste’ to enjoy. It is football from your own imagination and mind. This is football that doesn’t give a fuck.

Who knows what will happen Monday. I haven’t got the same kind of hatred for Manchester United I used to have for some reason. That area of my mind is not accessible to me any more. Their crimes against me have been struck from my history by time itself. I’ve just forgotten. I am expecting great things. Singalongs. Not a game of football between Manchester United and Wolves but two great teams playing football of aspiration and hope I suppose, that despite all the negative shit that flies around us that maybe we will see some beautiful football from both sides….but more on ours. Nothing is true any more with VAR which means you have to destroy the fucking thing with football so precise and yet so volatile it will render the screens full of static and passion.  

Sing loud hey, so the Gods can hear us and look down and say ‘Hey…this is the Wolves thing’ and it will be galactic football that will make the Gods want to stop eating grapes and drinking the pints of Ambrosia which will not be some Hipster fruity wank beer but something akin to what beer used to be like when Men were Men and not some female version of men. Are we not men? Devo hahahahaha. 

 

Oh what a golden display that was! How crisp, how tasty! I was amazed. I will be honest…hang on. I’m on about the pre game bag of chips and a Chicken and Mushroom Pukka pie from Chapel Ash Chippy. I’ve got skills too you know. Busting a small hole in the top of the bag so I can get the chips out while negotiating the hundred yards to the West Park, a comfy bench, a few Squirrels, a woman Rollerblading around. We sit and wax about the coming match in those hot chip words which go “roffleboggaJotabuhNunobaaargle”.

Well…that was certainly a display any way…”It was a third division side, of course we beat ’em and another thing….”. So the story goes on from the mouth of this doughnut inflicting his football knowledge on me. I remember teams like Arsenal and Chelsea, Manchester United too coming back from the radioactive wastes of some East European shithole having a 1-0 defeat to try and come to terms with. It’s not easy man, these games aren’t the walk over we expect them to be and as much as people can wax about FC Flagstealingbastards being a bunch of fools well, you have to get out there and win it anyway.

I’m in the Southbank for the first time this season as Upside Down Brett had managed to navigate the Wolves website to get my tickets. My effort to get hold of a ticket nearly made me throw the Laptop through the window until I remembered, it’s not my Laptop. But here we are, saying hello to people I haven’t seen in a while. A dude a few rows in front of me is ramming a dog burger in his face as fast as he can, there are bits of it on his face the fucking animal. Someone is eating a bag of Pork Scratchings which smell like farts. Somebody smells of farts, farting, belching. I have Mr Coach a few seats away waxing about how he would have picked the team and all the bollocks that go along with empty kettles making the loudest noises. I wish he would shut up though. I’ve got a headache again and that Pukka pie was supreme. Check out the Chippy next to Bellas in Chapel Ash. Badman chips.

But it’s been a tough physical week or two for Wolves, in fact it’s been a bit full on since winning the Asia Cup. We ay had five minutes, it’s all guns blazing, all hands on deck kind of stuff where all the Wolves staff have had to sort a myriad of jobs out so that the lads can just play football. We all expected (I think) the new lads to have a run out. So four debuts at Molineux are laid out in front of us to peruse and talk about afterwards. Jesus Vallejo, Paddy Cutrone, Pedro Neto and Max Kilman. The fab four. I mean I was bloody impressed to be honest, regardless of the the fact they were playing a team with the early signs of radioactive sickness. Jesus slotted into the berth where Benno usually does his bit and I’m going to talk about each of them individually and what I saw them do…

Vallejo yes. At one point he was in a bit of a knee trembler with a Kidney trafficker and the ball goes loose. A Flagstealer is ready to collect and here comes Jesus boinging along like a Scud missile and takes the ball straight off his foot. The slightly radioactive FC Pubic player goes down dramatically and Jesus gets a card but hey. There is an element coming on here that I waxed about last week. Something hard and narky has come into the team in the close season. An edge of something that I think is us becoming a little bit nasty…no not nasty, I mean the team look like they are hungry or angry…hangry? Fuck knows. All I know is that all of a sudden Jesus is something else. I know it’s first match nerves and all that crap but Jesus soon settles down and is soon pinging a few balls around and into midfield. He punts a few to Moutinho who is beautiful and refined in contrast to Jesus who is a lot edgier. But you can see why Vallejo is in the spotlight. His delivery of the ball to feet is accurate and fine and he plays steeze style too off the edge of the foot (with both feet) so it’s almost like watching Crown green bowling when he does poke a pass here and there. It’s almost like he has fitted into the squad like he grew there to be honest. Now can we talk about what a skilled operator he is to fit in so well? Nah, because Vallejo is an accomplished albeit raw item at the moment. But he understands the rythym and the movement straight away. Because this side is the one he was born to play with. It’s shapey football with jobs and tasks that are rehearsed and practiced. Jesus fits in perfectly because that’s what he’s supposed to do. But Vallejo also brings something else, a hard edge, a bit of nasty. I watch him for ten-fifteen minutes even in the off the ball moments. Coady of course has him under the wing and is chiding him here and there for movement and place. Coady waves him back and Coady waves him into position. Coady shout directions at him and God knows what Jesus thinks of this…well I know what he does. He does everything Coady wants because Coady knows, Coady is the Gaffer. Jesus is going to be an absolute addition to this team, I don’t doubt it at all. You can see underneath those first night nerves that there is a trust being built up between him and the team and I think Jesus understands everything demanded of him.

Pedro Neto. What a fucking beautiful lunatic he is! I mean he’s not a big lad and when the ball is getting flung around the giants of the team there I suspected his voice might get lost in the cacophony of beautiful football being played but no. It was completely different because here was a lad, our number 7, who wanted to be part of everything. He was the Jack Russell terrier of the team. Always having a nibble on the players of FC Pubic who looked like extras off the film ‘Hostel’. Pedro was popping up everywhere mate. First over there, now over here, there too, bobbling along at break neck pace to have a nibble for a lost ball or aggravate a radioactive Pubic player. He had that Jonny thing going on too where a subtle hand in the back a slight touch would make the player hesitate or have half a mind on Pedro. Again the skillset was apparent from the off. A mishit high pass from a semi clearance or tackle and the ball was hard to control. So a slight touch off the knee to kill the momentum, then to feet, move it forward a few yards, get it rolling while he looked for available players then it was either run into space taking a few players on, or ping, the ball was off and an attack was on. Amazing. I don’t know whether he will have that much time when he is playing against Premier League players (yet) but I would stick him in the mixer for a few games. Pedro doesn’t give a shit mate, he was climbing over everybody to get the ball. Is he a left footer? Everything seemed to be magical off the left foot for sure and he kept squirrelling these hard to nick balls across the midfield and at time the 25 yard box too. He reminds me of Vinagre to be honest who in this match I think started to realise that he is a fucking star bar in his own right. There is a confidence in him this season for sure. I think he has learned loads last season and is coming on very very strong. I can see him and Pedro having some sort of telepathic thing going on.

Max Kilman. Indeed. He comes from a Futsal background and I will be honest and say I didn’t know what the fuck that was until last year. So I watched a few games and it was weird but enjoyable. He comes with a resume of close control and quick feet. Instant attacking stuff as you do. He’s a massive lad in the Dendoncker range of heights but man this dudes feet are quick considering the amount of time it must take for those orders to come from the brain straight to the feet. He moves well in spite of his height. Where Donk rarely moves his upper body when playing Kilman is lithe and responsive to changes of direction using his whole body to shift those legs and feet. He’s off into space waiting to collect, or to shield an opposition player from a pass. His defensive thought and skillset are there for sure. I mean, I watch him after watching Pedro and Jesus. It’s ok man, I’m quite happy with him too especially after seeing him constantly wanting to take the ball out of midfield on his own feet. At some points he is taking two or three players with him and then laying off the ball to Traore or Moutinho leaving at least two FC Pubic radioactive flag stealing bastards wandering around squeezing their balls.

What of Cutrone? A start at last, and in front of the Molineux faithful. No goals for him yet but the effort? He’s a lad that wants to do well and there is going to be an element of bedding in for sure not only for him but for the team too. They of course have to suss out how Paddy Cutrone likes his lamb chops cooked. Balls can come from anywhere and any how and I think once the team have learned how he wants it this lad is going to start banging goals in for fun like Raul. But heres a thing of beauty, a point where I nearly went home and said fuck it, I will never see anything like that again…probably. Was it goal number three? Jesus absolutley wafts a ball over Paddys shoulder and Paddy is already half moving knowing it’s coming…and don’t ask me how he did it but Cutrone kills that ball fucking dead mate. I didn’t even see him trap it, it just seemed to roll to a stop by his feet, Cutrone moves controls, looks up, Pedro pops up, pass across the box and it’s there mate, back of the net.

I’m glad I was sober and clear minded. Is it too early to have that kind of beauty slathering our poor minds as the sun sets behind the Billy Quiet? It’s always this beauty that instills a kind of sense in me that fucking hell, any more lovely football like this and I’m going to stop watching it. I can’t handle it. Football at Wolves always used to be about having a big pair of bollocks and hoping that despite the fact we are shit, if one of our old players, or two or three could just play with some of the passion we felt then maybe…just maybe we could get a result against a side better than us. Now of course we are the brillaint side and to be honest I’m loving it more than ever but I still can’t believe it. I wish I was one of the ‘Newfans’ who have a bit of football knowledge but not a lot. They are more accepting because they have forgotten the last time they went to Molineux or probably have never been to Molineux at all except to watch their ‘old team’ Chelsea or Manchester United. How do I know this? I’ve seen them and know them. I watched them posting photos of their new Chelsea strips on their Social Media accounts a few years ago. Now they have Wolves shirts and I laugh out fucking loud mate and don’t care. Pour your money into our club now. Better than the other teams mate, but I know you and I’m watching you too.

Fair enough the whole game was against a bunch of flag stealing Organ thieves with radioactive sickness and Jotas overhead kick was a delight and a show of steeze on par with anything I’ve seen from the ‘big’ stars at other clubs but I don’t care man. I love to see us beat teams. Next up are some Spaghetti Gollums from Italy. A tasty side of Euro knobheads for sure, it will be tough, but this game was where we were introduced to the next chapter of madness from the Nuno library. Are we impressed? I was.
I don’t know how much we have spent for sure. Propbably a lot. The chips from the Chapel Ash chippy were expensive for sure but probably the tastiest and best chips in Wolverhampton, no shit. Whatever….Manure on Monday. Olly and his fucking wheels, class of 92 all that bollocks. Can’t wait mate.

Wolverhampton has always been a fractured place with an undercurrent of evilness in it. That’s just a fact. I’ve received three emails and a few Twitter messages this week where people are waxing some foul lyrics about what’s going on in the fanbase. At first I was like ‘what?’. Remember Charlie Nicholas getting a kicking in the subway on the way to sign for Wolves then he just turned around and went back home?

Firstly, what the fuck has it got to do with me? All I’ve ever done is try to be nice to everybody except the enemy of the week, which is whoever we are playing, but even that hate dissipates quite quickly after the full time whistle has blown and I forget about the enemy for a few days. That’s the way of the Wong for me.

Social Media isn’t a culprit of course. It is an easy target though. We all get a hard on for likes and retweets etc (initially) but that orgasmic high soon pales into insignificance, The ‘high’ isn’t self sustaining and you have to find other more nefarious and negative crap to get your ‘like’ numbers up or pimp whatever it is you are pimping. In my case it was selling my books, in other cases it’s certainly ego and personality. I can understand that sometimes insignificant personalities can become a giant of the social media scene because they have got 400 likes on a post or some observation they have made about the team. I can say from personal experience that the fact people know who you are can become a problem especially if you are invited to events that you really shouldn’t be going to and they are looking at you weirdly because you have Gak yobbed up a nostril and are waxing those egocentric lyrics to all who fancy standing in the circle around you. It’s shit. It attracts those negative entities who would really like to be that person. Because they aren’t negativity starts to nibble away at the fragile egos of these people and soon it all becomes like a rolling pebble down a mountain that gathers more rocks then boulders then half the mountain crashes down on your head.

I’ve been there of course. Why haven’t I met Nuno? I’ve written two books about how he has brought us the madness of beautiful football. Every other fucker I know has, but not me. Why isn’t my photo in the fucking programme? I’m an Author for fucks sake. I watch other people welcomed into the arms of the whole Fosun-Wolves experience by getting maybe a bit in the program or meeting a few players at Molineux. So the fact they are getting some love and not me initially pissed me off greatly. The negativity started to bubble up and I started hating people and wallowing in my own self pity. Sometimes when those moments would bubble up I would be sitting with my phone in my hands with Twitter fully loaded, ready to talk shit. That’s when you start to want to target people. That’s when the evilness starts to froth away in your belly and the only way you can get it out of your system is to be a twat on Social Media

I didn’t because I realise that I am a big enough twat anyway without being one on Social Media too (although there were a few moments). Thing is, the negativity and angst was always mine personally. Life was a bit shit one day, another job interview went shit, the Missus has thrown me out again, I’ve got no money, the dog isn’t well. Social media is a great place to vent your anger against someone else. Because you can do it anonymously or using your real account, who cares. We broadcast our own insecurities and bollocks to thousands of people using just a thumb and a finger. It’s easy.

Has our fanbase become fractured? It’s always been fractured mate. I remember loads of mass brawls between Wolves fans of one ilk or another. Fans from different areas would always have some shit to sort out with each other either on the train coming back from a match or in the stands itself. Extrapolate that to Wolverhampton itself and remember the brawls between people everywhere unconnected with football? How shit it used to be going for a pint in town wondering whether it will kick off? Aggro man, always there waiting to pop it’s ugly head up. I think now that physicallity has moved into the social media arena. A weird Gif, a shit horrible hurtful comment instead of a punch in the side of the head at the bar.

Fosun of course are open mouthed at this shit, they have to be. They are wondering why we aren’t all wearing Wolves shirts and dancing in the streets. Some are of course. The Fosun crazy train is a bit full at the moment full of people that can afford a ticket. They are waving their tickets proudly through the windows at those that can’t afford or can’t get their hands on one. These people are the disenfranchised and a small group of them want to get angry and angsty about it. In fact they may see a few people on the Crazy Train that maybe weren’t on there when there was room to pick a seat and the train wasn’t crazy, it was a bit shit, toilets overflowing with vomit on the floor and a few windows kicked in. Why the fuck have they got a ticket, how the fuck can they afford to travel all over the world to watch Wolves when we can’t? Who fucking cares really?

The fanbase is fractured because it’s always been like that and always will be. You can’t stick 30k people in a stadium and expect them all to get on can you? Some of them will be massive dickheads, some lunatics, some beautiful people and some that ugly their faces look like a hastily stamped out fire. All kinds mate, the full spectrum. What can I say to Fosun about it? Maybe don’t worry about it, it’s normal service, people can be horrible twats when they want to be and some can cause that much grief they can actually mentally harm their targets and love doing it to. That’s the way of the Wong man. My advice is this, don’t use Social media if you have a fragile ego or issues, it’s not a nice place. Find something else to do to get your hard ons. There are loads of ways to feed the ego, do some good in the world, be friendly and supportive to those around you. Enjoy peoples presence in the Limelight because that light ain’t on long and soon there will be other personalities pushing you out of the way. Avoid the knobheads as much as you can, they will do your life no good at all, it’s a kind of life censorship. Delete these people. Make Wolves something chilled out and enjoyable again.