The Liverpool match. Gutting mate. Apparently the Liverpool team spent the day at Compton. I wonder if they had Lunch there? I hope someone pissed in their stewpot. I don’t care what wankfest Klopp is having with Nuno and company at the moment, I just wanted sad Bindippers filing out…but. Thursday was extremely weird for me. I had three conversations with friends and it was all the same conversation. Every single one. It was about struggle, and I don’t mean the football kind for a change. It was about men struggling with issues be it mental or physical, or both. Now I can do the listening part no problem and I have many times in the past. I don’t mind it at all. I’ve sat and held the hand of a Multi Millionaire friend of mine as he recounted all his angst when he was at the end of his tether. I’ve given a Crackhead a hug and a listen down the canal when things got a little on top of him. But I’m not only a listener I’m a talker too. You see my depressive interludes (and I have a lot) are helped by me finding some doughnut to talk to and letting it all out. I don’t have any real issues with being emotional with other men because it pulls me out of those troughs of despair we have at times…or all the time. Talking helps me take a stock of my situation and if the listener is any good they will often have some points to make or a similar tale that kind of lets you know you aren’t alone.

Dudes have problems opening up. Dudes think dudeness is something where if you are in the pack and you show some element of weakness then you are liable to be attacked as a weak member and your ‘manliness’ is under question. So blokes just shut up and hold it all in. They just seem a bit miserable maybe or over happy…you see we are pretty good at hiding things like emotions. We men are very good at it. We hide our issues under layers and layers of personalities and before we know it we forget who we are. We forget what makes us ‘Us’.

I’ve missed writing about two games now, the Pool one and Manure. You know I didn’t know what to say about both of them only that we were bloody close to sticking it up both of them. That would have been good. But it’s the same old shit really. Chances and dances in midfield, chances in front of goal. All blew away like a bit of fluff. How funny was it to watch Traore razz around all those Pool players in midfield? Fair enough they all filed out of the Lower New Stand with a few cheeky grins these Scousers…but they didn’t look completely happy did they? There’s something weird about the way they are going to win this Premier League thing, something not quite right about the winning zeitgeist to me. 

Before the Liverpool game at Molineux me and Knocker had a walk around the ground to gather our thoughts about the game. See some people too, some of whom I wanted to check on because of the above madness and mental health grooves. I was in a weird mood to be honest especially as we walked around the Billy Wright. Loads of Flakies waiting for the players at the entrance. There was a certain security mood there for sure but everybody was quiet and I got talking to a dude near the security barriers. Just shooting the shit ya know. Bullshitting as you do. Then all hell breaks loose. It was quite silent there really until the Security fatties started moving the barrier back to let Liverpools Coach into the dropping off area. It was quiet…I mean it was intimated later that the silence at the Liverpool Coachs arrival was punctuated by some doughnut shouting…

“Ah Klopp you fucking Scouse wanker! Kloppy fuck off! Fuck off you Scouse bastards…you wanna share them teeth out ya Kraut bastard! Oi Henderson you fucking streak of wank!”

The voice echoed around the façade of the Billy Wright then I realised it was me and started to laugh. They were a lucky bunch of bastards that night mate. No shit. 

So I have bigged up Thelwell enough over the last couple of years despite most people hating him. You know me, I try to stick up for people especially when connected with the club. So his departure made me feel a bit….unmoved to be honest. I didn’t feel anything at all. Where has he gone? New York Red Bulls or some other Non entity in the MLS. He will have a great time there probably but I don’t really care to be truthful. I’m wondering what’s going on at Fosun Towers to warrant the move. Of course Jeff would have known months ago that Thelwell was off. I wonder whether or not he was prodded to go. Perhaps his role will go to some other up and coming negotiator or whatever his job entailed. I’m tempted to understand he was the dude at the bukkake party who couldn’t coax any life into his limp member as the transfer of players was dissected by perhaps sharper minds than his. Maybe being a bystander to such liquid splashing of egos wasn’t enough for Fosun…I dunno. Other bodies with better ideas of how these doughnuts do their career shit will know better than me. I’m just a bit unmoved by the whole thing. Same as when Garglypimple went. Decisions don’t have to be made in the light of his departure. Decisions were made months ago that’s obvious. I bet you any money the bloke that does take on the role left vacant by Thelwell is already throwing Wolves related shapes in their current role…which they still have. Jeff is just playing shadows with his ‘taking on the Thelwell role’ for sure. I wonder who the new dude will be? Someone exciting and a bit mad I hope….it also makes me wonder whether or not Uncle Jorge is doing it while Wolves wait. Who knows.

The transfer window has come and gone and it’s the first time for years I haven’t read any angst about it on Social Media or the Depress and Stir comments section. It’s not that I don’t care it’s just that having some sort of Reductionist viewpoint on the whys and wherefores of the players we got and the players we didn’t hasn’t bothered me as much. Fosun and company don’t really need my help in getting players in or out. The January window is a bloody harsh place to do business especially when your club have their toes nearly under the big table. But it’s their job not mine. All I can do is talk about who they got in. I like the signing of Luke Matheson to be honest. I got a bit sweaty when his name came up and then he went back to Rochdale on loan. I can see that. Nuno likes to have a good preseason with players before he starts to understand who they are. He likes to get close and personal with them to see what they are all about in the madness of pre season training. He’s done it with all his players so far. I expect Matheson to have a role in next years squad. A big role too maybe. The captures of Podence, Leonardo Campana, Enzo Loiodice and Luke Matheson are far sighted of course and excellent for this time period. There weren’t going to be any 80 million pound buys and ‘marquee’ signings for the Flakies to get sweaty about for sure. Simply because there wasn’t going to be any ‘push on’ for a Champions League place this season no matter how close we are to them. Don’t forget that we are still a year in front of our timetable for global domination. Nuno has bought additions and support for the next three years or so and we will see some of those additions blossom and become Nunoites or flutter away and join other teams…and we will make profit on all of them don’t worry. It’s the Fosun way. I think we can have a quick look on how splashing the cash can go brutally wrong by looking at Villa. I mean nobody wants that here do they? It’s all about the Europa League at the moment, we can win it you know, everything is set up for us. So we can eye that prize while we are in the competition, if we get knocked out (which I doubt) then we can have a crazy push to get a Champions League place. I think there is deffo more to come from Wolves yet. I don’t think we have achieved half of what that squad are capable of yet. I’m waiting for the explosion to be honest and it will come at some point. 

This breathing space we have is a ripe time to consolidate the squad we have and add to it with an almost academic approach rather than one that reflects a jerky fattening of the squad ‘because it’s too thin’. I mean the team is small don’t get me wrong and we have rode our luck with injury for a couple of years. But that’s where great teams become greater isn’t it. By riding as close and as fast to the edge as you can to grab half a second on your rivals. Plus the other great thing about our January window is that nobody has left the squad. Nobody got tempted away by oodles of ready cash. We still have our team…apart from Benno. 

I was a bit sad about Benno and I wont wax sad lyrics about his hopping over to the Crispies in Leicester. Fair play to him, I hope he made a couple of quid over it. I mean he was never the same after Nuno nicked his alloys was he? That goal at Bristol though eh? That tackle against Willian or whatever his face was against Chelsea…yes a bit sad. But we wave and say tata mate, see you in a bit. 

You see…in this madness of being a football fan you can sometimes get carried away by spending someone else’s money and it does occupy those times when people don’t want to look up and actually communicate with the people around them, they would rather argue with internet non entities about the pros and cons of the window. 

There hasn’t been much writing from me over the past few weeks because I have been struggling a little too much. I get bouts of depression that come on all of a sudden. Sometimes the depression is linked to something someone has said or something that has happened and BOOM its black dog time. But with me there is a difference between my struggles and other mens. (That is) I talk about it all the time. When I have a bout of depression I call up a mate and moan at them for an hour or two. They do the same to me of course. A few of us have this mutual moan network. It is vitally important that we talk about this shit together. Strangely enough before I started to open up about myself then they started to as well. I never even knew they struggled to be honest. I thought they were successful men who had great lives. In fact I thought it was brilliant that I was pissing on their happy strawberries with my woes until I found out they too were sitting in their cars in strange deserted car parks wondering how they were going to deal with the multitude of their own griefs. I like to lecture about how I deal with my madness because some of the tactics I use are bloody handy mate. Some of them not so good. But that’s where talking about this shit comes in handy. Talking lets you share your own ideas of how to deal with mental issues. Talking means sharing. Sharing means you have less of a burden to carry. There isn’t any stigma with being a depressed fruitloop because every man you know is going through the same crazy shit. Some are just better at hiding in than you that’s all. I’m not ‘brave’ in talking about my problems because I love talking about them and I see how it helps, I see how it has not made me ‘better’ but has made the whole depressive cycle a lot easier to get through when they do come. Talking about it is brilliant, cathartic in fact. Talking is the way we drag ourselves out of this mess. I know that picking up the phone is the hardest thing to do for some men, I really do. But I also know that listening can be tough as well, especially if you are on one of your peak periods when things seem OK. That’s where the whole pack mentality comes in. We have to be open with each other and there has to be a little give and take with the conversations we have with each other. So for fucks sake talk about it, learn about it, and let’s share our tactics with each other so we can get through it when we need to. 

Grab onto this site which has helped me in the past…

https://www.wolverhamptonhealthyminds.nhs.uk/

Have a read what Wolves are doing to help us…

https://www.wolves.co.uk/news/foundation/20190311-new-mental-wellbeing-project-for-men-kicks-off-in-city/