Sometimes things happen in the world that makes you think…well, that things are all turning in the right direction for once. Justice has been served and perhaps we have seen ‘progress’ as naked and as raw as we will ever see it.

Conor Coady my favourite Wolves player was picked for an England match last week. I had great misgivings about it to be honest…I mean they were the first feelings I had when I heard the news. Then, like a punch in the balls, another feeling, well a number of them. I was proud, more proud than you could ever think. That day I walked around a lot taller than I am used to. I’m normally hunched over wondering when the next bit of grief sleet is going to sting my face. Tall and proud yes. Walking around Aldi wanting to boot people into the vegetables. Energised and angry of course. Why angry? I didn’t want Coady to be around that bunch of England weirdos. They are dysfunctional and strange these England players. I don’t feel connected with them in any way…since Bully played to be honest.

Coady is everything good about Wolves rolled into one bundle. In him, the Nunology is strong. Nuno as Alchemist maybe, as well as a Philosopher. Forging and mixing up all the ingredients he wanted in a player, in a Captain and saw Coady as the perfect vessel to mix his footballing rhymes and rhythms into. There’s a story called ‘The Chemical Wedding’ which explains via metaphor and allegory the distillation of a human soul into a pure essence. Pardon me for confusing this football talk with metaphysical aspects and throwing in ‘stuff I read on the bog’ but it’s out there now. Conor Coady as a perfected essence of Nunology or something. Give me a break I haven’t typed anything for months and lockdown sends you loopy…or more loopy. But yeah. He’s done a right job our Nuno and staff.

You see…our erstwhile Gaffer in all his madness reminds me much more as a Philosopher than a Coach (I’ve waxed about this somewhere else) He’s got three or four other doughnuts to rag the team around Compton as well as a vibrant and focused backroom team. We see the synergy around the staff when Nuno gets some gong or other from Sky Sports. The backroom staff are holding the trophy. Nuno is in the background grinning that much it looks like the top of his head is about to fall off. Don’t get me wrong, Nuno is all about the statistical crap, the figures and the performance. I daresay he knows how to smash the keyboard to get around an excel spreadsheet. I bet he gets as involved as any other Coach. But where other Coaches struggle for some Philosophy they can impress on their club. Nuno came with one (I have said before) that he probably brewed up during those long hours standing under a crossbar in the hot sun watching the rest of his team play in front of him. I bet his head was itchy under that baseball cap that shaded his eyes. I guess his hands were slick with sweat under those foamy mad Micky Mouse hand goalkeepers gloves. I guess his mind was going mad out there, working out where his defenders were going wrong, where the opposition were wrong and right. 22 players in front and Nuno is watching all of it.

That’s where the best Philosophies are made. Under pain and pressure. But Coady…Here is the Philosophy made concrete. Here is where those hours in the sun winding and pacing in that goalmouth provided a kind of Alchemy in Nunos mind. Here he probably set into position all the criteria Nuno would want in a Captain of his team. He needs to be durable and tough. He has to have a certain morality about him, a certainty that what he is doing is right and correct. This Captain, in Nunos sun baked mind would have to be adaptable and flexible to the demands of his Manager and Coach. He will be called upon to do things that are unfamiliar and new to him. He will have to learn fast and under pressure. There will be times that it seems like the floor has opened up under this Captain and this Captain will see that there is no such thing as failure and mistakes only opportunities to learn. Nuno would kick the bottom of his Goal post probably and have a drink of water. He swills it around his mouth and spits it out onto the parched grass. Yes, his Captain would have to have some trait of aggression, not anger, not petulant displays of arrogant violence. Something more subtle but not lacking in power. Aggression is the fuel that will give you a gnats bollock of energy and strength when you most need it. A tackle or a shoulder, the odd jab in a rib. Letting the opposition know who you are, you aren’t scared no, amazed probably to be playing against some of the best footballers in the world. But having a kind of Stoic courage to think…well, I’m Conor Coady mate…it’s not an ego thing, it’s not really Coady on the pitch. It’s something Conor Coady, Nuno and company have built over the past few years. A player that to be honest scares me. It scares me that one day I will look at all my trials and tribulations and for one horrible second think…well if Coady trampled over the obstacles in his way during his career then perhaps I might have the energy also? Maybe? He sets the bar high, too high for most of us.

I did predict he would play for England at some point…way back in the day when Nuno first came. Yeah, people laughed and threw some abuse. I was cool with that. I remember the bloke from the BBC laughing at me in me own garden when I told him we would be playing European football in two years. I’m used to people laughing at things I write. It makes me laugh too. It mader me laugh when all you could hear during the England game was Coady yelling at people to move here or there, or to watch this and that. What will be the fall out from his first cap? Southgate will be looking confused at the game which was poor, the only stand out was Coady for me. It was the only dude I was watching to be honest. What Southgate, the staff and his peanut head will be asking themselves is ‘do we have the courage to build a team around Coady? Can we give a tacit recognition to his Coach that he has helped build a player of the future? An England Captain?’

Not for me to bother about to be honest. Whatever happens Conor Coady is going to battle for glory on some field or another with Wolves, England or another team. He will find success too. maybe not in Trophies or empirical glory but within himself I suppose.

When Coady was first moved into our defence I was amazed, scared but I trusted Nuno, even in those early days that it was the best possible place for Conor Coady, and Nuno saw in Coady his Philosophical foundation for his ideas. In Coady something to build on and use as a fulcrum for the rest of the team. I slapped the bloke in front of me in the Southbank when he waxed some insult or other about Coady.

“He’ll pick up a World Cup one day trust me pal” I said to him. I don’t know where that came from at all. They were some big hyper fat lyrics to ramble out to a half pissed confused looking doughnut with a slapped head. Maybe Coady will. Maybe I have some link to some great Metaphysical power that gives me powers to predict shit? Maybe I just talk so much shit some of it is bound to turn out correct at some point. I suspect the latter to be fair. But for you betting people out there I would ding a tenner on Coady picking up the World cup as Captain of the England team. See what the odds are. It’s a tenner for Gods sake, you lot are loaded.

Ah Conor Coady eh. I met him once, I had dog shit on my jeans.

Sorry I’ve been away a bit but the Laptop had some major issues and I had to save up a bit to get it fixed. Look forward (or not) to more content this season as I wax some madness about the new signings, Fosun, Nuno and all this Covid bollocks. I have written much in the months since we have lost our football. All on paper with a biro. I have lost sheets of stuff but it will turn up.