Don’t worry Dear Readers. There aren’t going to be any words like ‘Evolution’ or ‘Transition’ or any of that shit today. I think we have gone over that ground so much it’s starting to look like a Council job. Most of my regular victims….I mean readers know the score pretty much. Anyone that lives in a Council house while the Council are ‘modernising’ their house knows what an absolute nightmare it is. Chunks of plaster missing, carpets ruined, stuff goes missing, new holes everywhere, plaster dust, Crackhead subbies wandering around your bedroom. New light switches in places where you never look so you end up stumbling around in the dark for six months trying to find the switch. It’s a nightmare. Yesterday was like that. Newcastle are always a nightmare any way. Especially Steve Bruce. I can’t watch him any more. His head is like the bits of Elephant Man they cut off. His head is like a Chernobyl allotment Cauliflower. When he talks it’s akin to trying to lick your own groin while singing Fog on the Tyne. Cabbage head ay he?

Horace says we aren’t going to see any real destruction of these teams until after Xmas so you have a good couple of months of this madness to come. Half chances and fluffed communications, glimpses of intent and speed of attack. This is the grindstone gently revolving as the knife gets an edge…slowly, and patiently. That’s how you get a good razor sharp edge. Of course if you get a little impatient and press down a little too hard on the blade you will ruin the bevel and you have to start again. Gentle is the word of the day. Softly easing the team into a coherent razor sharp blade that will cut opposition teams into pieces. Have we confidence in the Team, the Coaching staff et al? Of course we do. It’s what we do best…at least some of us. We have watched enough dross at Molineux to understand what we see here, even in this beautiful slightly dysfunctional young team, the shoots of something different. Something a little scary too. Under the Microscope of Papa Nuno we see the elements of ‘a team’ being forged and nurtured. Forged perhaps for the rigours to come in this new Post-Covid football world. What those new variables are going to be…well I have my suspicions but they are too ethereal to actually bang them out on me keyboard. I will keep that madness to myself for a while. But I can see Fosun and Nuno having a firm grip on these strange times and are actively planning to take advantage of these variables. That’s the nature of ‘driven’ men and women in Football. They have to know everything, have to plan and build. They also have to be adaptable to changing environments, matches, VAR, transfer rules, contracts, forecasts, injuries etc etc.

How did we look? What’s the progress? I imagine this season so far as a run of friendlies or pre-season games. We are still in a flux of possibilities when I look at the team. Wolves are gently and surely tempering the activity on the team on the pitch so that they can glean all the data they need to position themselves in the best possible place for the future. Data collection mate. Watching and recording things. It’s not Tony Daley at Compton seeing how much you can Bench Press. It’s data, pure data on which to base policy. We have changed everything. This is not the team of last season or the year before. As much as our exploits in Europe and the Premier League was at times brilliant and uplifting there were moments when Nuno must have seen what we lacked and planned for it too. He knows what players have to be moved on and who should be developed. If you think that these new additions to the squad are just names and attractions we are sadly mistaken. We have brought the very best of emerging European talent and settled them within a place where their nurture and ability will be forensically examined and developed. We see this with young Max Kilman. He has taken his chance, worked hard, developed, embraced this Philosophy of hard work and constant progression. I watched him mostly. So young yet so ‘on the ball’ it’s daft. Progression again, moving forwards if not on the pitch then definitely in his ability. Here in this lad is what you would get if you looked into the future. Playing out from the back creatively and with confidence, feeding the midfield with accurate balls from danger situations with an opposition trapped in their own intent as they move forwards leaving space and chances. The movement at times from Wolves was slick and assured for sure. Rhythm was there in short splashes and the speed was breath taking until some errant familiarity between our players made the movement splutter out as they hit the stripey wall of Newcastle and the stolid lumpy tactical nous of Steve Bruce. But it was there wasn’t it. A progression of sorts from the Leeds game. Much more assured and to say Nuno is halfway through his investigations of the squads strength and ability in competitive games. It’s not too bad at all mate to be honest.

The team of course would have done much better and would probably have won it with a crowd in there. The Southbank would have been feet on seats, an incessant roar to inspire the team to attack and to destroy. I said on Social Media that Wolves are the people and the People are Wolves. We miss you terribly and I think they miss us to be honest. If you are a regular traveller to away games or to Molineux you know the scenario, the madness we provide. Nuno isn’t trying to smash the lock off opposition defences any more, he is trying to pick the lock like a Craftsman and sometimes the lock will be hard to get off. Do we want the madness of Pulis or Warnockian Moshball? Nah thanks. Lump it up to Raul is not the policy here. I see Neto and Danpod moving out wider. Semedo is learning very fast. I am very impressed with him so far. Semedo and Neto look like they have already got some sort of communication going with some slick interchanges. Solid that Semedo is mate. He’s got a great footballing head on him. Now all he needs is to fling himself around a bit and start dictating rhythms and movement instead of reacting to it, which I think will come the more games he has under his belt. Of course Newcastle are already clinging to the life belts early doors. Eleven men defending is boring but they don’t care. Every point is a Bramleys Apple pie to a Smackhead waiting in a Dr’s surgery waiting for their Methadone prescription. God they are boring as fuck. But what do you expect from Bruce. I’m sick of watching his teams to be honest. Even when they play an ‘A’ game, which they can do because they have some effective players on their team…Bruce looks surprised in the post match Interview and waxes some sweet untruths as he lathers himself in plaudits he doesn’t deserve. Boring bastard.

Raul did the Raul thing again. He’s working fucking hard that bloke. I am growing to like him more and more as I watch him. People who know me know that I’m not given to isolating one player for praise or my precious love. But man, Raul is growing on me and it’s moved from a respectful nod of appreciation for plans to tattoo his face on my face. Beautiful creamy strike bang on the money. It would have been deserved this victory for sure. We did look the better side, we did work harder, we did have more ideas that Newcastle but it wasn’t to be. Now as you know I don’t single out people as Saints or Sinners and I’m not going to do it now. Fair enough there may have been some errant positioning of the ball for the Newcastle equaliser. Maybe Rui could have done better. Who knows. But I tell you what mate. We don’t talk about Rui much do we? That is a glowing statement for our Goalkeeper. Was it a mistake? Did Rui see something nobody else did? Did the free kick do what Rui expected? Stick all these variables into the mix and then stick them into the match in those precious few seconds Rui had to assemble that wall. Who knows? Rui isn’t God, he can’t see everything, sometimes things just go unexpectedly. Mistakes are fantastic and useful things because it gives us the opportunity to learn from them. We go into the future with a Goalkeeper who will learn and will see what went wrong and then make sure it never happens again. Good that it happened in an empty Molineux in an early season game rather than an important end of season match where it could be a European spot up for grabs. How painful would that have been? Rui is a fantastic Goalkeeper. I don’t want to hear negative things about him. He will learn and be stronger as a Goalkeeper after tonight. Southbank Resistance Loves Rui, he never says a lot, does his job, learns, thank God we have him.

It’s a killer those last minute equalisers I ay going to lie. But when I look at these two teams and remove any amount of blinkered viewpoints that I spout on here I still see Wolves as a better more rounded team. Albeit one that at the moment is feeling it’s way carefully into the season. No way is Nuno going to lose his grip and allow the team to impose their own ideas on how they should play and in what manner. In this game we see the Iron hand of Nuno firmly guiding the abilities of the team into what he and the staff see as ‘The Future’. But I can also see that some of our players are not quite gelling into what Nuno has expected of them. I also suspect we will see some players moving on to pastures new as the transfer window reopens. It may be some players that we have loved over the past few years and the uproar when that happens will be absolutely cataclysmic on Social Media. I am looking forwards to that to be honest. Already there are cracks appearing in fans minds as they struggle to understand what the fuck is going on and when ‘that’ player moves on. Well….

But listen…chill out, try to vent your angst on Social media which is great for getting rid of those horrible thoughts and anger you have swirling around your heads. Times are mad as fuck. We see things much differently when we are angry and pissed off and often that anger can deform proper rigorous intuition into a garbled babbling of half thought through comments on what the fuck we are doing. Don’t take things too seriously when you read them on Twitter or Facebook. Much of it is ‘Virtue Wolves Fanning’. These people don’t really care about Wolves or football in general. They are just spouting off for the benefit of others so they are seen as ‘a massive fan’ rather than just a fan. Seeing perhaps who gets the most annoyed and the most vociferous about any of the points above you could mention. Ah well. It’s a point. Isn’t it warm for Autumn?

I think we’ve all had enough now haven’t we? This Lockdown bollocks, not going out, not talking to people…if we do talk to people it’s all angsty and shitty. I’ve noticed that driving habits are becoming violent too. I’ve never seen so many errant tactics on the road, people getting out and shouting. Have you noticed those odd times in shops too? Arsey bollocks everywhere. We are losing the plot for sure. As we are all ragged and mentally unstable it’s good sometimes to reach out and offer some support to people myself included that are feeling the pressure. Problems that we have in ‘Normal’ world are amplified in this one. Depression, anxiety, stress, tick any box you want to and add new ones if you want. I wish I had some tactics I could share with you on how to deal with this craziness that really, at the end of the day, isn’t us is it? We are normally dysfunctional yeah, a bit mad too. That’s part and parcel of life. We lost it, we grab it back.

That’s why football is so important to us. It’s where we let it all out for just a few hours a week. Catharsis really. Being verbally violent at least gives us a chance to unload all that family and work bollocks. We are with friends too. Thirty odd thousand friends when we are at a match watching Wolves. Gesticulating, singing, having a few beers sometimes getting a slap or giving one or two out. Fucking hell I do miss it and I know you are too.

Did you read my Leeds V Wolves report? That’s me having a meltdown and shouting and people who to be honest are happy in their little bubbles. But I needed an outlet to rage and the Flakies were me target. Tough tit really for them but I felt a lot better to be honest. But I want to sing for my team, I want to tell Coady how much I love him, I want to show the new signings how fucking mad we are for Wolves, I want to see dejected opposition teams stumbling off into the tunnel after our dudes have smashed them. Instead we are stood in front of the living room window watching ‘him’ over the road do boring man shit in his garden when I should be dying of heat stroke in the Royal London and then coming out and freezing in that cold wind that always blows around town. So I had two very stark choices. Either go outside and aggravate Mr Jetwash or sit down and write a fucking song about it. Which I did. ‘Forever Still Waters’ if you click on the link above you can hear it if you want. I can’t sing and I don’t really know what I’m doing with a guitar. I just tickle it in ways that seem pleasing and tuneful and then wail my plaintive warblings over the top. I sat down and tried to record it on the lap top but it didn’t sound right. Not my tuneless voice but the ambient colour of it. You can’t sing about something you aren’t close too. Not me anyway. I needed some Wolf spirit. Some ghosts to help me out and I thought the only way to get that is to fuck off up the Molineux and sit myself down in the subway for half an hour and play and record the fucking thing. That meant grabbing a pull along trolley from the Poundstretcher down the road. I put the lap top in, grabbed my mic and stand, my Midi recording thing. Picked a few presets that made everything jangly, grabbed a folding stool and a camping table. I loaded it all up with the guitar (which i forgot to tune) and I fucked off up the Mol.

It was nice to be back. It was deserted and the only people around were the odd student. I sat down, cold breeze. You know the subway. I settled down by Stan Cullis and played the bloody song. There are a few parts where people walked past and bunged a few coins in me basket. Mad busking vibes to be sure. But I wanted that ambience. The crowds filing through there before a game are mad but now? Just ghosts. But I needed them to do this and by God they did help. For a few seconds at least I felt attached to my club again but not only with the club, with the people I haven’t seen for God knows how long. I felt a little more complete at least. There is a part in the song when I’m looking at a Roadman who took a great interest in my gear. But not today brother. You can hear him walking past if you listen close. But anyway it was done in three takes and I haven’t farted around with mixing it or polishing it. It’s just raw…like the wind blowing through the subway really. Enjoy.

If you like it and download it bung a few quid to Steve Plant for his Charity work with Birmingham Childrens Hospital. If he makes a fiver out of this then at least it’s a fiver ay it. Enjoy my friends and I’ll see you all soon. Oh and ‘Old Gold Magic’ is when the suns setting and we see it in all it’s glory from the Southbank.

Old Gold Magic

There is a break in the clouds ahead
Like a parting in Angels hair I say
They softly float and then drift away
In the Old Gold Magic at the end of the day

There is a breeze and I turn to say
Look at this beautiul day but hey
There's no one there but a whisper of grey
In the Old Gold Magic at the end of the day

So I smile and I'm there again
and we sing side by side
Don't look back at forever still waters 
and cast your eyes to the sunrise ahead

Careful not to stumble and fall
There's only the cold roads to care at all
Brush away the whispering Ghosts that call
In the Old Gold Magic at the end of the day

I wish you were standing here by me
My Brothers and Sisters, you and me
My body is broken but here I'm free
In the Old Gold Magic at the end of the day

So I smile and I'm there again
and we sing side by side
Don't look back at forever still waters
and cast your eyes to the sunrise ahead

At sunrise we'll lie upon the grass
I suppose in time all things come to pass
The sadness and grief are taken to task
In the old Gold Magic at the end of the day

You have to feel sorry for our Flakies. Poor bastards. I mean they’ve just spunked out 50 or 60 squid on their new PortuWolves third kit. They have probably spread their arses to Sky Sports to the tune of 15 squid so they can watch the match with their artisanal ales cooling in their fridge. They sit their fat arses down and try to understand a game of football so out of their comfort zones (mentally) that the fume is visible from their little acorn heads. Of course the ubiquitous smart phone is their inches away from their pudgy sticky fingers. It’s a real thing this phone. Now the Flakies have access to the fucking world mate. Social media is brilliant, it gives a voice (kind of) to the dispossessed, the angry and to be honest…the very thick. How often does Nuno have to reiterate that this team is transition? How often has he mentioned a policy change in the way we play? Transition. I’ll give you a definition of it.

Transition: a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another.

Quite easy to understand isn’t it? Even to the Spiceheads down the canal. They understand, they can suss it out. But that Smartphone eh? Thick fingers tap on the faux leather arm of their chair. They don’t understand transition, they don’t understand evolution either, I mean they are barely fucking evolved themselves to be honest. They are pale and sweaty, their new PortuWolves shirt is itchy, it’s uncomfortable across their big beer tits. They question everything with the few brain cells their Lockdown alcoholism has left them. They are the people that drive in the middle lane on a Motorway because well…fuck you. They are the people that walk into shops without masks on because well…fuck you. They are the people that will pay 15 squid regardless of the fact that our game is under threat because well….fuck you. They are the people that don’t only show off the brand new Wolves top they have just bought on Social Media, beer tits and fat bellies resplendent but they post the fucking receipt they got as well! Because…fuck you. They are the people that have never struggled, never fought for a thing in their lives, they are the people at an away game and it kicks off with locals in the pub and they are the ones hiding under tables or running out the door with their beers. Of course Social Media is the first port of call because it’s safe. They are the people who can’t wait to bristle and post their new Wolves merch, tickets, Cobold prints, books, bullshit because didn’t you know?…It makes them a much bigger fan than you mate. So their opinion is picked up by Flakies with less brain cells and before you know it it’s a fucking flood of flabby, pale anger, pitchforks against FrankenNuno as they storm the reception at Molineux. Nobody really knows you on there so the bile you have rising in your belly is easily transferred into pulses of negative energy to throw at the team. So it goes. There are names of course and you know who you are. You are the cunts we see sliding back off to the pub when we are 3-0 down. You are the cunts that spend most of your time on your phones while the match is going on because you can’t wait to pour out all that shit you have swilling around your heads. All you have is angst and negative grooves because we aren’t 3-0 up and it looks a bit testy a bit uncomfortable. You don’t like it because you have had everything you have ever wanted plonked on your plate without much fighting to get it. You are wankers mate “Nuno has taken us as far as he can it’s time for him to go” and that my friends was when my phone got fucking launched and I turned the internet off and when I see said person who wrote that I’m going to fucking torture them when I next bump into them.

The match, thank fuck. Still transitioning, still working hard, still evolving. Still scrapping points together too. You could see how hard that work was when they started to play. Leeds are a fucking good team as much as we dislike them. Bielsa has a good footballing head on his shoulders, he attacks, his team runs, presses high, you don’t have time to think and Wolves were in that state where they needed that hidden frequency that they are searching for, that communication that involves a nod and a wink, a movement off the ball, a poked through ball to break the dead lock. All variables we are working towards but man, we ain’t there yet for sure. But to go in at half time with the game all square was as good as a 2-0 lead for me. Leeds are everywhere and they get there fast too. You know of course it wouldn’t last long. There’s no way a team like Bielsas can keep that up. They reminded me very much of our play in our first season back in the Premier. Fast counter attacking, never giving an opposition player time on the ball. Pressing always pressing hard and high. Little Helder understands this shit of course, because that’s how WE USED TO PLAY. A couple of years back. Max Kilman is lovely, he mops stuff up like a seasoned pro, much still to learn, much still to understand but yes, give him game time, give him encouragement and support. Boly is waking up as well for sure. Physical and forensic with his movement again. He is getting his Mojo back slowly but surely. Halftime is usually a time to reach out to other people I know and find out what they think, see if my mind is on point about the play and I’m not confusing myself by looking too much into everything. But tonight, no. I understand perfectly thanks. Leeds ARE a great team and despite a few dubious passes into thin air and that quasi dysfunctional look of our team I felt good and confidant that we were going to take Leeds apart in the second half. Because Leeds walked off the pitch at the break and looked fucking knackered to be honest. So it’s 0-0 and we have weathered a storm for sure. Leeds have big expensive hard ons and were slapping those hard ons on Wolves foreheads for 45 minutes. But the blood was flowing out of them for sure, they looked limper and limper as the game ground to the end of part one. No amount of coaxing and fluffing was going to give it them back. I suspect that this is the essence of the team now. To hold the ball, to keep the ball and to await the fruits of possessive football, and the endless tip tap of the ball between Wolves players is Nuno and the Coaching staffs new mantra. It’s attrition football. We wear teams out. That’s why the Kilman situation interests me, the Semedo acquisition, Marcal et al. All players that can learn or already know the intricacies of the possession based game. You get tired chasing balls. You don’t get so tired when you have possession of it.

The dogma of the Nunology bears fruit almost from the off. Now there is a little space and a little splinter of light seems to appear between these teams and Wolves are suddenly illuminated and lively. Now is the WolfTime of course. Gaps and spaces to move into, to let unfold what they have learned at Compton. All of a sudden things are back to normal. Conor Coady puts one of those delicious crosses boinging up the pitch for DanPod to grab a hold of. DanPod was pure DanPod, making room for himself in the physicality of the Leeds man on his back. He puts in a ball to Saiss who sticks it in the net. We don’t cheer of course. VAR has sucked all that madness from the game. May the Good Lord torture and give pain to all those responsible for this fucking disgrace of a thing. Goal disallowed after the computer algorithms at Castle FA and the bald headed Pedophiles that run it decide on an offside. Which it was, but piss off any way.

But it’s moving in the right direction. Leeds are stuttering now. Those spaces are getting bigger and Wolves have been told what to do about those spaces when they pop up. It’s Kilman who strangles the ball away and dinks it up the pitch to Jimenez who does all the Coca-Cola ‘It’s the Raul Thing’ and wallops the ball goalwards only for that poor bastard Phillips to get a lovely touch on it and we are a goal to the good. 3 points, best start to a season since 1979 mate.

Despite this win, a hard fought win, against a great team, with a Wolves team in a transitional period, a bench full of tasty young players learning and loving this Nuno madness…some ay happy. When things are going tits up like under Lambert, Hoddle you name a name I expect fume and anger. I would get back from a match in those days and be asked how we did. I knew one person who I could open my heart too and have a good moan. But I never did it in public and I still don’t. My feelings about certain players and the Coaching of it stay inside locked away. I only wax about positive things as much as I can. With this team, so far this season and indeed under Nuno since he came I haven’t had a moment where I have though that we were losing the plot in any way. Losses to me now aren’t that ball punching yourself on a packed 559 Bus back to Wenny. Years ago I would be hard pressed to gleam any positives from some of our Pre-Nuno games. Now we have a dodgy few minutes and all I see are opportunities to learn. Who was it that said ‘I love making mistakes because that’s the only way I learn”? God knows, but it’s an apt and accurate way of looking at misfortune. Nuno has had these players for a time period measured in fucking days not months, you could extrapolate and say that he has had mere hours with them if you insert COVID into the equation too. A highly fucking dysfunctional time and yet we can still grind out a victory against a team like Leeds. Even though I hate them I am glad they are back in the top flight. They are a fanbase with a madness that I see in Wolves and not many others, it is good to see them back up here and playing us. It’s like old times. I wish dearly I was up there for the game winding their fans up and rolling around in the streets with them having earnest debates about our respective teams and Cities. But alas for the football of these times. Transition eh? At least we can write this season off a little, at least the first bit any way. We aren’t going to look anything like the finished Idea of THE NUNO until after Xmas at least. When Nuno has had some time with these strangers, these new additions. But please all you Flakies, keep being bitter on Social Media, keep having a moan as you rip off your new PortuWolves tops and throw it in the wesh. After my angst at reading your shit I always laugh and point at you. I know who you are…don’t stand by me. We ay all Wolves ya know. Some just pretend.

Well that didn’t take long did it? What an excellent time for the erosion of everything we hold dear, going to the Pub, Match, insert whatever here. Now this Plague is in full swing again what a great opportunity for the Lizards to get their snouts further in the trough. £3 Billion quid has already gone missing and into the pockets of those abstract PFI entities already. Our money…well yours, I only earned 3k last year so I don’t pay tax. They will love this shit, these Lizards. Now they can buy the latest Jag or Strange Rover, they will look dead cool as they drive a few miles down the road before it blows a tube or something. Maybe a holiday home in Tuscany or the South of France, maybe one of those blonde big tit sideys for business trips. Who fucking knows?

But hey. We may have a bigger problem. Those wankers who own Liverpool and Manchester United respectively are making those Super League noises again. Now we know they are Lizard wankers, it comes with the territory of owning BIG clubs. As an aside I think it’s interesting that the two clubs involved in this bullshit have the crappest home stadium atmospheres over the past 10 or so years…I’ll explain

As much as I can delve into the legal and other aspects of this move by Rick Parry, Chairman of the EFL to formulate a ‘Project Big Picture’ where the “EFL clubs will receive an immediate £250m rescue package and a 25 per cent future annual share of Premier League revenue.” in return for giving the “Big Six” increased leverage and voting rights on a plethora of issues that will eventually (I see) that it will affect us dickheads.

Now the awful thing here is that the narrative is firmly being led by Parry and the two clubs mentioned above. I think the others (as yet) have not commented purely because they waiting to see how that narrative gets accepted. If it’s accepted without a whimper from us oi polloi then you can expect to see football as we know it change beyond all recognition. We will be fucked my friends. Fucked good and proper. Tickets for games will be akin to getting a Wimbledon ticket. There will be waiting lists and you will pay for the luxury of getting on that waiting list too. You will pay ‘memberships’ and be part of an ‘Official Club’ where you pay £50 a year and get a poster, a leaflet and perhaps a membership card. But you are on the waiting lists at least. You can go on Social Media then and brag that you are on one, waiting for the ticket allocation for normal fans who will be able to afford the £350 for the ticket to get you in the game. But if you get a ticket you wont be allowed to sit where you want. The corporate seats and junkies will have first dibs on those seats. The whole thing will be branded an ‘experience’ and you can go and sit in the famous Kop or Stretford end with the rest of the dickheads who have paid money to experience what football matches ‘used’ to be like. You can buy a foam hand and maybe a flag too…wave it when Liverpool score a touchdow….er a goal. The money will flow into their coffers mate. More TV rights money, more branding, more fleecing the punter out of his local club. Glitter mortars, fireworks, cheerleaders, laser shows, a big pair of flakey pale bollocks flapping around on your forehead as they tea bag you again and again and we fucking love it because we are here and you are not. You saw that last season with Wolves in Europe. Could we afford it? Nah not really so we didn’t go. But others did. Other ‘Wolves fans’ we have never seen before. You know who they are as you’ve seen the photos on Social Media. Resplendent in their new Wolves shirts, grinning at the camera, hashtagging like a cunt because they want everybody to see how big a Wolves fan you are. I listened to one Flakey regale me with stories about away games they had gone to. I had to laugh at one point because the story they were telling was my story and mate you weren’t there.

Now you cant afford to take your kids to the footie. They would rather go skateboarding any way. It’s cheaper and all their friends do it. Mountain biking, choir practice or just sit in front of your massive telly waiting for the match you just spent £50 to watch. Now that link between a Father/Mother and their kids enjoying something together as a family is broken. You don’t have anything to say to them any more. They are bored with your stories of ‘how it used to be’ there will be resentment everywhere, even at school where ‘but so and so’s Dad has got a season ticket and they go every week” when the season ticket is the same as what you earn in a year.

But what about ‘evolving’ and growing with the sport? Something I have talked about much regarding FOSUN and their plans. Us growing with them, opening our own minds to growth and possibilities. It still stands mate. It’s there and I still agree with growth. But this isn’t growth. It’s racketeering. It’s control and it’s fucking disgusting.

But what will happen? Well evolution is a great word and I love using it. Creation is another. This madness of English football that we love, the rivalries, the songs, the banners and flags, the podcasts, the memes, the history etc etc are ours….not theirs. They ‘own’ these clubs but all they own is an abstract idea of the club that exists only on pieces of legal paperwork. They own the map but not the territory. The territory of course is ours and always will be, because the territory is an emotional thing, metaphysical even. The territory has been fought over many times and it has running thickly through it among the blood and the snot a link between us and the club we have chosen to support. That territory is a creative hot bed of madness. We produce history, we produce the stories, we are the creators of this commodity called English Football. Because the nature of the territory is naturally chaotic ie relegations, falls from grace and trophies too, Championships etc our emotional ties to the club produce history in its purest forms. History is in itself a commodity. FOSUN looked at tens of clubs before they bought Wolves and what attracted them was total control of a club with a History that was rich with success and a fanbase that is almost fanatical in it’s love. What they actually bought was a club practically on it’s knees crying out for development and investment. That was the map and they thought they got the territory for free.

Without us English football is dead. Dead as Old Trafford and Anfield. Molineux (if FOSUN decide to throw their weight in with the Lizards) will go the same way. Forget about pre match drinks and having a laugh with your mates. It will be FOSUN WORLD ‘The Wolverhampton Wanderers Experience’ and like at Wembley last year (ugh) you will get Flakeys walking around in Mexican Sombreros with stupid fucking moustaches or wrestling masks for fucks sake but ya know insert any National dress into this equation, it’s whoever is scoring goals and is ‘memeable’. It will be fucking horrible mate. We of course will be in an Estate pub or ‘sport bar’ somewhere either watching it in a practically empty room or doing something else entirely. But they will not have us. Our chaos and strength is joining together in adversity. Whether it be at a dodgy away day or when the team isn’t doing as well as we expected. We join together and we make history ourselves and it’s our history not theirs, not the teams (most of the time) and not Rick fucking Parrys. Without us it will die, everything we love about football is slowly being eroded away by these cunts in suits. Nothing is safe from them any more. If there is money to be made they will be there flicking their Lizard tongues out in greed. But they will not have us. We are more important than they think. Hauntology is a good word. Go and Google it and read about it. Read too about the end of History. Look at the wider context of Parrys narrative and extrapolate it to your club whichever it is. There will be no more songs on the terraces, no more rivalry, no more humour, no laughing, no shouting, no fucking emotion. Because the matchday experience will be as dull as Harry Potter world or Blobby Land full of dickheads with no clue about why they are there only some vapid strange idea deep within their thick heads that they are there and not you, and that makes them feel good and for once real even if the experience has nothing to do with what going to the match is really like.

I see as I was writing this that FOSUN voted for the PPV debacle we have had foisted upon us. Our Fans parliament have said some good positive things but ultimately a Parliament without power is just a public relations entity. They make noises, get a few PR points and some grudging retreats on a few issues off FOSUN that to be honest the club doesn’t really give a fuck about. What we require of course as fans is FOSUN to evolve a little bit themselves and look at the wider picture here. We need a Fans rep on the board, we need representation at Board level at the very least. We need to be part of the club not some anonymous lump of income they can fuck about with as much as they like. This blog is called Southbank Resistance for a reason. We resist because simply put football clubs are not the pretty sparkly little investments these Corporate hedge funds think they are. Do you want us to start making some noise when we are shut out of our grounds? We can for sure, we have fought bigger battles, harder ones. You want us to get angry? We can very much. We are not going to walk away from our clubs because we are our clubs and you ay.

Well there you go. An empty canvas of a Virus Lockdown Wembley. The Taffs. Conor Coady being Conor Coady. That means all you hear is his voice rebounding off the rows of empty seats. Ordering, moving players around, but most of all enjoying the absolute shit out of the whole weird occasion. The dysfunctionality of the England player party scene which left three important players…somewhere else, gave the whole show a dysfunction vibe. Years ago I would have been crazed beyond imagination at having to play the Taffs while losing three vital parts of Southgates England machine. Now, errant behaviour lays down the territory where others may flourish. The Wembley pitch last night was a rich soil on which to grow something worthwhile for sure. Southgate probably wouldn’t understand it. Most of the England set up wouldn’t either. But it was a chance for lose ‘low cap’ fellows to stretch their legs a bit in this weird abstract set up that we call the England team. Coady doesn’t seem fazed. He has that steely look, eyebrows furrowed where he is not quite believing what he’s doing running around in an England kit at Wembley. It’s the look he gives Journos in Post Match interviews when they say something negative. It’s the look that says ‘I’m listening and concentrating but…”.

Calvert-Lewin, strong in form and head down even Jack Grealish had a look of a man who had come to the conclusion that his football had to flourish and grow within this 3-4-3 set up. So on that left side there was danger and menace from a Grealish that I suspect has decided to grow up a little and start to love his football again. As the game progressed I enjoy these little touches the team seemed to grow into and develop as the game went on. No answer from the Taffs. Missing three players of apparent usefulness…apparently. But it’s an experimental tactic from Southgate. I watched the Denmark game. It was a bit weird for sure. Players not seeming to gel with the ideas Southgate wanted on the field but developing that idea certainly as the game progressed. But it looked more like the games these players play every week with their clubs. It was fast and precise leaving several Taffs looking around in confusion as indeed we started to run them a little ragged. Southgate will be extremely happy with the result and of course in the next few matches the England Goon show will probably make an appearance and we can get back to watching these elite knobheads like Sancho, Maguire et al fart around like its a kick about in the park.

But enough about 3-0 lashings of our Taff neighbours. Watching the match on a dodgy stream again I drink tea out of my Conor Coady mug looking at the photo he signed for me. Its a photo of me and him outside the Preston ground. I look like a tramp and he’s there looking like he does, little smile of confusion probably at this lunatic who keeps garbling about Coady being his favourite player and so on. In my appreciation of Coady and the Grit Bin halftime conferences we had where we defended Conor with words and physical shapes I am happy. I am fucking ecstatic in fact. If we had been at Wembley last night (and we would have been) we would probably have got thrown out after the Coady goal. It was enough bedlam here because as he poked his foot out so did I and stuff went flying, including me tea, a dog, me fags and the bloody lap top. What a ball in by Trippery bloke, Conor only had to put a toe on it. I know it’s not that easy but man, I’ve seen how accurate Coady is putting a ball to someone. He’s a Marksman as well as a Defender. I bet he loved being up the top end for a bit. I bet Nuno was thinking “What ya doing up there! GET BACK!” but Wolves madness is much different to England insanity. I didn’t get to see the celebrations because by then I had run out into the garden and was throwing stuff around singing and laughing my bollocks off. That’s enough about my fanboy moment, I’m sure you all know how much I love Conor Coady. Look how he enjoys this madness, look at his laughter, see how much his team mates respond to his commands. These are players at Clubs who play delicious football and they listen to him like the fantastic Captain he is. He is a born Leader, in contrast to others that have gone before him in the recent past, petulant players, engrossed in a narcissistic ego that always put their team mates a few places behind their Instagram profile and their media presence. Men not really of the calibre required to play as an England Captain.

Afterwards of course, when the dust settled down I watched the rest of the match and waxed to the dogs about how Nuno had helped make this Coady bloke what he is. England Captain. Coady joins a list of course. Wright, Hughes, and Stan Cullis. Legends. Yes, Nuno helped make Coady this player but there are also another list we should mention. Coadys Mom and Dad. Sitting in cars in a car park waiting for Conor to finish training when he was a kid. Standing on the touchline in the rain, cold rain probably, watching this strip of a kid powering around a muddy council pitch. Washing his kit, cleaning his stuff up, feeding him, encouraging him, helping him build up a personality and a psychology that is built not only on the pitch and at training but also in long drives back home when things probably didn’t go as well. Conversations, subtle encouragement, post match analysis where criticism has to fall softly and gently into those ears of the kid staring out of the car window as the rain streamed past. Here is where the core of Coady was built, within his family. Here is where the secret is. I was pleased for Conor last night, proud and happy but ya know he’s always happy to be playing football that’s why he’s always smiling. I was more made up for the Coady family as a whole, his Mom and Dad, his Missus and kids, his brother Harrison. What a foundation of people to have in your corner. They are very strong these Coadys ya know. Nuno provided the ‘nurture’ aspect of his football, the learning and the long hours analysing performance and tactical nous, evolution, development and realising potential. But just as important is environment. The growth of an Athlete starts at a young age and this pre professional environment is just as important as his development while under the tutelage of Nuno and his team. This dichotomy of ‘Family’ and ‘Career development’ entwine with each other seemingly becoming one as the player develops and grows. This idea that Coady was some sort of ‘blank slate’ before he came to Wolves is a wrong one. I suspect Nuno rapidly found that here was a player that didn’t really need most of the psychological pandering most footballers seem to need. Nuno merely twisted a branch here and there training the Captain of our team into not something completely different to how Coady played and loved his football but took what was a dependable and skilful player into what we saw last night, twist here and twist there.

I am very proud and I am just a lunatic Wolves fan, a simple one indeed. My Town, my club has given England a Captain we can be proud of and follow right until the end. And if you think I’m going to be poking people in the forehead with a jabby finger reminding them about the negative crap they used to wax to me about Conor Coady by the Grit Bin…well you’re right. Thank you Conor Coady for a great night. God Bless.

If I had a thousand people with me I would have stormed the gates of the Southbank and watched some of that game yesterday before the Cops with beards came and chucked me out. This shit isn’t right any more. I want to watch my team play and fight. I want to see Nuno, I want to feel some sense of belonging again and believing in something instead of fucking masks in shops, people nearly falling in the canal to avoid others. It has reached the point where all Englishmen get to when they have have a stick being slowly tapped on their head for the last god awful months. Thing is there comes a point when they take the stick away from that hand and start whacking them back. I’m feeling like that and it’s getting worse my friends.

Scott Parker looks like a shit Thunderbird puppet. What’s with that tie clip and the Hipster hair? Contrast that with how Mitrovich or whatever his name is…he looks like a cats been using his head as a scratch post, his head looks like a Sunday drivers favourite driving cushion. But how good is it to see our team if only on a shitty illegal stream? It’s still in transformation. They are still trying to work out what and who they are. Still trying to gain traction on that slippery hill of becoming something, anything. Fulham were trying as hard as us. You know there problems of course. An owner with an ego the size of Scott Parkers fucking tie pin, a defence that had more holes than a Politicians explanation. It was easy for other teams to whack a few past Fulham and yes, I know some predicted a rout of sorts as our new contract old faces (and new faces) would probably have a field day. Nah. That never happens for us. Fulham had a bit of the Brighton about them. Solid eleven men in their own half and us farting around playing crab ball as we tried to suss out how to play against this madness. We’ve been here before haven’t we? Remember? It wasn’t a resilient Fulham by any means. It was trying to shove your dick in a keyhole at times. Is the keyhole resilient? It’s just a keyhole, it’s just a Fulham trying to keep it’s snout in the Premier football trough.

It’s magic tile time for Wolves. Players moved here and there to not so much counter a placid Fulham but I think to provide data for Nuno and the backroom team. If we look at the whole Wolves side to be in a transformational period then we can look at it as being experimental in nature. So some things will work and some things will not. Here we needed indeed required someone to unlock the zeitgeist of the game. Whether Moutinho is nursing a knock or a lack of form I do think ‘Peak Moutinho’ would have been in his element here. He loves puzzles and Fulham were a Rubik cube of a puzzle today. Max Kilman is on and he provided a stolid kind of presence as Marcal still rubs his bad leg on the sidelines. I wonder what our new signings think of ‘Molinno’ as Nuno calls it? What is Molineux without us half pissed lunatics? These signings don’t know us and we don’t know them. It’s like a Tinder date so far. No emotion, no link between us so these signings are abstract entities as we are too I suppose.

First chances were the Saiss cross. Lovely deep and creamy, trifle of a cross, cherries, flakes of chocolate. When Saiss puts his foot through a ball it can be as lovely as a Neves poke or a Moutinho caress. Alas for Donk who is too generous and heads the ball back across goal to Jimmy but for a desperate Fulham head to cut the thing out. But there was no movement in midfield. It was packed out with heads running into other heads, having an elbow packed attempt to control that important bit of pitch. This was crying out for a tentative ugly punt up the pitch to one of our front three. Neto prowls, Jimmy works hard, DanPod is little isn’t he? The Holy trinity need time here. Time to work out the frequencies each other are operating on. But it’s getting there for sure. Much better than the West Ham game so there is movement towards a side sussing out what the fuck is going on between each other. Neto has a curler blocked by the Fulham goalie Areola whose name makes me laugh out loud because I am a simple coarse wretch. But I see you Neto. I see what you are slowly becoming. You are beginning to work this out aren’t you? Slow, baby steps, tentative runs, confidence growing, movement becoming instantaneous rather than formulaic.

At half time I was still happy at 0-0…well not happy but not crying about it. There was something of an upward trajectory about the game so far. There have been chances that just lacked a body in the right place or a shot here rather than there and it’s just fine tuning stuff for sure. Minimal details that just need to be sketched in. You can tell our team are not low on confidence but are just learning how to play again. How to regain that insane momentum we have had for the past seasons. You can see other sides struggling to make sense of not having a crowd in their stadiums. Results are surreal and strange, abnormal even. There is a mental struggle going on…apart from Manchester United of course where I don’t think the silence of a Virus locked down stadium is much different to a full stadium to be honest. Just after the restart a game of goal mouth ping pong at the Fulham end found Neto who had a stroke of the ball to control then bonged it in the bottom corner for a goal to us. I was relieved of course. Really I should have been jumping up and down elbowing people in the head and trying not to get my other leg broken, flicking the Vs at the 20 or so Fulhams at the bottom of the John Ireland stand then shutting my gob as VAR leaches away any joy we once had at instant gratifications, instant madness…

It’s three fucking points and I will take that all day. It’s not boring watching Wolves, it’s not insipid, it’s not dull. I don’t wonder what happened to the team that played last season. I don’t worry and I don’t moan. I thank God every day I am able to watch my team play football. Everything is in flux, everything is changing again and even if our team struggles at times to regain that madness we once had I welcome the challenge of supporting them and being part of this great insanity. Because as we learn more about ourselves as we try to negotiate the obstacles this new post lockdown world throws at us, we learn and we fight, we evolve and we bite, that’s what we do, that’s what Wolves do. We have a new player to replace Vinagre and his name is Rayan Ait Nouri who shall henceforth be called ‘Ayit’. I’m not going to wax words yet about him…I’ve got things to say about Captain Coady and Jimmy signing new contracts as well as some other stuff that has been bouncing around my head for the last year or so. I need catharsis that normally gets disgorged at a match. Last year I was asked to say a few words at a funeral for a dude I knew. He was a good bloke at heart even if he loved his medicine a little too much (which was why he died to be honest). But I struggled to find anything really good about him except he was easy to borrow money off. But I printed off this poem and put it in my pocket so if I had a blank head standing there at Bushbury Crems West Chapel while his family watched me I could ramble it off and get away with it. It might sound like I’m a right emotional twat but I found it in me Black funeral suit last Friday and it made me think of not going to see me team play. Here it is any way…it’s fair to say half the Chapel started blubbing and half were looking at me like I just whipped my dong out.

WHEN TOMORROW STARTS WITHOUT ME

When tomorrow starts without me
And I’m not here to see
If the sun should rise and find your eyes
All filled with tears for me

I wish you wouldn’t cry
The Way you did today
While thinking of the many things
We did not get to say

I know how much you love me
As much as I love you
Each time that you think of me
I know you will miss me too

When tomorrow starts with out me
Please try to understand
That an angel came and called my name
And took me by the hand

The angel said my place was ready
In heaven far above
And That I would have to leave behind
All those I Dearly Love

But When I walked through Heaven’s Gates
I felt so much at home
When GOD looked down and smiled at me
From his golden throne

He said This Is Eternity
And All I promised you
Today for life on earth is done
But Here it starts a new

I promise no tomorrow
For today will always last
And Since each day’s the exact same way
There is no longing for the past

So When Tomorrow starts without me
Do not think we’re apart
For every time you think of me
Remember I’m right here in your heart