Let’s try and make a good first impression eh?

By: Toby | October 29th, 2008

Well hello there.

My name is Toby and I’ll be manning the decks of the good ship Wolves offside for a good while, or until Matt feels up to taking this on again. Firstly a bit about me, I’m a Wolves fan and have been ever since I met Steve Bull outside the Wolves training ground at age five, I say training ground, it was more like a car park back then. That’ll date me slightly, but don’t think I’m naive about the past of Wolves. My dad has been going to games since the fifties so I’ve been raised on a diet of stories of Billy Wright’s peerless standards and ‘Waggy’ Dave Waggstaffe flying down the left, oh and if you’d like to check my writing credentials, if it passes down through the genes my mother wrote Dougan’s biography for him. I’m sure I’ll be able to tackle the Wolves head on.

I’m not a knee-jerk blusterer, I’m not a “McCarthy out!” man. I don’t have an irrational hate for the hard working Collins or the industrious Keogh purely because they get games. I’m an appreciator of the new stability and structure the club now has with the new board behind it, no longer throwing good money after bad at has-beens and journeymen. I’m a fan of their youth policy, of their squad of home grown international quality.

Wolves currently stand on the edge of possibly their biggest and most important season for a long time, in fact you could argue even bigger than the season of play-off triumph where we actually went up. I say this for two reasons. Firstly the players, last time round we got to the Premiership by using players who were at their peak or who were experiencing a second wind. However now we stand looking at a team that boasts a veritable feast of young internationals, all hungry and all starting out on their playing careers. Secondly, the reason for excitement is the board. We all felt the utter ache of disappointment last time we were in the top flight when the money didn’t come, and when it did it was inadvisably spent on untested foreign imports (Silas anyone?). In Steve Morgan we have a chairman who believes in spending money where it’s needed, and I don’t doubt for a second that the man who had aspirations of owning Liverpool will spend wisely in the Premiership.

In McCarthy we have a manager who’s proven himself, no matter what the knuckle draggers chant on the terraces, you don’t get the Republic Of Ireland to the World Cup in the first place, let alone to the second round eliminations based on luck or lack of endeavour. There are those who would point to Sunderland’s showing in the Premiership after their previous season of barnstorming performances in the then Division one. To that I’d say he suffered from our problem of lack of investment, and as we all know when you get to the Premiership you’ve got to have the money behind you. Or you’ll end up “doing a Derby”.