Wolves 3 – 2 Derby – A retrospect.

By: Toby | April 14th, 2009

Right now first a disclaimer, I’m in no way suggesting, on any real level that Wolves beating Derby in a Coca Cola Championship game is on the same level as America electing their first ever black president, but just for my sake, humour me and go with me on this one. Right, did you watch the presidential elections? I did, I thought it was fascinating, as is the scoring system. Essentially, the presidential election there is a race of sorts, certain states are worth more to win, and the first person to get to so many points wins, because it’s no longer really possible for them to get caught. I remember when Obama won a huge, massive state which pretty much meant he’d won the election, Obama fans celebrated, McCain fans were despondent, yet Obama didn’t come out to give his winning speech until it was secure…obviously having seen what happened to Al Gore who can blame him? It was through winning Ohio which put him on the brink of history, not yet official, yet so close it was tangible. Still with me? Good.

Derby was our Ohio. A game which if we were to have lost, which for great swathes of the game we looked likely to, the pressure, the grumbling and the inescapable negativity would have raised up and swallowed us all. Mumbles of 2002, the year we threw it away would lurk and look from the darkness…once again Wolves would have to wear the tag of big time bottlers round their necks for another week. But instead, we stepped up, we played the game (not as well as we could have) but be played the game, we scored goals and we won.

The sign of Champions is to come away with three points from games where you deserve nothing less than a slap across the face and a dunces’ cap. Keogh, the boo boy’s whipping boy for so long potentially cementing himself in the hearts of many a Wolves fan with his double salvo to snatch a win from the jaws of certain defeat. We returned from Derby with that ubiquitous statistic of being 7 points clear with 9 points to play for. By no means are we past the finish line, yet it is closer than it has ever been. We’ve faced our Ohio, and we’ve come past it with what we needed, another win.

So where does that leave us? Well, one win away from the Premiership with three games to do it with. Three draws would do it too. But do we really just want promotion? After possibly the finest season Wolves have put together in the second tier of English football? No I say, bring me the Championship. I want to be the Champions this time, I want to say that I support the team which won the league this season, I want to say I write about a brilliant team who’ve won the league. So that’s my cards on the table, you’ll have me celebrating, you’ll have my long and sprawling, gushing, emphatic celebratory post soon enough, but not until the final minutes have been played and we know where we stand. Hopefully that’ll be on a podium, lifting the league trophy.