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The "What Could Have Beens"...

Four at Ashton Gate in Colin Lee's first game as caretaker. He was ok to a point but was never going to work with Robbie Keane, Bully was injured, Guy Whittingham was miles past it by the time we brought him in and Lee never got to grips with how to use Havard Flo.
 
Four at Ashton Gate in Colin Lee's first game as caretaker. He was ok to a point but was never going to work with Robbie Keane, Bully was injured, Guy Whittingham was miles past it by the time we brought him in and Lee never got to grips with how to use Havard Flo.

Wasn't that the game with the fight?
 
We saw exactly what he was, a slightly inferior version of Neill Collins.

Genuinely never heard him described as that. I just recall people being impressed that he became our first choice right back in the Premier League by the end of the season (yes I know Irwin was ancient at that point).

All the same, it's a shame he had to quit at 24.
 
He started five games in the PL at right back and in one of them he was taken off at half time, hardly first choice.

He wasn't even a right back really.

The thread kind of lost track halfway through and turned into "name some ex-players", shame.
 
Three to ponder:

* Sir Jack hadn't been outbid by the Bhattis in 1982.
* Barnwell had been able to sign a midfield of Platini and Peter Reid
* John Ireland hadn't panicked in 1964

Barnwell wanted to sign Platini, and Boniek, that would have won us the league
 
Way back in 1960 there was a young exciting striker Ted Farmer whose career was ended by injury at a very early age. His career ending injury in 1961-1962 coincided with Wolves decline at that time. The club was never as dominant again as then.
 
Alun Evans. He only played 20 or so games for Wolves, but I thought he had great potential. We sold him to Liverpool where he never quite made it despite playing in 70 games for them, and similarly at Aston Villa, where he was on the periphery.

Given that Evans was only 19 when Wolves sold him, I often wondered what he could have achieved if he had stayed at Molineux for a little longer.
 
Alun Evans. He only played 20 or so games for Wolves, but I thought he had great potential. We sold him to Liverpool where he never quite made it despite playing in 70 games for them, and similarly at Aston Villa, where he was on the periphery.

Given that Evans was only 19 when Wolves sold him, I often wondered what he could have achieved if he had stayed at Molineux for a little longer.

I remember thinking that we had got quite a good deal when we sold him for £100,000, which I was thinking was a record for someone of that age at the time. Of course he was part of the Liverpool side that beat us 6-0 at Molineux a few weeks later, scoring twice I think.
 
I remember thinking at the time that we had got quite a good deal when we sold him for £100,000 at the time, which I was thinking was a record for someone of that age at the time. Of course he was part of the Liverpool side that beat us 6-0 at Molineux a few weeks later, scoring twice I think.

Yes I think it was the biggest transfer fee for a teenager, but as we were starting to build a decent team, I thought we should have kept Alun Evans.

I think he did score twice in the 6 - 0 game, I am sure it was a night game and Liverpool scored from almost every attack. We had plenty of chances but couldn't score.
 
The thing is that Wilson was injured at that time and didn't come back to action until early March - when we were after a short term boost of a signing to get us over the line that wouldn't have made much sense (signing Leon made no sense either, but that's a different topic).
 
Way back in 1960 there was a young exciting striker Ted Farmer whose career was ended by injury at a very early age. His career ending injury in 1961-1962 coincided with Wolves decline at that time. The club was never as dominant again as then.

loved his book, though very sad. not too complimentary about Stan's man management. he could have had an immense career.
 
Former players are a different bag. Paul Cook always got a good reception down here (as befits one of the most overrated Wolves players of the last 30 years...). Backfired a bit once though when he was on the bench for Tranmere, Graham Branch came on with a similar mop of black curly hair and he got clapped on by the South Bank. Good work lads.
I thought that was Ian clank? I remember a Tranmere fan ringing in to our fans phone in and saying it was the biggest ovation he ever had.

Edit - Ignore me im talking pap god knows where I plucked that name from, memory not so good these days.
 
I don't know who Ian Clank is :icon_lol:

It's this game, March 1997. Branch came on first, then Cook.

Tranmere1.JPG
 
loved his book, though very sad. not too complimentary about Stan's man management. he could have had an immense career.

My grandad hired Stan Cullis at Birmingham City...think he felt the same about his man management.
 
Mate of mine always claimed it was between ONeill and McGhee to replace Taylor. Never sure myself but a big could have been if true.
 
It's feasible - O'Neill was struggling at Norwich at the time and we'd have been able to prise him away - but not sure he was on our radar particularly. Brian Clough expressed an interest, we went some way down that road before concluding that he was too ill but I think McGhee was the number one target all along. Easy to forget just how highly regarded he was at the time. Erroneously as it turned out. It was seen as a real coup when we managed to get him, the feeling was that his next move from Leicester would be to a PL club and a pretty high-end one at that.

We all know that O'Neill would obviously have been the better choice but at that stage his only success had come with Wycombe and we did not look at the lower leagues very often at all for anything in that era.
 
To be fair to McGhee he pioneered the 343 formation, albeit once in the Leeds fa cup game. Re watching the highlights we did pretty well in that game - if only he'd realised he was onto something!
 
To be fair to McGhee he pioneered the 343 formation, albeit once in the Leeds fa cup game. Re watching the highlights we did pretty well in that game - if only he'd realised he was onto something!

A decade or so ago for a project Kenny was putting together, I went and sourced all our line ups from the mid 90s onwards and put them all into spreadsheets. So many games in the McGhee days where I found it very hard to work out what the fuck kind of formation we were supposed to be playing :icon_lol:
 

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