Why are you a football fan?

[Timberwolf]

I’ve loved football even before I actually knew what I was watching. I started supporting Wolves because my Dad was in the RAF and we were based just north of Wolverhampton. Sorry to say but at the same time, I loved watching Big Cyril at Albion and if the wind had blown in a different direction, who knows what could’ve happened. Eek!
I’ve always said, I’m a Wolves supporter but a football fan...except if it involves Sheffield Wednesday.

 

[Timberwolf]

Like most of a 'certain age' I was collar-plucked from a late Summer Saturday morning, scarlet-kneed reinactment of the taking of the bridge at Remagen either side of next door's privet and told to 'get my coat'.

Within the hour I had been scrubbed semi-raw from the waist up in a luke warm carbolic paste, mummy-wrapped above the shoulders in a horse hair train of gold and black, frogmarched onto the South Bank, handed a bag of Salt & Vinegar and told to 'watch the match'....which I did. I always did as I was told.

And I carried on 'watching the match' for the best part of 50 years. Up and down the country, up and down the leagues, in and out of sanity, I waited for someone to tell me to stop. The call never came of course, so eventually, when what I had been watching for all those years became vandalised beyond the point of recognition, hollowed out into a shoddy, empty facsimile of itself I had to take matters into my own hands. I went over the wall. I chose another sport.

No one set the dogs after me, no one tried to bribe me back. I just stopped being a football fan.

That doesn't mean I don't remember very vividly why I was one for over half a century. In fact I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, trying to scratch away that Saturday morning horse hair itch...

Does that still count?

“chuck a frog into hot water and it’ll jump straight out. Chuck a frog into cold water and heat it, the frog will happily sit there until it boils to death”
After reading your post Chungster, it makes me wonder whether I’m slowly boiling and you jumped out...

 

[SevernWolf]

I am a Wolves fan first and foremost, and watch very little football if it doesn't involve us. Its all about roots, thoughts of where I still consider is home and being a soppy git I think.

Same here. I thought it was just me.

 

[Contrarian]

It's an odd one for me. Grew up in South Warwickshire. No real clubs nearby. Oxford probably the closest. As I said, no real clubs nearby. None of my family had any interest. My interest came from the constant football talk at school. The buzz before the Chelsea v Leeds 1970 FA Cup Final got me interested, that was the first match I watched. Soon after, the 1970 World Cup with the magical Brazilian team. That was where I got hooked, I think - and that awful England v West Germany quarter final. 2-0 up with about 15 minutes to go, "we can switch it over now" said my football hating family. The horror finding out later than England had lost. Good preparation for what football is for all but a handful of "clubs who win things".

Though I played at school, I was awful at it, much better at cricket. Being quite the nerdy one, it was finding out that it wasn't just kicking the ball, it was "League Tables" and "fixtures" and "goal averages" too, that hooked me deeper. Other family members and neigbours started taking me to matches when I was about 10 or 11. But they all supported different clubs, so it was pot luck! Saw a lot of Villa and Blues, even a few visits to Anfield. Wolves emerged gradually as my favourite by the mid 70's. The best strip and the best name!

I'm not one who likes sport in general. Occasionally watch Ashes cricket... about 2 hours of the London Olympics. It's just football that has be hooked. Logically, I know there is nothing you can do as a supporter, as I said, Pot Luck how your team performs. And I think that is the attraction. It's like a compulsion. It is a crazy, unpredictable game. Like no other sport in that respect. No other sport can one team dominate a match entirely, yet still lose. Having said that, I do watch all football in general. It does vary from Binging on the Bundesliga to not watching that much at all - I missed this years FA cup final because I didn't know it was on! Watched tons of non-league football, too. If nothing else to do, will go and watch the local 10th level team, whatever. And can verify that their corner taking is no worse than ours, probably better.

By now, I'm definately a Wolves fan first, football second, though. Last 10 years or so, whatever division we are not in, I don't follow at all. I watch La Liga and Bundesliga sometimes, just to see how it relates to us, any players we could be interested in and so on. Wouldn't care if I didn't have to watch a minute of Championship football ever again

 

[oldgoldheart]

Was taken by my dad to wolves3 newcastle 2 in 1970. Hooked ever since

 

[binners]

First memories travelling to Wolverhampton from Stafford, early 50's dad went football we went shopping trams still running. Loved football at school, Munich air crash aged 7 mega-news, sympathy for United dad converted me and here we are now 63 years and well over 2k games later.

Yes rhos travelling on greatrex coaches and later on the train, playing for Stafford and district schools a trial at Shrewsbury. Then away from 1965 in the army, going to many German games. Later playing for the army and combined services in Cyprus and later lower league in German. Just couldn’t get enough of it. Paying the penalty now though. Both hips replaced. No cartilage in the right knee and one in the left. Wouldn’t change it if I had my life to live again.

 

[ManningtreeWolf]

I've always loved football from the age of 4, memories of the 80 League Cup final, 82 WC in Spain and the era when the FA Cup build up started on TV at 9am in the morning. Loved playing football as a kid in my local junior team.

These days football is saturated and there is too much of it on TV which I don't think is a good thing.

Above all I love Wolves more than I love football...I'm a Wolves fan first, football a distant second.

 

[Sammy Chungs Tracksuit]

As a nipper I grew up as an only child on a Willenhall council estate in the 1960s. There was zero interest in football in my immediate family so there was no family introduction to football but there was some interest in my extended family who lived within a mile or two. I played football out on the streets with other kids from about 5 onwards. There was far more freedom for young kids in those days and even 6 or 7 year olds were generally allowed to roam a mile or two from home. At least half of the adults on the estate worked in the local lock factories like Yale or Squires or Ductile Steels and everybody seemed to know everybody.

My mom kept one of my early school books which I found when she died a few years ago. I was maybe 5 or 6, where I wrote a diary at school basically while I was learning to write at school. It was on unlined paper so my writing quite often sloped at 30 degrees on the paper as is to be expected from a really little kid. My stories were always stuff like "went out after tea and played football and it was wolves v birmingham" or stuff like that. I also remember Typhoo Tea was pretty much the major brand back then and they did a set of picture with players like Doog and George Best.

As to watching Wolves, well of course I was desperate to go and watch a game but as I say no parental or grand parental interest. An elderly relative was roped in to take me to my first game Wolves v Man Utd in a packed out North Bank in 1969/70. After that of course I incessently nagged anybody who would listen to take me. I somehow managed to persuade my nan off to take me to Wolves v Burnley where I remember standing down on the South Bank near the corner flag by the Waterloo Road Enclosure. After that of course I nagged to be taken to more and more games and I had identified my nan as my softest target! A situation developed in 1970/71 where she took me on the bus to Wolvo for about half the games and she delivered me to the gates at the back of the South Bank at about 2:45 she went off shopping in Wolvo and then she then met me coming out of the ground at full time near the wrought iron "Wolverhampton Wanderers FC" gates up by the Ring Road.

In 1971 my family had moved away from Willenhall about 10 or 12 miles from Molineux out past Dudley on the 126 bus route. My nan now lived miles away so I dragged my parents (kicking and screaming) to a couple of games like Wolves v Hearts Texaco Cup and Wolves v West Brom. Both hated footballI so I just wore them down to allow me to go by myself by age 11 and fortunately I lived near a direct bus route. From that point on I pretty much went to every game. Night games initially a problem as I was stlll only 11 in our 1971/72 UEFA cup run so I missed the early rounds and Juventus QF but no way was I missing the home leg of the semi and the final so got a lift or something and was picked up after the game. From 72/73 onwards though I pretty much went to every home game on the bus by myself.

I can honestly say I had no family encourgement and my love of Wolves all came from within from a very young age. Of course with ticket prices as they are nowadays I could have never have become a match going die hard wolves fan as a youngster not to mention the fact that 9 year olds are not allowed unaccompanied into games. I guess I could have tried Sir Jack's route of sneaking in under the turnstiles.

 

[Deleted member 11332]

As a kid, we had a street, a field and a football. We played from sunrise to sun down. Day after day. All the kids did in those days. Loved it to bits.

I consider myself very lucky to have been born before the computer games/‘smart’ phones came along. I wouldn’t swap it for the world and feel sorry that kids of today don’t have the same freedom.

Funny thing is, I’ve made my living as a software developer.

That is ironic. Similarly i sell SAAS and barely touched a computer till was 14/15.

 

[whitnash wolf ex.dewsbury]

Parkes
Parkin Thomson,
Bailey Woodfield Holsgrove,
Kenning Wignall Dougan Knowles and Wagstaffe
August 17th 1968, Molineux.
Love at first sight!


That’s why.

3-1 v.QPR.att.30,858
Bailey,Dougan,Wignall scoring
just had to look it up

 

[Deleted member 11332]

It's an odd one for me. Grew up in South Warwickshire. No real clubs nearby. Oxford probably the closest. As I said, no real clubs nearby. None of my family had any interest. My interest came from the constant football talk at school. The buzz before the Chelsea v Leeds 1970 FA Cup Final got me interested, that was the first match I watched. Soon after, the 1970 World Cup with the magical Brazilian team. That was where I got hooked, I think - and that awful England v West Germany quarter final. 2-0 up with about 15 minutes to go, "we can switch it over now" said my football hating family. The horror finding out later than England had lost. Good preparation for what football is for all but a handful of "clubs who win things".

Though I played at school, I was awful at it, much better at cricket. Being quite the nerdy one, it was finding out that it wasn't just kicking the ball, it was "League Tables" and "fixtures" and "goal averages" too, that hooked me deeper. Other family members and neigbours started taking me to matches when I was about 10 or 11. But they all supported different clubs, so it was pot luck! Saw a lot of Villa and Blues, even a few visits to Anfield. Wolves emerged gradually as my favourite by the mid 70's. The best strip and the best name!

I'm not one who likes sport in general. Occasionally watch Ashes cricket... about 2 hours of the London Olympics. It's just football that has be hooked. Logically, I know there is nothing you can do as a supporter, as I said, Pot Luck how your team performs. And I think that is the attraction. It's like a compulsion. It is a crazy, unpredictable game. Like no other sport in that respect. No other sport can one team dominate a match entirely, yet still lose. Having said that, I do watch all football in general. It does vary from Binging on the Bundesliga to not watching that much at all - I missed this years FA cup final because I didn't know it was on! Watched tons of non-league football, too. If nothing else to do, will go and watch the local 10th level team, whatever. And can verify that their corner taking is no worse than ours, probably better.

By now, I'm definately a Wolves fan first, football second, though. Last 10 years or so, whatever division we are not in, I don't follow at all. I watch La Liga and Bundesliga sometimes, just to see how it relates to us, any players we could be interested in and so on. Wouldn't care if I didn't have to watch a minute of Championship football ever again.

Firstly you old git. Second, can definitely relate to that feast or famine. I go through periods of devouring football and then not watching for weeks. I missed the last month of the PL this year bar wolves.

 

[Ian]

The love of the actual game always before the joy of supporting wolves.

Just can't beat the simplicity of playing in a game of football whatever the standard and whatever location!

Absolutely this!
It why Football has always been the World game, doesnt matter how much money you have or what country you live in or what you use for goals or the football ( tennis ball, tin can etc etc ) its a simple game that anyone can play.
Unfortunately those at the elite level want to tinker with a winning formula and its ruining the " beautiful game" for me and many others.

 

[Sussex Wolf]

Well I guess because I have been since before I can remember. Meeting King John at Molineux as a boy was probably the first Wolves memory I have, that and sitting in my fathers car at pubs on the A41 with a bottle of pop and a packet of crisps while he has a beer with his mate on the way back from Molineux. Grow up supporting a club like Wolves, through the highs and lows, and it’s tends to be a lifelong relationship.

My son has followed in my footsteps, as I did my dad, and he did his granddad. He’s also seen our recent highs and lows, and really got hooked as a teenage with the Mick promotion and then our subsequent roller coaster through 3 leagues. He now suffers the terrible emotional Wolves affliction most of us do, with his general positivity directly correlated to how were doing on the pitch!

My wife is as much a fan as me, but just supports Boro instead of Wolves. Unlike me, she can remember converting to Boro as a teenager (from Spurs, where she was a young Hoddle fan) when going to Boro games with her first boyfriend. She contains her emotions better than me, but the emotional connection and desire to watch games is there.

My daughter has followed my wife to become a dedicated Boro fan, much like my son followed me with Wolves. But she has taken it to the next level, and likes football so much, that she’s spent 5 years getting two degrees and is about to start her career in football as a sports physio. She’s eager to tell the world where she has her first job, but is waiting until she graduates with her Masters this summer and gets her first kit. She’s ambitious and focused, and her ambition is to become the first female PL Head Physio. She knows some of the Wolves backroom staff through her course, but I’m sorry to say, she won’t be starting her career at our club.

 

[topcat99]

Influence of my Dad who loved his football and was a half decent goalkeeper in his youth. It’s in the blood.

Football transcends many things. I remember sitting on a rock in the Falkland Islands, talking to an Argentine prisoner about his club (Banfield). Freezing cold, tired, just fought a battle. But we sat and talked about football for an hour. We found a common love.

Girlfriend is a fanatic. Newcastle United is her religion. Got that from her Dad and Grandad taking her as a girl onto the Gallowgate end. As I said, in the blood.

 

[VancouverWolf]

Fell in love with the simplicity and purity of the concept of football.

No hands ....no pulling ....no shoving, only shoulder to shoulder....no obstruction.....no diving ...no cheating.....good and fair sportsmanship.
Now go and beat the other guys.
The ball is magic....you can’t not touch it. Still play twice a week, 6 or 7 aside . 67 now and hopefully won’t ever have to stop.

 

[ricki herberts moustache]

Genuine question. I'm not looking for any arguments or gripes here. I'm curious as to what we each come to football 'for' and what our ideal experiences are? As a distraction from all the arguing and the gossip and the waiting-for-news, I just want a fun conversation about what we all like about football.

Mine have changed with geography. When I was younger and lived locally football for me was on two levels. As a Wolves fan it was the rituals, attending a game, singing some songs, forming an identity around belonging almost on a tribal level. And Never gave much thought to whether I was optimistic/pessimistic, it was just about that sense of belonging. On the larger level, the overall football level, I generally always wanted to see attacking football and was drawn to players in the 'hole' (that ever shifting style of player that is currently a number 10, and will be called something else in five years...) the talented player who didn't fit into a rigid system and could do something magic. I was the right age to get to see players like Cantona, Kinkladze, LeTissier, Stoichkov on the TV, and that form of enjoying football was almost a separate entity from being a Wolves fan. In a way I guess because we tended not to have those players.

From there, I guess the natural step was to become whatever we called football hipsters before we called them football hipsters. I loved watching Italian and Spanish football and pretending to understand their tactics on any real level, but mostly it was to catch sight of players like Totti, (real)Ronaldo, DelPiero.

When I moved north to Glasgow, I obviously stopped attending Molineux regularly. And the tribal/ritual part of being a Wolves fan slowly faded. And I guess what I've found over the years is being a Wolves fan for me has become closer to the fan I was of the other football stuff. I went from not really caring much that Wolves didn't necessarily play the type of football I was drawn to when I was watching non-Wolves footy, and rarely had the type of mercurial players I like, to pining to see Wolves play that way with those players. We've had flashes of those players in recent years. Costa, Cav, Jota, Neto. Each in different ways have almost been that player. And Moutinho has been the best midfielder I've ever seen in the gold, I'll always love the fella.

And I think that's where I'm at as a fan at the moment. Most of my viewing is on TV. I get to a few matches a year up here in Scotland to get the live fix, and and I get down to the Mol when I can, but the football experience has become about watching the team on TV, wanting exciting, progressive football, always looking for that one mercurial undefinable player who can remind me of those special players from the 90's.

New Zealand getting to the World Cup for the first time in 1982 triggered a wave of excitement about "soccer" never seen before in our rugby obsessed country. As a kid I got caught up in the excitement, we were even allowed time off school to watch the All Whites play.

That's what lit my fuse anyhow

Plus what kid doesn't want to pretend to be zico in their back garden?

 

[Hot Fuss]

I’m a football fan because of Millwall. There was a game on itv on a Sunday when I was about 8. Half watched it and when Millwall scored I saw all these blokes jumping about going mental on the terrace behind the goal, thought it looked amazing.

Found out Wolverhampton had a team, fan ever since. Loved the tribal side of it, my town v your town.

 

[SingYourHeartsOut]

I love football, but I think that mostly comes from the fact that I have spent so many hours watching it. It doesn't start from there. It starts from getting taken to games at a young age (sadly an occasional treat rather than a fortnightly ritual) and being in awe of the crowd, the noise, the event. Then there's the connection across the generations, if you're from Wolves, you support Wolves, anything else is a heresy. My Grandads went, my parents went for dates on the Southbank before dancing in the Civic, (romantic my Dad was). My kids and grandkids have been indoctrinated to follow. It's not so much what you do as what you are.

 

[Polish Wolf]

I guess in my case it was a pressure of the environment in school. I wasn't a football fan until I was 10-11. But very most of my colleagues had already been following football for some time. I started to follow sports in general early 1992, and the first game I watched purely because of my own choice was the UEFA Cup final that year, Ajax vs Torino. I remember it finished 0-0. Then came the summer olympics in Barcelona with Poland doing very well and finishing runners-up to the hosts. I cried endless tears when the Spaniards scored the winning goal (3-2) in the very last minute. Needless to say I was hooked and by the end of that year I would watch whatever game you could get on TV in the early 90s Poland.

Those were different times. There was far less options for entertainment and I think it was for the good. You watched what you could get. And in terms of playing - football was the first option after school and during the family meetup in the background. It would stay like that for some years.

Nowadays I hardly watch any games other than Wolves and Poland international games (but not friendlies). Duties of everyday (kids!), the pace of life in general make it hard to do it. I still follow the results in the European leagues though.

If I were to sum up what makes football so special - I would say emotions. The passion, the unpredictability, the fame and the glory and the feeling that you're watching something happening on the stage together with millions of other spectators.

 

[Frank Lincoln]

I was born in Manchester and was brought up in a football supporting family. My father was a Manchester City fan, and my grandfather a Manchester United fan. Back then everyone kicked off at 3 on a Saturday, and one week I was taken to Maine Road, and the next week to Old Trafford. I fell in love with the game from a very early age, though it's not quite the same now with all the diving, cheating and VAR.

 

[Wagstaffe Was Magic]

3-1 v.QPR.att.30,858
Bailey,Dougan,Wignall scoring
just had to look it up

Thats the one wwed.... a day I’ll never forget!

Frank Wignall scored the first goal at the South Bank end and the noise was such that I thought the place was going to explode!

Phil Parkes sported a red jersey with his No1 on the front!!

The noise, the stands, the beautifully manicured green of the pitch, and the Old Gold!

Simply unforgettable

 

[moseleyite]

Really Interesting question. Not "Why a Wolves fan?" but "Why a football fan?". The short answer is that I'm not. Not any more, anyway. Not really.

Frankly, It's a total mystery to me how I even ended up watching the game in the first place as I showed no inclination at all as a kid to be wrapped up in an itchy scarf and head to Molineux. Oddly, I did love Panini sticker albums and if I close my eyes now I swear I have an almost Proustian reaction to imagining the smell of the gum on the back of the glossy little rectangles - I'm there again, peeling off the backing and carefully placing them into their numbered slot, holding my breath in case I crease the damn things. I was particularly taken with the club badges and was fascinated by some of the team names. Could there possibly be teams called "Orient" and "Hamilton Academicals" wondered the 8 year old Moseleyite in the bland-sounding surrounds of 70's Bilbrook?

It's interesting to read that some on here found a love for the game in participation; I almost never played the game having absolutely no athletic ability or desire to develop any! Like many, there was a patch of grass at the end of the street I lived where all the local kids would kick a ball around and I would sometimes get dragged in half-heartedly, saying I'd play in goal so that I could avoid actually having to run around and could concentrate, instead, on developing hay fever symptoms in the freshly mowed grass. It's peculiar because, although Wolves were this "thing" that existed nearby but which I had no interest in, I had obviously absorbed some knowledge of them because on those odd occasions when I'd don my keeper's gloves (in my head - I had no gloves!), I imagined myself as Paul Bradshaw, a man I had never seen play and new nothing of beyond my Panini-book pages!

So, I suppose the reason that I'm a football fan (if I still am) is the same reason that I'm a Wolves fan: boxing day 1980. From memory (I was 9), my Dad, my Uncle and my Grandad wanted to check out the new stand at Molineux (the John Ireland) and so, with me as an unwilling passenger, we all bundled into my Uncle's Opal Manta and drove down Snow Hill from Blakenhall where my grandparents lived, parked on Cleveland Street and made our way to ground where it turned out that my local team were taking on Nottingham Forest a team who I knew little of but whose tree-shaped emblem I liked very much indeed!

I hated every single, living, tedious bloody moment of it.

It was freezing cold; the plastic seat was uncomfortable; the pitch was so far away that it was like watching on the sort of wide-screen TV that hadn't yet been invented; I sat bundled up in a warm coat and pleaded with any passing god for this match to be over as quickly as possible (actually, that might be 48 year old Moseleyite projecting back from this season but anyway... ). That we were soundly drubbed 4-1 was a fact about which I could not have cared less, which was more than could be said about my assembled family! To top it all, the Cleveland Street carpark was locked early, my Uncle's car was therefore out of reach and so the three unwise men (and one sulking, frozen boy) had to walk back up Snow Hill to Mason Street. In the ****ing snow. I could have been eating Quality Street in front of the gas fire, for goodness' sake!

And that was me for nearly a decade, no live footie, not even the FA Cup and its seemingly endless, day-long, tedious build up. Even when my school friends were raving about the new team with Bully and co. in the 4th Division, I was never, ever tempted to go again and subject myself to "that place". Even when my Dad starting taking my little brother into the family enclosure, I hadn't the slightest inclination to join them. So, I have no idea at all why at the start of 1989 I grudgingly accepted my Dad's invite... perhaps he just wore me down... and went to see Wolves beat Chester City 3-1. I also can't explain why I was hooked this time... perhaps the fact we weren't crap? I wasn't freezing to death? Who knows? At any rate, I spent the next decade+ following the team home and away, devouring everything about them I possibly could, clothing my body in every year's kit no matter how ugly or ill-fitting. I got drenched and hailed on at Oakwell; I got sunburned and not a little tipsy at a bank holiday Goldstone Ground; I reveled in Bully being Albion's Bête noire; I scratched my head at how we managed to seemingly lose every single ****ing time I went to Boundary Park (although I still smile at the memory of bunking off from Dudley College to get the coach to Oldham and the late Tim Steele leveller with which I was rewarded); I lived for the opening day of the season, full of hope, bumping into other fans (of both Wolves and other clubs) at motorway service stations and laughing about the stupid, unachievable dreams for the coming season; I quickly abandoned the distant, low-to-the-ground view of the family enclosure for the feral, sometimes deafening, hilarious, terrifying camaraderie of the South Bank where I stood with my Grandad who had stood there in every decade from the 1930's through to the 1990's. Weirdly, in an echo of that first match in 1980, the two of us would walk up and down Snow Hill to and from the match. Funny how life goes in circles.

I loved every single, living, glorious bloody moment of it.

So, the reason that I was ever a football fan was because... I was a Wolves fan. Probably up until the late 90's early 2000's I watched everything that I could whether it be national, international or even getting up early on a Sunday to stroll down to frosty playing fields and watching one of a couple of local Sunday League sides. And then... I dunno. I fell out of love. Life moved on. The playoff defeat/surrender vs. Norwich in the choke season left me utterly at odds with the team and totally jaded with football and, frankly, footballers in general. And so I walked away, ditched my season ticket and got on with other stuff. Never watched a game for years and didn't really miss it in the slightest. Never saw us play in the top flight and couldn't have cared less; not in a bitter way but it just felt like Wolves were in the past where my life was concerned and I was happy and at peace with that.

These days, I take a distant interest in both Wolves and football in general; it all feels a bit expensive and glossy and, perhaps I'm just a nostalgic idiot but I miss the simplicity and affordability and relatability of my football heyday in the 90's. It's full of 24/7 commentary, professional cheats, obscure, over-complicated rule changes and failed technological interference to me. Outside of my own club, I don't really know who the players are in other teams and that's reflected in how I have heard of virtually none of the players who have joined us in this enjoyable jaunt in to the Premier and beyond. I was actually briefly drawn back as a semi-regular supporter in the relegation-to-Div-1 season because, driving with my wife around the ring road on the way to see Patti Smith at the Civic, I saw the tip of the new North Bank rising above the roadway and thought... I should probably go check that out... that's when I signed up to this nuthouse too.

Actually, it just occurred to me that I could have avoided writing all of that *******s above: if I wanted to paint a picture of why I'm a football fan, I would paint a family portrait on the occasion of one of my late Grandad's final birthdays. He, I, my Mum, my Brother, my Uncle, my Cousin and my Nephew all went to the Wolves Museum in the North Bank. Four generations of Wolves fans. Wolves got me into football and, when Wolves faded as a love-interest, so did football.

Phew, sorry.

 

[lostwolf]

Well I guess because I have been since before I can remember. Meeting King John at Molineux as a boy was probably the first Wolves memory I have, that and sitting in my fathers car at pubs on the A41 with a bottle of pop and a packet of crisps while he has a beer with his mate on the way back from Molineux. Grow up supporting a club like Wolves, through the highs and lows, and it’s tends to be a lifelong relationship.

My son has followed in my footsteps, as I did my dad, and he did his granddad. He’s also seen our recent highs and lows, and really got hooked as a teenage with the Mick promotion and then our subsequent roller coaster through 3 leagues. He now suffers the terrible emotional Wolves affliction most of us do, with his general positivity directly correlated to how were doing on the pitch!

My wife is as much a fan as me, but just supports Boro instead of Wolves. Unlike me, she can remember converting to Boro as a teenager (from Spurs, where she was a young Hoddle fan) when going to Boro games with her first boyfriend. She contains her emotions better than me, but the emotional connection and desire to watch games is there.

My daughter has followed my wife to become a dedicated Boro fan, much like my son followed me with Wolves. But she has taken it to the next level, and likes football so much, that she’s spent 5 years getting two degrees and is about to start her career in football as a sports physio. She’s eager to tell the world where she has her first job, but is waiting until she graduates with her Masters this summer and gets her first kit. She’s ambitious and focused, and her ambition is to become the first female PL Head Physio. She knows some of the Wolves backroom staff through her course, but I’m sorry to say, she won’t be starting her career at our club.

My missus is from a Stockton family and was a Boro mascot, she's got photos of herself with Ince and Juninho. She's developed a love for Wolves though and was probably even more gutted than me about Nuno leaving.

 

[Sussex Wolf]

My missus is from a Stockton family and was a Boro mascot, she's got photos of herself with Ince and Juninho. She's developed a love for Wolves though and was probably even more gutted than me about Nuno leaving.

My wife’s family live in Billingham, and I’ve walked over to Stockton many times when visiting. Those halcyon days for Boro was great for them, but frustrating for me as a Wolves fan when we got left behind in the second tier. Hey ho, times change!

 

[Rhoswolf]

Yes rhos travelling on greatrex coaches and later on the train, playing for Stafford and district schools a trial at Shrewsbury. Then away from 1965 in the army, going to many German games. Later playing for the army and combined services in Cyprus and later lower league in German. Just couldn’t get enough of it. Paying the penalty now though. Both hips replaced. No cartilage in the right knee and one in the left. Wouldn’t change it if I had my life to live again.

We obviously travelled together at some point, did you know Pete Lewis (Goof) my best mate and Eddie Melia (sp) from Newport, both now sadly departed.

 

[Rhoswolf]

Yes rhos travelling on greatrex coaches and later on the train, playing for Stafford and district schools a trial at Shrewsbury. Then away from 1965 in the army, going to many German games. Later playing for the army and combined services in Cyprus and later lower league in German. Just couldn’t get enough of it. Paying the penalty now though. Both hips replaced. No cartilage in the right knee and one in the left. Wouldn’t change it if I had my life to live again.

Away trip organised by Mr Cox used to have to wait to see if he had sufficient bookings, nearly always arrived late, those were the days!!

 

[Big Nosed Wolf]

Here goes.

Surely the greatest game ever invented. The football (bought or home made) the greatest 'toy' ever seen. No other game or sport can be so easily accessed for pennies. Perhaps a rugby ball might come close but the rules and elitist approach doesn't appeal or make it a 'people's game'. Only football is the true game of, and for, 'the people.' Although like some have commented on those of us of a certain age (and perhaps some who are not) in recent years have some serious issues with the way 'the people' are sold it.

I played the game from as early as I can recall. We had 'the patch' - a rough field opposite the modern tenement style flats in Wednesfield I lived in until age 11. Here we played from dawn till dusk when not at school. We played with an old 'bladder filled' caseball (fifties style). The 'bladder' protruded through the outer casing it was so ****ed and we had to push the thing back in often or else the ball rolled unevenly. It weighed a ****ing hundredweight but was great for strengthening them six year old bony knees and ankles!

When I was 11 in 1964 we moved to 'Shangri La'. A two bedroomed brand new council house on Ashmore Park. The park was yet to be laid out when I first moved in. No problem. Across the road was a newly built corporation owned garage block. Two rows facing each other. Great as Number 5 was opposite No 12 and the double garage doors the perfect goals with space between to have a concrete pitch. Many 'put a foot in tackles' resulted in further toughening up as limbs were shaved of skin and the odd 'bosted boon'. No matter what's a few dents when you are living the dream? By now we were playing with a 'modern' bladderless football.

Eventually the park was laid out and grassed. Weekends in the sixties used to be teeming with kids playing football .Dozens of games going on with the obligatory jumpers for goal posts. When ever I go there these days which isn't often now I am amazed by two things.How many cars line the streets ( there was one car in our street when we moved in) and how empty the park is of kids playing football.

I started senior school aged 11 and still consider myself extremely fortunate to have started when I did. Our year was blessed with a bigger average of kids who were both football ****ing crazy, Wolves fans and above average when they played. So good were the kids that I struggled to make the first team. I still recall that first team sheet pinned up when I was on it. Still up there with one of the greatest moments of my life. I was never dropped after and if I had been I would have had serious (not joking) psychological issues. Probably have considered reaching for the pills. Football was everything that mattered growing up.

We ended up going for two years without losing, won everything, two cups and the South East Staffs school league. Only Stonefield, Bilston ever came close to beating us. Seven of our team played for the South East Staffs district side (Wednesfield, Willenhall, Bilston, Darlaston, Wednesbury, Hill Top and Tipton) including me. This isn't an attempt to tell everybody how great I am. More to portray how the word 'religion' if it applies at all to football came very close in those years. We lived and breathed it in.

We once drew a game when we were 16 year olds. You would have thought the end had come in the dressing room. Tears flowed, not out of being poor losers, but out of the 'brotherhood' we had. Our goalie was in tears as he made a bit of a howler resulting in their equalizer. He had let us down. He was off school for the rest of the week. He was a twin and both he and his brother played. Both lived on Ashma and they both left for school every morning but only one went to school. The goalie bunked off and it took our games master to visit him to get him to 'face us' again at school.

Then to Molineux. What I would have given to be good enough to have played there in the old gold. Back then I only wanted to play professionally for the club. It was about more than just playing football. It was that 'religion' thing again. The one and only church for me was at the back of the famous old house.

I am another who recalled going aged about 5 in 1958. All I recall is the noise. The smoke. The smell of booze and the sheer scale of it all as 5 year old was intimidating. Dad took me although he wasn't a particular football fan. He was from Wolverhampton though and that made him a Wolves fan. In the succeeding years until old enough I attended with two uncles one the brother of Lol Kelly who had played for Cullis 1947-50. My paternal garandfather was born less than a mile form St Lukes in 1894 and his father, my great grandfather would have know Wolves playing at Dudley Road.(still lokking for that elusive photo of the place back then).

Wolves is much more than football though. I grew up with family gatherings telling of past greats, with first hand accounts of some Cullis eccentiricities and was one of the most important things that held family together. It was part of my/our heritage and gave us a special identity.

Without football my life would have been barren, often. Without Wolves (slightly different to being a football fan) even more barren. As a kid I used to have those paper league tables given free with a comic. Can't remember which one. Every week I would watch Grandstand and move teams up or down. All four divisions. I recall clubs like Halifax and other teams and always, in my juvenile ignorance. felt sorry for those who lived there. What must it have been like living in a place with no Wolves to support? Poor *******s.

 

[SuperGran]

I was born in Manchester and was brought up in a football supporting family. My father was a Manchester City fan, and my grandfather a Manchester United fan. Back then everyone kicked off at 3 on a Saturday, and one week I was taken to Maine Road, and the next week to Old Trafford. I fell in love with the game from a very early age, though it's not quite the same now with all the diving, cheating and VAR.

How did you end up being wolves then frank?

 

[Parkfieldswolf]

Football on the fields with your mates. It really was jumpers for goalposts. Sometimes 3 of you, sometimes 10x that number. I recently drove past Rooker Ave playing fields and all the memories came flooding back. Sadly there wasn’t a kid on the field. In my young days football or cricket was all we did on there from morning till night. Happy memories when football was real and simple to us kids.

 

[Frank Lincoln]

How did you end up being wolves then frank?

Well wen I was young my favourite colour was yellow, and I said the first team I saw that played in yellow would be my team. Not sure how serious I was, anyway one week City were playing Hull and it was my dads turn to take me. However, I was not very well so couldn't go. The next week, it was my grandads turn and United were playing Wolves. I went to that, and though Wolves colours aren't yellow, it was good enough for my young eyes. So that evening i announced that I was a Wolves fan. Everyone thought I was joking, but I stuck to my guns, and what probably started as a bit of fun ended up with me becoming a lifelong Wolves fan.

Just think, if I hadn't had been poorly I could have been a tiger, not a wolf...!!

 

[Peszkywolf]

Love this thread!
Probably into football for 3 reasons....
-Was kicking a ball around since I was a babbie and been obsessed with everything to do with it, playing 3 times a week, watching every game, getting the tops etc, obsessed with dream team.
-Going to matches with my brother, just an ace thing to do for us, like a road trip, especially away games. Probably could've been a couple of local west mids club but you get obsessed don't you? Start up songs, pull sickies, love the day out and meeting mates and brother. Guess it's a bit of both now.

 

[OLDGOLD]

Same here. I thought it was just me.

With a name like that, I reckon you may be local to me in rural Shropshire?

 

[Frank Lincoln]

Football on the fields with your mates. It really was jumpers for goalposts. Sometimes 3 of you, sometimes 10x that number. I recently drove past Rooker Ave playing fields and all the memories came flooding back. Sadly there wasn’t a kid on the field. In my young days football or cricket was all we did on there from morning till night. Happy memories when football was real and simple to us kids.

I'm sure it was the same for you, but whenever we played on the playing fields or even on the street, it didn't matter if one side was winning by a cricket score it was always next goal wins.

 

[Adrian_Monk]

I'm not a football fan. I support Wolves, because I grew up in Wolverhampton, and going to games was an activity that brought me and my dad together. It still does today. The affinity becomes a bond you can't break. I have a soft spot for Napoli, as I spent a bit of time there when I was younger, and Rot-Weiss Essen, because their shirt is cool, that's it.

 

[Darren M (Dazza)]

Because rugby is sheee ite

 

[Wolvescol]

I’m a massive wolves fan too , but also have a great feeling for Napoli , I’ve been over twice to see them with my son against ac Milan and Roma , they beat Roma 4-1 and a certain Edison cavani got hatrick , part of my family are from Naples hence the affinity, totally different atmosphere to the English stadiums, awesome in the san pauolo , now d.a maradona

 

[VancouverWolf]

Why am I a fan?
Well, truth is, all the other sports were full and it was either ballet or football, and since my sister’s tutu didn’t fit me........

 

[NewarkWolf]

Cos rugby and cricket are ****ing dreadful!

 

[Ironfistedmonk]

Playing football at school and after school until the light faded was where I fell in love with the game, the buzz around Mexico 86 was great, the first international tournament I can properly remember. My dad doesn't like football so I had to find my own way to a club, after flirting with the dirty big teams at the time as children do I came to the only logical choice, that team with the same name as the town I live in is the one. Once I started to follow Wolves it became more than just love, more like a South American rabid passion for 11 blokes representing my home town.

Nowadays I don't think I love football very much anymore, the media hype for certain teams, VAR, **** refereeing, the money and the cartel controlling the game, it's all *******s, but the fire is still there for Wolves

 

[Sheriff Woody]

I had a ball at my feet for as long as I can remember. When I look back at my childhood all of my favourite memories involve football in some way shape or form.

It’s difficult not to get lured in by the romance of football.

I can remember the first leather football I was bought. The smell of the leather, the white and blue hexagonal panels are seared into my mind. I loved that ball, it replaced my teddy as my childhood bedtime companion.

I can remember scoring my first goal for a proper team and looking across at my Dad standing on the touch line, grinning with his thumbs up.

I saw a teenage Kevin Campbell running riot for Arsenal’s youth team against Crewe Alex’s and thought I want to do that.

I’ll never forget walking up the steps in the John Ireland (Steve Bull) Stand for the first time and seeing the green of the grass. The ramshackle Waterloo Road stand seemingly miles in the distance and instantly falling in love with Molineux despite it’s scarred appearance.

Football has also given me some really low points too though. Having to retire a few short years after achieving my my dream of being a footballer was a cruel blow. It’s fair to say that it took me a few years to get over it and realise that what happened was beyond my control.

The lowest point though was 4 years ago when I tore both my plantar fascia and my Achilles’ tendon at the same time playing 5-a-side with guys from work. I’ve not kicked a ball since and I miss it like you would not believe.

The past 18 months though has made me feel distanced from the game. The lack of fan participation has highlighted that without the baying masses around the world offering their voracious support it is just 22 blokes kicking a ball about in a controlled manner. It felt like there was no love for it, it was leaden footed, robotic in a way that I can’t really explain. It lacked drama and that explosion of joy or anger. Apathetic. It made me sad.

Its made me realise how much I love and need that attack on the senses only being there can give.

I love you football. I’ve missed you.