Johnny Phillips: Wolves fans will relish their trip to the Fair City

Those travelling to Ireland to follow Wolves at the end of this month must be lapping it up. What could possibly go wrong?

After the cancellation of a summer tour further afield for a second season running, at least something has been salvaged for supporters who now have a chance to enjoy the hospitality of one of Europe’s most welcoming cities in the company of another set of supporters famed for their willingness to enjoy a good time regardless of the result.

Pre-season is usually about fun on the terraces. During Mick McCarthy’s time here tours to Ireland were popular among the fan base. During Nuno Espirito Santo’s spell several hundred travelled over to Switzerland for the Uhren Cup tournament, enjoying an alpine summer and exorbitantly-priced cheese fondue.

A year later it was the Premier League Asia Trophy, with around 40 hardy souls travelling to the Far East to follow Wolves in Shanghai where the Tsingtao flowed freely.

There was a time when it was the players, not the fans, who enjoyed the drinking part of pre-season tours. Wolves toured Sweden several times in the 1970s and on one occasion Kenny Hibbitt and Willie Carr did well to avoid being sent home by manager Sammy Chung.

“We played one game and there were no soft drinks provided by the club, it was really hot and we were obviously thirsty,” Hibbitt recalls.

“By the time we got on the coach to go back to the hotel the lads still hadn’t rehydrated properly. I sat next to Willie, who had a bag of duty free at his feet. He just opened a bottle of scotch and we drank it all on the trip back. We had to be carried back to our beds.

“We had a headache and a half the next morning and Sammy called a meeting to say he was going to send us home. But the players argued that we hadn’t been given any drinks after the match so he changed his mind. It was the last drink we had on tour.”

John Richards’ memories of pre-season are closer to home, at Cannock Chase. “It was Bill McGarry’s favourite go-to place, Brocton and Milford Common were the regular destinations,” he recalls. “Two hours of running up hills, through bracken and trees. It was torture for the likes of Waggy (Dave Wagstaffe), Lofty (Phil Parkes) and Frank Munro. At times, Frank was wearing a black bin bag under his kit to help him lose weight.

“There was one occasion, towards the end of the session, when we were in the middle of the forest, and McGarry ordered us all to run back to the coach, with the threat that if anyone finished behind him, they would have to make their own way back to Molineux – and that’s about 15 miles.

“Unfortunately, Hughie Curran got disorientated and wasn’t at the coach by the time McGarry got back. Despite some pleading from the senior players, McGarry ordered coach driver, Sid Kipping, to head back to Wolverhampton. Hughie turned up at Molineux about two hours later; he’d managed to hitch a lift on a milk van. He wasn’t happy.”

It is hard to envisage Julen Lopetegui using similar tactics in attempt to improve his players’ fitness, but McGarry would do whatever it took to knock his players into shape.

Hibbitt and Richards are sharing their memories during a planning meeting ahead of our second Wolves Icons stage show, at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock on September 28, where they will be joined by Steve Daley.

They have enough material to fill two nights and we are saving the best tales for the night, but one final pre-season story that can be shared involves an Irish left-back called Maurice Daly.

On the 1977 tour to Scandinavia, Daly’s eye was turned by a Swedish woman called Annelie. He stayed in touch with his sweetheart and when Wolves returned to the country in May 1978 for an end of season tour the young love birds were reunited.

“He was a lovely lad, with a really soft Irish accent,” Hibbitt recalls. “We were at the airport ready to come home at the end of the trip and somebody asked, ‘Where’s Maurice?’ He never turned up, he stayed out with his girlfriend and we never saw him again.”

After a heated conversation with Chung via the telephone, and following just over 30 appearances for Wolves, Daly’s professional career in England was over. The decision was big news in Sweden, where the press reported that he had walked out on a First Division club for a local girl.

There was a happy ending, though. Daly signed for IFK Vasteras, where he stayed for seven years. Off the field he learnt the language and embarked on a university degree before a successful career in business followed.

The Dubliner did not return to Wolverhampton until 2015, a mere 37 years after refusing to board the plane home, paying a flying visit to some of his old team-mates, including Richards. And there is no doubt that Daly made the right decision with his heart all those years ago; he married Annelie and they are still together.

How times have changed. Will Lopetegui’s players be focused purely on matters on the pitch later this month or will love be in the air when Wolves cross the Irish Sea and descend on the fair city?

John Richards, Kenny Hibbitt and Steve Daley are appearin–- with Johnny Phillips at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cannock on Thursday, September 28.

You can buy tickets here: https://inspiringhealthylifestyles.org/events/wolves-icons-the-70s/