No bang to finish the season with, very much a whimper – which has been the case on far too many of our away trips.

It being the last game, we were away bright and early on Friday, sharing our Tibshelf picnic with the Hartlepool team. Well, we offered, and Lee even asked “who played the wrong ‘un?” and Mr Liddle was pointed out immediately by his team-mates. The rest of Friday was spent being mistaken for Geordies as we sampled the delights of Nottingham’s afternoon-life and night-life. Saturday was to be cricket at Trent Bridge, but that fell victim to the weather, and off we went to Burton Albion in the company of a trainload of suicidal Grimsby fans. They might have been miserable, but one could play the piano in the Coopers, then a local produced a mouth organ and gave us the Blaydon Races – and even reeled off the Relegation version. He gave us a lift to the ground as well, where Nick Colgan (ex SAFC reserves) had to fight off an irate fan after the first goal. At 37 he can be considered a veteran, so what that make Kevin Poole at the other end I don’t know – aged 46 and still put in a good shift. We nipped out early to take advantage of the free buses for Grimsby fans, and thus we missed all the nonsense on the pitch after the final whistle.

As it was the last game, the fancy dress shops of Wearside were empty, and Molineux filled with various superheroes, cartoon characters, and even a Bob Stokoe. The stewards joined in with the beach ball antics, and I became the proud owner of an inflatable flamingo. Someone decided it would be a good idea to join the cheerleaders and got himself hoyed out – daft bugger. At £38 a ticket (Wolves making up for that £5 game a few years ago?) you want to get your money’s worth.

Gordon
Hutton Kilgallon Turner Richardson
Campbell Cana Henderson Steed
Bent Jones

A fairly positive formation and the game started in fairly positive fashion with both sides going for it and playing with gay abandon (can I still say that?). Bent had a shot saved, Wolves attacked, then after seven minutes, Campbell burst down the right and ran at the defence. Jones got in a shot that hit Craddock, then seemed to have a damn good think about whether it wanted to go in or not. Thankfully it decided that the net was the place to be. Great, here we go for our third away win, or should we just concede a penalty a minute later? In went Hutton, down went Jarvis, in went the penalty from Doyle. Bugger, bugger, bugger. Still, with 80 to go there was still hope. When Steed hit the post with a clever effort, we wondered if it would ever happen, and when Hendo’s shot was way too weak after more good work by Malbranque we wondered again. Campbell and Steed got in more efforts, and Gordon made a couple of smart saves as the game flew from one end to the other. Level at the break, we still had half the game in which to win it, but the second half was a bit like cleaning your teeth with Domestos – exciting for the first little bit, then just plain wrong.

Zenden was on for Hendo from the off, hopefully to bring some steadiness to the midfield and produce the killer pass. Oh well, it doesn’t always work out as planned. Steed had a shot saved, Jones headed goalwards, Wolves produced a comedy miss, then Jones moved temporarily to defence as Turner was glued back together and our shape seemed to vanish. With Turner back on, we failed to keep hold of the ball and were content to hoof it up front. Hutton’s early runs down the right weren’t repeated, and we were incapable of finding feet up front. Benjani came on for Cana, who had taken a knock, and the Zimbabwean did what he’d done in all of his previous appearances for us – chase around like a schoolboy and trap the ball further than I go for my holidays.

With less than 15 to go, Colback came on for Steed, but he’d hardly had a touch before we gave the ball away, they broke down their right, and Guediro (spelling dodgy) fired in a great goal. If that wasn’t bad enough, Turner was sent off for pulling someone down, and we had our third captain of the day - sorry, but I didn’t see who he gave the armband to. Colback was soon booked as the ref seemed to go a bit mad with his cards, so it was no surprise when he booked the poor lad again and off he went. Well, it was a surprise, as young Jack hadn’t really produced a bad tackle of any sort- indeed, the first tackle didn’t make contact. Maybe the West Midlands constabulary thought that would make us mad, as hundreds of them, including the smallest set of WPCs in the country, lined up in front of us for the last ten minutes. Talk about over-reaction – from the ref and the poliss. Jones went to centre half, Kilgallon went left back, Richo moved forward, Kilgallon went back to centre half, Richo went back to left back – you get the picture.

So a rotten performance in the second half, one which upset the Brucester. Not as much as us mugs who forked out £38 fro the privilege of watching us wimp out at yet another Premiership ground. With performances like that, it would be no surprise if our away following drops off next term. With the DVD player knackered, the highlight – if it can be called that – was the part-time gobshite mags following Whitley Bay turning up at Tibshelf to find themselves amongst six busloads of grumpy Mackems. Astonishingly, they didn’t give the same abuse that they’d given our day bus on the way down.

Keep the Faith, and ‘bye until the next game.

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