Kingy’s Wolves Blog

IT’S NOT OVER TILL IT’S OVER

17-03-2009

Championship leaders Wolves are now ten points clear of third placed Reading with just seven games to play. Brendan King has the finishing line in sight.

It was great to see the proudest daddy in Wolverhampton, big Chris Iwelumo, chaperoning his two tiny daughters (Prisais 4 and Nevaya 2 years old) on and off the Molineux pitch on Saturday, as they were very excited Wolves mascots for this crucial contest.

An omen, I thought, added to the fact that I’d just learned that, on the previous occasion today’s ref officiated, Chris had scored his last goal – a brace in fact – against Sheffield United. And, of course, he was up against his old club – so, despite not scoring since then (17 of his matches ago) he’s bound to score today.

And, of course, we were proved correct. Now spectacularly back on form, Chris became the leading light in a scrappy game and scored with a spectacular volley on just over the half-hour mark. Perfect timing I thought – as up until then we’d misfired and crunched through the gears like my old Austin A35 that I once ran around the Welsh hills were I dwelt in the 1960s.

The Wolves fans were out in the sunshine in full force and volume – really getting behind the team as they struggled to break down a solid Charlton defence – which was often a wall of 11 desperate men trying forlornly to escape relegation against a persistent Wolves team trying to cement promotion – but who mostly failed to string their passes through the sardine-like packed Addicks defence.

Bottom against top was never going to be pretty with just over half a dozen games left this season for both teams. And it wasn’t – it was the proverbial ugly, ‘iffy’, win.

No official has yet resolved who scored our 2nd and winning goal, or even why the hapless referee gave us a penalty shortly before that winning strike. Although Matt Holland is now reluctantly admitting a ‘hand’ in both incidents, that even those of us fans directly behind the North Bank goalmouth failed to spot.

The honest Irishman (the Irish have to be so during St Patrick’s week) is now revealing that he was involved in a faint push on Christophe Berra for the penalty. And that the magnificent Iwelumo’s glanced downward header (from a great Dave Jones in-swinging corner) bounced simultaneously off both him and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (SE-B) and which passed just inches over the goal-line before being popped back out by a defender without touching base.

He’s offering the goal to either SE-B or Chris (he doesn’t want it though he’s been credited with the own goal) and I reckon it should be big Chris’s. He was outstanding throughout and a clear man-of the-match. And if the ball inadvertently deflected off another player it was his big shiny forehead that did the trick for the priceless 3 points.

Wolves fans are now right behind the team, however straggly or scrappy the game turns out. Booing and questioning the manager now seems to be over and every effort and good touch from our players is being applauded loudly and the roars are truly deafening as sustained attacks are mounted by our Gold and Black heroes.

Our defence is now palpably stronger with the invaluable experienced Jody Craddock marshalling all before him and Berra acting as his able assistant. And now we have two specialist full-backs with the sound addition of little Matt Hill complementing little Kevin Foley, ensuring that the Wolves defence looks as solid as any in the division.

OK! Charlton’s best player, Chinese international Zheng Zhi, did score with a sweet unstoppable volley just after the 2nd half re-start to give us all our usual bout of the collywobbles (Zhi’s now been added to Wolves’ wanted list after this exhilarating midfield performance). But that only spurred the team on to greater efforts and the fans into greater hysterical volume. And that irresistible combination of player-fan power proved decisive in that vital win.

With Reading losing at home again, the fans were cheering 2 results at the end of the match – our win and the Royals loss. Fans are still commenting that both results were equally important. The fact that Birmingham achieved a very creditable away victory later that evening is not worrying us, as both teams going up is what most of us have covertly hankered for all season.

I know it’s not over ‘till its over – but it nearly is and I’m confident now that we can beat Notts Forest next Saturday and scrape some kind of result at St Andrew’s on May Day Monday.

Then we may be able to really start counting those countless chickens. It’s onwards and upwards from now on in. The performance crunch is over. There’s a golden light just about twinkling at the end of the long Championship tunnel.

DISCUSS THIS ON THE STIRRER FORUM