Wolves hall of fame honour for Andy Thompson

Driving across the Black Country with fellow new boy Steve Bull in the latter’s car, the club they arrived at in November 1986 was very different to the one both would leave more than a decade later.

“If you were being polite you would say the club was in a bit of a state,” says Thompson.

“That were only months on from having just avoided going out of business, only two stands were open at Molineux and we were training here, there and everywhere.

“The club had been relegated to the Fourth Division the previous year and there was little indication of the slide stopping anytime soon. Everything was at a low ebb.”

Thankfully, things were about to pick up. Within three years Wolves would be back in the Second Division and soon, thanks to Sir Jack Hayward’s millions, Molineux would be a state-of-the-art stadium.

Tonight, Thompson will be recognised for the part he played in the club’s resurrection when he is inducted into the Wolves Hall of Fame, alongside Jack Brodie, Dennis Wescott and Frank Munro.

“I had no inkling. It came as a complete shock,” said Thompson. “When you think of some of the names that have been inducted in the past – Billy Wright and Steve Bull - it really is an honour.”

Growing up in Featherstone, Wolves were in Thompson’s blood from a early age, though he took his initial steps in the game with their rivals. Indeed, the teenage Thompson already had 13 appearances to his name with Albion when the course of his career took an unexpected turn.

“I had been playing at Albion and really had no intention of leaving. It all came out of the blue,” he says. “Ron Saunders stopped me in the corridor and told me Wolves had come in for me, and that I should go and speak to them.

“I was only 19 and it was a tough decision. Albion were playing in the Second Division and I was part of the team. By the same token I knew that if Albion were willing to let me go, the writing was on the wall in many respects.”

Having started his career as a midfielder with the Baggies, Thompson quickly found himself employed in all areas of the pitch in the early days at Wolves before eventually settling at left-back. After a somewhat rocky start, which included a 3-0 defeat at home to Wrexham on Thompson’s debut, Wolves were on the rise.

The 1986/87 season finished in play-off heartbreak but the following two campaigns saw them promoted as champions and featured an unforgettable trip to Wembley.

“When you speak of highlights of my time as a player, the Sherpa Van Trophy obviously sticks out,” says Thompson.

“But the best thing was the rise of the club and witnessing first hand how it transformed from how it was on my first day, the way the ground transformed.”

Thompson believes the great strength of Turner’s team which jumped two divisions in the space of as many seasons was in the partnerships which could be found all over the pitch.

“The strikers is an obvious place to start,” he says. “Andy Mutch was already at the club and when Bully arrived they immediately hit it off.

“If you have two strikers who are fit and scoring goals it make such a difference. Bully in those two promotion campaigns was something else.

“He was always a player who wanted more and was never satisfied. He would just keep going and going.

“But there were strong partnerships right through the team. You had Ally Robertson and Floyd Streete at the back, Phil Robinson in midfield and Robbie Dennison on the wing.

“It was just a really cohesive unit, everybody was on the same page and once we started winning game confidence grew and grew.”

After back-to-back promotions, the one regret for Thompson is that the team did not complete the climb into the top flight.Wolves got close, agonisingly so in 1995 and 1997 when they lost out in the play-off semi-finals.

Thompson’s time at Molineux would come to an end soon after the second near-miss, after 451 total appearances and 45 goals, when he joined Tranmere Rovers as a free agent.

He would go on to spend three years in Birkenhead and his later career included spells at Cardiff, Shrewsbury and Hednesford Town, before retiring in 2003.

He is now a PE teacher at a school in Derby but remains a familiar figure at Molineux, in no small part through his role as radio summariser for the club’s matchday coverage.

“There were a few years in the mid-90s when we were always seemed to be there or thereabouts in the promotion race but it never quite happened for us,” said Thompson.

“That is perhaps the one thing I look back on with a bit of frustration, that I never got to play in the top flight with my hometown club.

“But the big positive was the way the club changed during my time there. It is nice to think I might have helped in some way. It’s also nice that people still remember you.”