Johnny Phillips: Sometimes it’s better to travel in hope than arrive
There have been some magnificent away days for Wolves supporters this season. Monday night was not one of them but that’s the contract fans sign when setting out to watch their team on the road – sometimes the football just gets in the way of a good day out.
Monday night was an ideal opportunity to go to the Manchester City game through the turnstiles and watch from the away end after one of the club’s independent supporters’ groups, Tatter Travels, invited me along for the ride.
They run a lively trip, to say the least.
For an eight o’clock kick-off, a 1.30pm start at the Hogshead in the city centre seemed a bit sharp, especially when coming from London, but refuelling is high on the list of priorities for this lot.
After an hour in the pub it was time to board one of the two coaches that had pulled up outside.
Organiser Richard Perkins hosted a Q&A on board, which was slightly foreboding given that it was yet another fixture moved to accommodate broadcasters.
It’s always great listening to other fans’ opinions. That’s what away days are all about. Getting on the coach or train and just chewing the fat about the football club, the game, and what lies ahead.
These are some of the most dynamic times Molineux has ever seen. In that regard, forecasting future events is a tough business, but it does make for interesting debate.
How much will the team change over the coming weeks and months? What will happen with the proposed ground redevelopment? How long will Nuno Espirito Santo stay?
What came up in conversation, from a professional perspective, was the claims of biased punditry within the media.
After the Christmastime win at Wembley, Paul Merson was pilloried for predicting that Spurs would win convincingly. The reaction to Merson’s thoughts appeared excessive. Given that he is a pundit and is asked for an opinion, it seemed a bit unreasonable to hold it against him.
After all, if a pundit picks one team to win then by definition he is picking the other to lose.
There is nothing personal in any of this. Ahead of the trip to Wembley, it was not as if Merson was marching through the Mander Centre holding a giant placard proclaiming ‘WOLVES WILL GET BATTERED’.
What is noticeable, when following a successful Premier League team, is how much more the club is in the media eye.
It may surprise some, but there are no negative agendas that the media pursue.
Why would there be? If a story emerges, they cover it.
Each game is taken on its own merits and the context around it is discussed.
Without speaking for other media outlets, there is no war room at Sky where executive producers and pundits sit down at the beginning of each week, then open a flipchart to plan out a detailed narrative of negativity about Wolves or any other club.
They just say it as they see it. I hope that doesn’t shatter any illusions. If fans don’t agree, that’s okay too. It is, after all, a game of opinions.
Former players travel with this bunch. When we parked up at The Windmill at Knutsford, just off junction 19 of the M6, ex-captain Paul Butler was waiting to greet us. Armed with a soda and blackcurrant he stayed true to his dry January pledge, despite the best efforts of some fans during two hours of further refuelling.
There is always hope when travelling to a game.
A sense of anticipation about what might happen.
All you can ask for is that this hope is not shattered too quickly once the referee blows the first whistle.
Unfortunately, it was on this occasion. Jesus’s tenth minute goal made the job harder, but it was Willy Boly’s sending-off several minutes later that killed it as a contest.
The 3,000 Wolves fans split across three tiers backed their team to the end.
The thousands of empty seats in the near funereal home end made a sharp contrast. City are not the first big club to suffer problems like this. Earlier in the campaign, when Wolves went to the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal’s home support was much the same.
How can these issues can be addressed? Safe standing is the obvious starting point. But there are so many other factors contributing to a poor atmosphere, including ticket pricing, scheduling and the passive packaging of our game.
Conor Coady’s own goal was cruel. The captain did a magnificent job reorganising the defence. His words about the away support on the night showed how much he appreciates the backing.
Time to go home. There are many evil lands and dark places in popular fiction, but sometimes reality is worse. JRR Tolkien missed a trick when he wrote Lord Of The Rings.
He need not have gone to the trouble of creating Mordor, the dark realm of Sauron, surrounded by the Dead Marshes and imposing mountain ranges.
He should just have written about the M6 southbound after 10 o’clock at night. Frodo
Baggins might have had a bit of a trek to that volcano, but it was nothing compared to negotiating the lane closures between junctions 19 and 11 on any night of the year.
It’s at this point I really should thank the lad at the back of the coach on the return journey for giving me his last bottle of mixed fruits Kopparberg to soften the blow of another set of roadworks a few miles before Stafford. It just about made up for all his mates singing “We ****ing hate Sky Sports” for the previous two hours.
Eventually, at 12.40am the coaches pulled up at the Hogshead. Back where we began half-a-day earlier.
The football might have been a damp squib but the company made up for it.
As any travelling supporter will tell you, it’s not about the result. Away days are good days.
