Johnny Phillips: The hope doesn’t kill you but waiting feels deadly
It’s the hope that kills you.
One of football’s oldest cliches, one that supporters of any club will be familiar with.
Somewhere along the line last season – an unsettling and unsatisfactory campaign for Wolves supporters – that line drifted into my consciousness.
It is a glib turn of phrase and in many respects it does not entirely work.
Sure, when hopes are raised, the disappointment that follows can be a killer – and we all have our scars.
April, 2019. Surveying Wembley with just over 10 minutes left and half the stadium was a swaying mass of gold and black, raising the roof in praise of Raul Jimenez and co.
We’d done it. Dad sat next to me, the sole reason I’ve been led down this path, the one person to thank for taking me to the football.
After all these years of false dawns and unfulfilled dreams we were going to the FA Cup final. And then somehow it was snatched away.
And Wolves have never been close since.
The hope sets us up for the fall, I get that, but it’s the hope that sustains us.
As Blondie said, dreaming is free. That’s a sentiment Nuno Espirito Santo echoed during his time at Molineux.
