Wolves fan and Olympic bronze medallist Kristian Thomas helping on the Premier League stage

Murray had not long turned 22, and, in his breakthrough full season as a first-team regular, was understandably feeling the nerves ahead of such a career-defining afternoon at the Millennium Stadium.

Campbell, an Olympic medallist picking up gold in the 4x100 metres relay, and silver at 200 metres, recognised this, and tried to put Murray’s mind at ease.

“When I’m on the blocks in the Olympics, for the 100 metres or 200 metres, I have trained for four years for either ten or 20 seconds worth of running,” he told him.

“If I false start, or run badly, that’s it, for another four years.

“But you, all that work that you have done to get to this point, it means you are ready, and whatever happens, you’ve got 90 minutes to go and do your thing.”

Murray saved a penalty, was man-of-the-match, and Wolves won 3-0 to reach the Premier League.

Consider then also, ahead of the start of the Paris Olympics this coming Friday, the example of Wolves fan and proud Wulfrunian, gymnast Kristian Thomas.

The Great Britain men’s gymnastics team hadn’t won an Olympic team medal for 100 years and, in 2012, the Games had come to London, to a spectacularly vociferous and patriotic reaction from the British public.

After all the different team members had competed, in all the different disciplines of the team event, it all came down to Thomas’ floor exercise - the final routine - to shape Team GBs destiny.

“I knew that my routine would decide whether we had a good chance of our first medal in 100 years, or if it was, no, try again in four years’ time,” he recalled this week.

What a contrast.

Thomas had delivered some excellent results already in the competition including, earlier in the day, the highest score in the vault.

But this was different. Standing on the mat in an electric O2 Arena, the next 60 seconds would be decisive. ‘Sixty seconds of distance run’ relates the famous ‘If’ poem of Rudyard Kipling. Well, never can the lines between Kipling’s imposters of triumph and disaster have been so fine.

In a nutshell, how on earth do you cope with a century’s worth of pressure, heaped on – admittedly very broad - shoulders?

“To be honest, I had a good idea that our competition might finish on the floor, and I had prepared myself for that moment,” Thomas replies.

“I had visualised in advance what that might feel like – the nerves, the adrenalin, the crowd, the excitement, anything and everything that would be involved.

“So, when the moment came, it was about trying to keep on top of it, handling all those emotions and focusing only on the job which was in front of me.

“And then, all the years of hard work and training, all the hours that I had put in up until that moment, that looked after itself and that is what I relied on to take me through it.

“As long as I could keep my process in place and keep the consistency of normal competition preparation and not change anything because of the Olympic games, all that training would carry me through.

“Luckily for me, maybe it’s just my personality in general, but in those sorts of environments, I have always been able to remain relatively calm and concentrated on the job in hand, and not overthink it.

“Even if that still sounds easier said than done!”

Thomas, as with all the team, delivered. A bronze medal, which would have been silver but for an appeal from the Japanese team against one of their scores which nudged them into second behind China.

No worries, though. History had been secured. And for Thomas, the whole team and the sport of gymnastics in general, life would never be the same again.

Fast forward 12 years and Wolverhampton-born Thomas is now in a role where the expertise and experience of progressing to the top of his sport, and handling all the associated pressures at the elite level, can play a key part.