I’m feeling pretty good about myself at the moment.
Why?
Because I can see into the future.
Unfortunately though, my premonitions are exclusively limited to predicting the endless diatribe that will roll out of Molineux in the week preceding a big game.
Mick: Always an entertaining soundbite
You know what I’m talking about. So-called news stories with headlines like:
Henry: ‘We’ll Survive’
Ebanks-Blake: ‘More Goals Needed’
Kevin Foley: ‘Happy to fill in’
Thanks for stating the flippin’ obvious lads!
It’s verbal garbage, but we all gladly consume it because we’re that desperate for even the smallest nugget of information about the goings-on at our beloved club.
Let’s cut to the chase, interviewing any footballer about an upcoming game is a waste of everyone’s time. Very few have anything remotely insightful to say and even those with the smallest shred of personality have it drilled deep into their skulls what they can and can’t say.
So I definitely empathise with journalists because getting anything out of these cyborgs is an almost impossible task, hence the soundbite headlines and the mundane stories, padded out with information we’ve read twenty times before.
We should count ourselves lucky though.
At least Wolves have a manager whose not afraid to open his mouth and actually tell the world what he’s thinking. I imagine it will be a sad day at the Express & Star when Mick McCarthy finally vacates his post, as the Yorkshireman nearly always delivers a dynamite headline.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the playing staff. I’m trying desperately to recall anything a Wolves player has said recently that has shocked, surprised or even interested me in the slightest.
The only way I see the situation improving is if someone actually starts asking the questions we as fans actually want to know the answers to. Here’s a few off the top of my head:
Karl Henry, I understand the importance of your role in the Wolves side, but do you think you’re sometimes guilty of slowing down attacks at crucial times by dwelling on the ball or passing backwards unnecessarily?
Kevin Foley, you were player of the season last year at right-back. Does it frustrate you that you haven’t been able to showcase your talents in what is obviously your best position?
George Elokobi, you spend every single day of your life playing football. Why can you not kick a ball straight?
The last one was a bit tongue-in-cheek (although I’d love to know the answer) but you get my point. More direct questions, would perhaps garner more interesting responses.
The chances of this actually happening?
Slim.
And don’t forget, I can see the future.
Thomas, how about these stories that you forgot:
* COLLINS FOR SCOTLAND
Big Chris saying that Neill Collins should be in the Scotland squad and was going to tell George Burley that he should be picked. It coincided with BCI getting dropped last season, which I believe was down the the unashamed piss taking of one of his teammates. (why else did Mick drop a bloke with one of the best strike rates in all four divisions?!)
* KEOGH IS OUR WAYNE ROONEY
Karl Henry this season declared: “Keogh is our Rooney.” Yeah, good one Karl. Who put you up to that one? Couldn’t be your best buddy could it? Joker!
* WE’RE GONNA WIN THE PREMIER LEAGUE
Or Bully’s classic, along the lines of: “We’re going to win the Premiership.”
Say no more on that one. It’s okay to be optimistic and believe everything Steve Morgan says, but then there’s smoking crack on a daily basis, whilst watching Alice in Wonderland.
On a tangent. there’s one or two Daily Sport headlines that have gone down as classics.
How about:
DONGER DEON HAS NOBBY STYLE
A kiss and tell story about Deon Burton packing a lot of meat, 12 inches worth apparently
CRONJE WOULDN’T KEEP HIS HANSIE OFF MY CREASE
A classic tale of the now deceased Hansie Cronjie, who was banging some slapper and, as the headline puts it, wouldn’t keep his hands off her privates.
Anyway, you’re right Thomas. The E & S demand that their reporter gets a good 2 or three stories a day, which dilutes the quality as they are writing for the sake of it, plus, they don’t get much help from the club.
Thomas, the stories which emanate from Mick McCarthy are hardly earth shattering are they?
‘We need 12 more points’ is his latest ‘outburst’ to go with along with Kevin Doyle’s ‘We need 13 more points’ – so they are in agreement then!
I totally agree with you though on Wolves players E&S comments, what a waste of space and I don’t mean column inches either!
Wolves players should spend a hell of a lot of their time practising their shooting at goal and defending dead ball situations, after all they are very poor at both!
Personally I am sick and tired of seeing headlines regarding what Karl Henry has to say. This man has more to say than any man alive but who takes any notice of it?
Still the E&S must put something on its sports pages otherwise they would put some other sporting pastime on it such as tiddley-winks or beer mat flipping.
I’d like to hear Henry tell everyone why he is incapable of passing forward or shooting at goal?
Anyone else? Only around 28,000 supporters week in, week out!
I find it disturbing that you are insinuating that either our players are being brainwashed, or do not have a brain in the first place.
Are we to believe that they are NOT employed for their IQ prowess, and verbal debating skills??
Please say it aint so!!!!
That would mean they are employed for their………………….(drum roll)
Footballing skills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seems to me several, if not all but Doyle and the Yank, should be on the dole.
FOWB
Mentioned this before – but here is one I am really sick of (as it is all over the press again today…
Manager Mick McCarthy has conceded that Wolves have little chance of keeping £6.5m striker Kevin Doyle if they are relegated from the Premier League. Aston Villa, Fulham, Everton and Sunderland are all set to battle to sign the Republic of Ireland international if his side slip into the Championship.
Full story: Daily Mirror
Issue a ‘hands off’ – he only signed in the summer for gods sake.
Ebanks Blake and Vokes up front next season – looking forward to that already!
Yeah, the 35 goals they scored between them last season was terrible wasn’t it?
Ouch! Good one Louie
Ouch! Good one Louie. They would eat the championship alive, though that aint where we want to be is it…
I’m just saying that they are not as bad as they are portrayed. Vokes hardly started a game last year and got us crucial goals. SEB was voted the best player outside the Prem and scored 50 in two years. You have to give them a chance.
I wouldn’t be that worried if they were our strikers. Might be too soon for Vokes but still not all bad eh?
After SEB came back from injury it took him two games to score this season, what does Mick do? drop him.
What about the one about Elokobi and Zubar and their Blackburn ‘late show.’
NOKI-OOH AHH, UP THE ZUBAR
Or
BY GEORGE! ELOKOBI LOSES MOBIE
Ronald Zubar this morning missed his team meeting at Ewood Park, after a ‘young and hungry’ team-mate rammed his wake-up call up his arse.
George Elokobi had a mobile mishap, when his touchscreen inadvertendly touched Ronald Zubar’s testicles, before plunging up his rectum.
It wasn’t so much a case of ‘Hello Moto’ when the frolicking pair got giddy the night before Wolves’ clash at Blackburn.
With Blackburn’s Ribble Valley offering no entertainment for the defenders, they decided to take matters into their own hands.
Zubar said: “Ze mobile had ze alarm cluck on, but ‘eet was up my poo-poo so we cud not hier ‘eet in ze morning.”
Big George said: “I thought he’d enjoy it. I’ve been playing with a mobile phone up my arse all season. It tends to vibrate every time the ball comes near me.”
What the fuck have you been on today?
I thought, and your Dad paid me to say, that you had a modicum of intelligence, but this latest masterpiece of yours is all bollocks.
Be consistent, like wot I is, and write drivel all the time, or not at all!!
Mornin’ Benjamino, how’s it hangin???
FOWB
It’s like a Wolves version of ‘striker’. Amazing
Ludicrous article but thought I’d draw your attention to it in case you missed it:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/03/who-gives-the-best-team-talk-here-are-the-stats-.html
At least we’re top of one table…
Thomas I actually worked in regional press for over ten years at the Birmingham Mail and had the misfortune of dealing with the journalists on a daily basis!
The reality is they have their men within the club that they can always contact for an interview when nothing else is going on. (Henry is obviously one of these!).
Paul Berry used to be the reporter in those days and he was really good as he was an actual wolves fan. He left to join the press team at the Molineux and all that was left were reporters that did not really care for the club (Albion, Blues and Villa fans).
The reporters are all so s**t scared that they will fall out with the club and lose access to the players that they would never do anything to cause controversy. The papers also end up forking out loads of cash to the club (sponsorship, contra-deals, executive boxes etc) to maintain the relationship as it is one of the main drivers for newspaper sales.
That’s the beauty of blogs like this – there are no politics so people can write what they think – not the ‘company line’ that the club has fed them!
Interesting stuff Stourbridge.
Funnily enough, Paul Berry actually came to my school when I was in the Sixth Form (about 7 years ago) and gave a speech about his job. He also used to come into the Hollybush pub when I worked behind the bar there.
Seemed like a top bloke.
I don’t know the first thing about what journalists have to do to get a story. But it seems the regional press have their hands tied whereas the nationals can print whatever they like.
Like you point out though, it gives blogs like this a market to target, so I guess we shouldn’t complain!
Stourbridge Wolf – Not that many years ago the Wolves E&S reporters HAD TO WRITE favourable reports on matches etc otherwise they were banned from the club!
This is quite true as a member of my family used to work at the E&S and had daily contact with those reporters.
It seems nowadays though that the ‘stranglehold’ the Wolves had on reporters has been removed but sometimes it does make you wonder how some of these stories originate – and why?
I remember the Mail falling out with Blues for a few weeks and the journo being thrown out of the club!
Just shows they feed us whatever PR they feel like!
To be fair, I’ve stopped listening to a lot of the media (I hardly ever visit the official site anymore). I know enough about football to form my own opinions (I don’t trust Karl Henry or the like to tell me about what I saw), and while Mick is a laugh, I’d rather debate on forums like this than accept blindly the spin that comes out of the club.
They can’t really say too much, they’d be risking their jobs! If Foley went out complaining about playing on the wing, he’d be dropped.
That’s why people really like the ones who don’t care and speak their mind (like Mick who a lot seem to like).
I just can’t stand the players coming out before a game and saying loads of rubbish, bigging themselves up. Why can’t they just get on with the job in hand?
This week, the teamtalk is set for us. seen what Robbie Blake has said?
I think half the problem IS that the press don’t ask decent questions; half the time they just want a nice quote they can wrap a headline around, and the players aren’t going to say anything too controversial as they might lose their place/get sold.
Post match interviews are the worst – a big win is followed by a question tat demands a stock answer about how good a result it was; a defeat requires platitudes about how the lads will pick themselves up for the next match.
It’s not the players, it’s the papers.
More today:
”Whether we’ve been home or away in the last couple of months it hasn’t really affected us. We’ve still gone about our business.” – Kevin Foley
…… Thats certainly one way of looking at 1 win in 3 months.
That’s so true – brilliant. Ha,ha,ha!