The Wolves hall of famer turned podcaster recalls Molineux memories and his Steve Bull partnership

For one of their
Eighties heroes, it pits the team he supported as a boy against one
where he will always be hugely acclaimed. As Paul Berry discovered.

It is 40 years on
Sunday since Andy Mutch made his Wolves debut.

And so, it seems
fitting, that this week will see Wolves, the club where Mutch made
his name and is regarded with so much affection, twice tackle
Liverpool, his boyhood team and the one he has always supported.

Those fixtures, in the
Premier League last night and FA Cup on Friday night, will be very
different to that debut, a goalless draw against Rotherham, in which
Wolves legend Geoff Palmer – sorry Geoff – missed a penalty.

The crowd that day,
back in 1986, was a mere 2, 838.  Wolves were in the final throes of
a season which ended in relegation, a third in succession, and were
soon to be threatened with going out of business for the second time
in the decade.

Every one of those
heroes of the mid-to-late Eighties fightback for Wolves deserves
their place in the club’s record books. And history.

And frontman Mutch was
one of the first cabs off the rank.

His strike partnership
with Steve Bull finished up being one of the greatest the club had
ever seen, and one of the most potent of a generation. Between them,
across two seasons, they amassed an incredible 148 goals, 102 for
Bull and 46 for Mutch.

But Mutch should also very much be regarded as a top class striker on his own merits. His 338 appearances cement his place in the illustrious 300 club, and his 105 goals put him firmly in the select band of those who have reached a century for Wolves, a group currently featuring only 15 members. He also earned international recognition, at England Under-21 and ‘B’ levels, including being part of the same teams as Paul Gascoigne and David Platt.

Mutch also, quite rightly, was inducted into the Wolves’ Hall of Fame, in 2013.

Andy Mutch reunited with strike partner Steve Bull

All of this makes the
visit of Wolves chief scout and later manager Sammy Chapman to a
fixture between Southport and Kidderminster Harriers all the more
crucial.

As Mutch explains.

“I was actually with
Everton as a schoolboy, getting released at 16 and then asked to go
back at 18 when they were winning the league with all those great
players like Sharpy (Graham Sharp) and Reidy (Peter Reid),” he
says.

“I was training as a
young professional with the likes of Adrian Heath and Derek
Mountfield, but I never broke through – in truth, I wasn’t really
ready.

“I was still a bit
small and hadn’t strengthened up enough, and eventually the coach
Colin Harvey told me I wasn’t going to be taken on, but that
non-league Southport were interested.

“I went there and
scored a few goals until the one game we had against Kidderminster,
when Sammy came to watch.

“He was a cracking fella Sammy, and he signed me for Wolves, where I still remember my
debut, and infact the first few games, very clearly.

“That’s because I
really struggled and remember calling my Dad to tell him that I’d
made a mistake, that the centre halves were too quick and too strong,
and I couldn’t get a kick.

“I won’t repeat
what he said back to me, but enough to say I carried on going, and I
guess if I’m being really truthful, I was getting an opportunity
because the club was in the state that it was at that time.

“If the club had been
in a better place, I wouldn’t have had the chance to play, but I
finally got my first goal and ended up getting seven in 15 in that
first half season.”

It’s a good job Wolves persisted with Mutch, and Mutch persisted with Wolves. Because the rest, well, that’s Molineux history.

And explains why, a few
months into the life of the new ‘Mutchy and Denno’ podcast
launched with close pal and former team-mate Robbie Dennison, and
hosted by Johnny Phillips from Sky Sports, he remains such a popular
figure among those Wolves fans who are so appreciative of his
contribution to restoring the club from the depths of despair.

More on that later. But first, back on Liverpool, just as Wolves will be on Friday after last night’s hors d’oeuvre.