The Nerdy Years (Part 3)

I swear this is the same damn bus!!! Pye Green. ..The Pied Piper Chip Shop, possiblty the finest purveyor of chips in the West Midlands!! 

Righto, so if you are still with me....Wolves went down to the Fourth Division in England and following on from the Bradford Fire Disaster (RIP) had had two sides of their ground closed down due to new fire safety regulations. At the age of about 13/14 myself and some mates had started going to games pretty regularly, I was a Wolves fan along with another couple of lads but two other mates were Bluenoses; Birmingham City who were pretty poor at the time too. We`d all get the legendarily shite Green Bus Service to Cannock, where the Wolves lads would stay on and journey on to Wolverhampton and the Blues  and ocassional Villa lads would then then split off on different buses. One to Birmingham and one to Wolverhampton. Sometimes I`d go along to the Blues if Wolves were away and (maybe once or twice) they`d come to the Wolves (if they had nothing better to do). A trip to the Wolves in those days meant standing on the South Bank which at the time was one of THE biggest terraces in the UK.... with enough space to set out a BBQ, a few deckcahirs even a sun lounger or two. Sod it...you could have invited a load of hippies, their caravans, Bob Dylan and all those hairy women along and the bloke next to you wouldn`t have noticed; the place was that empty.

Luckily for the Molineux faithfull, a player came along to virtually single handedly change Wolverhampton Wanderers beyond all recognition.. You can read about the goal scoring prowess of Steve Bull here....all I can say is I was there as an impressionable young lad to see it and after years of misery, it was fantastic to witness (especially leaping off my bed when he scored on his debut for England v Scotland after coming on for John Fashanu....he was playing in the 3rd Division at the time!!!). Supporters everywhere want to see a sucessful team and he brought that (relative) success.As a football fan the thing that makes us go to the games is the wish to see something special. We can all boot the ball in from the edge of the six yard box with our mate in nets, but can we bulldoze our way past an entire professional midfield, break to the by line and bang a pinpoint cross in for the No.9 to bladder on the volley into the top corner?? Can we bollocks!!Exciting forwards and exciting times are the be all and end all.

In the Nerdy Years, teamwise we have never been that good. Ocassionally able to give the big boys a game and sometimes able to batter a midtable side, but generally over a course of a season struggling at some point or another; or relegated. However, one thing that we do love at Verdy is a good striker. Up until 2009 season we usually had at least one exciting player. 2009 was the one of the few seasons in the Nerdy Years where Verdy didn`t have an EXCITING forward.
Just to re-call a few, Edmundo, strolling around the place like he owned it, not lifting a finger except to stroke the ball home with a young  Marquinhos (currently Kashima`s chief onion bag botherer) doing his donkey work.Following him came Big Pat  who had ripped up the league YEARS previously. He was running on fumes when he got to don the Green but when he was on, he was on 18 in 35 and not many tap ins.  After that came Big George in tandem with Takayuki Morimoto (who was disregarded as a big fuss about nothing at the time, he might be scoring a few for whoever in Serie A now but he wasn`t up to much back then). Big George probably scored more goals than any other forward ever to get relegated from J1. Spods???? Next came Hulk...