Team of the Week - Sue's Wolves featuring Bully

Team of the week is becoming a curse, so my idea was to feature Bolton's opponents and therefore ensure a win for me but sadly we had already featured Ipswich and I am sure we all remember that because of the fact about the nets.  So instead I will so with my original plan of Sue's Wolves - Kelly you may benefit?

My main memory of Wolves is in fact that it was Steve Bull's team. I must have visited Molineux a couple of times and seen Wolves at Fratton several times with Pompey and in the same way that we had Alan Knight, they had Steve Bull. He was their Legend. (which is the real Steve Bull?)

Having left school in 1981 (Amy surely this counts..) Steve joined non-league Tipton Town and held down a succession of factory jobs in addition to playing local league games.  He began his professional career, aged 19 at West Brom in 1984.  In November 1986, he was sold to local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers, along with Andy Thompson, for £65,000 where he remained until the end of his professional career in 1999. 

In over 13 years at Wolves, Steve known by his fans as 'Bully' broke no less than four of the club's goal scoring records.

a) He became their all-time leading goalscorer with 306 goals in competitive games

b) 250 of them in the Football League

c) became their highest goalscorer in a single season when he scored 52 goals in competitive games during the 1987–88 season.  Wolves won the Fourth Division championship and was the first of only three teams to have been champion of all four divisions – Anna’s Burnley was another!

d) he scored a club record of 18 hat-tricks between May 1987 and August 1996

He went on to make 464 league appearances for the club, 561 appearances in total.

He is regarded as such a legend at the club that one of the main stands at their home ground, Molineux, is named after him. This commemoration was made in June 2003, with the stand having previously being known as the John Ireland Stand. Who was he?  In 1988-89, he inspired Wolves to a second successive promotion, this time as Third Division champions, with 50 goals — marking a tally of 102 goals in two seasons. At some point he also score four against Bristol City in the Sherpa Van Trophy  - anyone remember that?  During his final two seasons at Molineux, his chances of first-team football were reduced by a series of knee injuries. He reached the 300-goal milestone on 18 February 1998 and his final goal for the club came against Bury on 26 September 1998

 As for the current Wolves team (Wolverhampton Wanders in full) they are new to the CCC this year, Wolves having become eligible after their relegation from the Premiership last season.  Founded in 1877 they were founder members of the Football League along with Accrington, Aston Villa, Everton, Notts County, Preston, Stoke, West Brom and fellow CCCers Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley and Derby.

They won the FA Cup twice before the outbreak of the First World War and after the Second World War they went on to win the League three times and the FA Cup twice between 1949 and 1960.  At this time that the European Cup (later UEFA Champions League) competition was established, after the English press declared Wolves "Champions of the World" following their victories against such top European and World sides as South Africa, Racing, Spartak Moscow and Honved in some of football's first live televised games.  That’s better than Leed’s Champions of Europe!