McCarthyism

McCarthyism

To understand properly the job Mick McCarthy did at Wolves you have to understand the team, club and town that he took over. The days of Glenn Hoddle were the most depressing I have ever witnessed in my life, the problem under Hoddle wasn’t even that we were a bad team (we were a comfortable mid table side with little chance of being relegated), the problem was more that we were irrelevant. We became a last stop off for players who still wanted to earn one last pay cheque such as Darren Anderton, and as a result we had to sit through meaningless games with Hoddle trying to impart his “champagne football” onto players who clearly weren’t good enough. I vividly remember being one of the 21,000 unfortunate souls who saw us play Crewe at home in 2006, a team who had already by this stage let in 72 goals in 32 games and we barely made a chance in a drab 1-1 draw, the highlights of which were Frankowski (he was such a waste of money I’m not even looking up how to spell his name) missing a tap in from about half a yard, and Carl Cort doing a step over on the wing which to me resembled a giraffe trying to hurdle a hedge. This was the last game i went to that season, Hoddle had done the impossible he had made me apathetic (although maybe i should thank Hoddle for providing less distractions while i studied for my a-levels??).

Not only did Hoddle ensure apathy descended over Molineux, he then also decided to leave us a month before the season leaving us only 9 fit first team players and less than £1 millions to spend on new players. By this stage I cared again, but I also feared the worst, honestly I could see no way in which we wouldn’t be relegated to league one and in the process become a premiership footnote for the foreseeable future.

That is the side that Mick McCarthy bravely took over, a side made up of experienced cast offs and youth team players in a league where some teams could boast an 11 made up of 7 or more internationals. It would be interesting to now speak to those booing and shouting abuse at McCarthy himself after Sunday’s defeat and seeing how many of them remember the likes of Kevin O’Conner, Mark Little, Darren Potter, Craig Davis, Jemal Johnson and Lewis Gobern, the types of talent that McCarthy started out with.

However despite the fear and apprehension around the club pre season 2006/07 blossomed easily into my favourite ever season. McCarthy instilled his own gritty work ethic into the players and they responded by giving every drop of energy that they had that season. The atmosphere around the club was also the best I have ever seen it, the fans never once got on the player’s backs when they made mistakes because they were OUR team again not mercenaries, we bought into them, they bought into us (even the experienced heads such as Gary Breen and Jackie Mcnamara) and we all bought into McCarthy.

My favourite game that season was on March 31^st at Molineux. Sitting in the south bank I watched us take on fellow playoff contenders Southampton. This may have been the most incredible match I had ever seen for two reasons, firstly, despite losing 6-0 we could have easily drawn or won that match. Te second reason that the game was incredible was that despite being 6-0 down at home it was like a party with Mexican waves and chants of “Super, Super Mick” reverberating around the ground at a deafening volume, and at full time the team were cheered off the pitch, it is something i am sure i will never see again.

Another game that season that stuck out for me was a pretty standard 2-0 defeat away to Hull, after which McCarthy uttered the words “That’s the last time you’ll see one of my teams out battled” and to my recollection he was right, we have lost games, made mistakes and been outclassed but I can’t think of a game I have waled away from and thought “They worked harder than us today”.

That season ended in playoff heartbreak again but it really didn’t matter to me, I was proud of my team and proud of my town again.

Obviously the season we wont he championship was a magical one (no pun intended for Merlin there) and despite the euphoria after Derby away, QPR at home and Barnsley away but my favourite game of that season was way back at the start of the season during the middle of a seven game winning streak at home against Nottingham Forrest. Firstly it was the best football I think I had ever seen Wolves play and Chris Iwelumo’s goal just before half time may be my favourite Wolves goal ever just for the fact it was a beautiful and pacy move which left the Forrest defenders shell shocked. But this wasn’t why this was my favourite game, it was my favourite game because afterwards it was apparent that everyone in attendance that day thought “We can do this”. To see the significance of this you have to understand that growing up a Wolves fan in the 1990’s and 2000’2 was one crushing disappointment after another and after a while you became pessimistic beyond compare so to believe again was something special.

That was indeed a special season and to be crowned champions was in reality an amazing achievement and a marker of how far Mick had bought us. Obivously since then we have dwelled in the Premier League which realy is the league to be in and sometimes i find myself pinching myself that we are there. However I still maintain that survival and even getting us to the premier league was not Mick’s biggest achievement, his biggest accomplishment was putting pride back into our team and our town and simply making us relevant again.