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.

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.