The ups and downs for former Wolves man Mark Buckland

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There was barely a couple of weeks between Mark Buckland working as a scaffolder to signing for Wolves in the top division of English football. Scaling the heights in more ways than one.

And his home debut? Against Manchester United no less, Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins, Norman Whiteside and all.

There was no danger of Buckland getting carried away, however.

Because when the then 22-year-old turned up for his debut at Birmingham City the previous weekend, they wouldn’t let him in the ground!

“I’d just joined Wolves and, because I was still living in Cheltenham and it was easier, I said I’d make my own way to the game and a mate gave me a lift,” Buckland recalls.

“I didn’t really know too much about protocol in those days and so when I got to St Andrew’s, with my boots in a plastic bag, the security fella asked me what I was doing.

“’I’m here to play football’, I replied. No joy. He wouldn’t let me in.

“I then had to wait outside for half an hour until the team coach arrived and Jim Barron (Wolves assistant manager) confirmed who I was, and I played in the game which finished nil-nil.

“Football was very different back then!”

A similar fate befell Buckland on his second away game, on this occasion at Aston Villa.

Again, he made his own way there, and in this occasion a young local approached him after parking up to say he would look after his car.

“I remember Mark Walters coming off the bench early on in that game and doing stuff with the ball which Cristiano Ronaldo could only dream of,” Buckland adds.

“I got back to my car afterwards and the young lad was still there guarding the car, so I gave him all my loose change.

“’Brilliant,’ he said. You can come back next week’.

“’Not a chance,’ I replied. ‘You’ve just done us 4-0.”

Football was indeed a very different game some four decades ago, with nowhere near the level of trappings and relative luxuries experienced by today’s players.

But it was probably even easier for Buckland to stay low key and grounded given he had certainly put the hard graft in during his formative years. He actually moved to Wolves, in February 1984, from AP Leamington in non-league.

He had first joined hometown club Cheltenham – also then in non-league – as a 14-year-old, progressing through the ranks with youth team and reserves to sign a contract at 18.

After a couple of seasons where first team options were limited, Buckland made the move to Leamington to play under manager Graham Allner, who would have a strong influence on his career.

Initially it was to turn him from a centre forward into an attacking full back, quite a niche role in those days, but it worked. And Buckland was part of a Leamington side that won both league and cup in one season and progressed to the first round of the FA Cup and a narrow 1-0 defeat against Gillingham.

And then, for Buckland, the Wolves came howling.

“I got invited to a behind-closed-doors trial game against Burnley and, to be honest, I wasn’t going to go,” he admits.

“When I’d been at Cheltenham, I’d had a trial at Bristol Rovers and I also went to Arsenal a few times but, because nothing had come of it, I had been happy enough to just stay where I was and try and get in the team.

“But the lads I was working with as a scaffolder told me I shouldn’t miss the chance so I off I went to Wolves.

“I turned up and was sent down to the dressing room where there were about 40 players in there, until the reserves were told to head off to Castlecroft.

“I was told to stay where I was because John Humphrey was injured, and I got changed and started looking around the dressing room and saw all these players that I had watched on the telly!

“We went out on the pitch and I was at right back, and I remember getting the ball and running forward.