"A larger than life character with a huge heart" - Wolves legends remember Terry Wharton

Those that were there will never forget it.

It was billed as a night of tribute to Phil Parkes. Organised by Steve Plant and Steve Saul, under the banner of ‘They Wore Shirt’, another evening to mark the contribution of a Wolves icon to the history of the club.

Bruce Grobbelaar was the guest of honour, and then, two by two, Parkes’ former team-mates and Wolves pals headed on stage to share stories and pay their respects to the goalkeeping legend.  

Then came Terry Wharton and Jim McCalliog.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Wharton, as he took a microphone from Saul.

You would never have known.  

About 10 or 15 minutes later, perhaps even 20, Wharton was still going. In full flow. A stream of memories about Lofty accompanied by hilarious anecdotes and one-liners had the packed Hayward Suite eating out of the palm of his hand. His fellow Boltonian Peter Kay wouldn’t have been any funnier. Parkes, such a close pal of Wharton, who used to affectionately call him ‘Dad’, loved it.  And it is still talked about, more than four years later.

A few weeks afterwards, I interviewed Wharton and asked him about his ‘performance’! 

“Normally these things are a question and answer session – so when 'Sauly' asked me to stand there and just say a few words about Lofty, I wasn’t too sure,” he replied. “I told him I’d think of summat to say, but once I got going, everything just came into my brain, and they couldn’t get me off the stage.

“I felt sorry for Jimmy McCalliog who was stood there waiting for his turn, I was going to ask him if he was a bloke waiting for my autograph!”

There are so many stories like that about Terry Wharton. Because not only was he a fantastic footballer, but he was also a brilliant personality.

His recent passing following a short illness at the age of 83 signals not only another painful loss of a true Wolves great. And true gent.

It also leaves a sizeable gap at the former player functions at which he was such a regular and majestically entertaining presence.

“It's probably in the last 10 years or so that I've really got to know Terry,” says Wolves legend and vice-president John Richards, who is also chairman of the Former Players’ Association (FPA). "He has been a fantastic supporter of the association; one of the first to volunteer whenever we were helping out with local charities and community groups.

“A great talker and entertainer, he always had a story to tell – give him a microphone and he was in his element.

“Terry was a larger than life character with a huge heart. He'll be a big loss, and I know our regular get-togethers won't be the same without him.”

As described by Richards, Wharton would hold court at former player gatherings and was such a hugely popular figure. In recent years, the likes of Parkes and Gerry Taylor were the only others present who he had actually played with, but even for those slightly younger, the relationships were built with both respect and incredible good humour.

“I knew of Terry well before I met him,” Richards continues. “He'd left the club the year before I joined Wolves, but I'd heard tales of this tenacious little right winger from his former playing pals such as Mike Bailey and Dave Wagstaffe.

“He was highly rated by them, as a top-class player and a great penalty taker.”

And so say all of his friends and team-mates. Wharton actually followed in the footsteps of his father Jacky in becoming a professional footballer.

Arriving at Wolves at the age of 16-and-a-half after a year at Notts County as an amateur, he would go on to make 242 appearances across six years as a first-team regular at Molineux, scoring 79 goals.

Operating on the right, initially a wing partner of Alan Hinton, he would later double up with Dave Wagstaffe, and also played in the same team as the legendary Peters, Broadbent and Knowles.

“When I was maybe 10 or 11, going down the Molineux, I was weaned on number seven, Wharton, number 11, Wagstaffe,” says Gerry O’Hara, who later followed Wharton in playing for Wolves before becoming a good friend. “And then later, after Wolves when I played for Bilston, I actually got the opportunity to play with Terry at the end of our careers which was fantastic.

“Not only that, when he was manager of Brewood and Wednesfield Social I was one of his players and that was brilliant as well. As a manager, he was exactly the same as he was as a bloke – he treated you like an adult, and he was great and infectious company.”

‘For Terry Wharton, a smart turn to the right!’ read the headline in the Express & Star ahead of his debut against Alf Ramsey’s Ipswich Town at Molineux.  Hinton, at 19, was on the left with Wharton, at 18, on the right. Both found the net in a 2-0 win, prompting a Monday headline of ‘Thank Heaven for Wolves’ ‘Little Boys’!’

For Richard Green, administration manager of Wolves’ FPA, his memories of watching Wharton as a fan include recollections of his deadly prowess from the penalty spot: “When I was a kid, we’d all go along to the training ground at Castlecroft, watch the lads train and then go into the nearby field and try to be Terry Wharton, or try to be Waggy, or try to be the Doog.

“I always remember the two consecutive years in the Sixties when we played Manchester United in the FA Cup.

“The United team featured the Holy Trinity, Best, Charlton and Law, and in the one game we got a penalty a couple of minutes in.

“I was a young lad, up in the wooden corner of the North Bank, and I remember Terry stepping up, ball on the spot, no messing, run up and bang, into the back of the net.

“And then a few minutes later it happened again, and up stepped Terry, no interrupted run-up or sidestepping like today, straight up to the ball and straight into the back of the net.

“The only disappointment was that we went 2-0 up thanks to those penalties, but ended up losing 4-2!

“But those memories of watching Wolves in the Sixties and Seventies are still so vivid for me, and then getting to meet the likes of Terry in later years – it was just an incredible experience.”

Wharton’s excellence from the spot was one of the many highlights of an overall decade spent at Molineux which did include a relegation, but also a promotion back two years later.

Another came on March 16, 1963, when he became only the third Wolves player to notch a hat trick in a Black Country Derby in a 7-0 thrashing of Albion.

‘The Wolves Really Rubbed It In’ was the headline of Phil Morgan’s match report on that occasion, as Wharton grabbed his treble in the final 21 minutes of the game.

Having said that, off the back of being Billy Wright’s bootboy in his earlier years, Wharton’s association with another legend, the boss Stan Cullis, saw the manager call him in after the hat-trick to tell him that the chances were so easy that he would have scored them. Right out of the motivational playbook!

Wharton’s playing career continued after departing Wolves with stints at Bolton and Crystal Palace, a spell in South Africa with Durban City, and then brief stays at Walsall and Kidderminster Harriers before dropping into non-league, both playing and managing at clubs including Darlaston Town.

Alongside non-league football came new employment away from the game, but having stayed in the local area, he worked for 11 years as a progress chaser at Lucas Aerospace, and approximately 20 driving for Central Taxis.

And that is where, almost in the second chapter of Wharton’s Wolves association, he became such an integral part of former player activities.

With wife Sue, he was a regular at the annual dinner and other similar functions. The FPA’s Golf Day organised by Steve Daley was another key date in Wharton’s calendar, along with the social lunches planned by Richards at The Fox at Shipley.

Former Wolves defender Colin Brazier was a regular chauffeur for Wharton to some of these events, and, more recently, O’Hara would take him to see Parkes, following his great pal’s serious accident in the early part of last year.

On one visit to hospital, Mel Eves, another to have watched his fellow forward from the terraces before then playing alongside him for Wolves All Stars, recalls Wharton taking the wheelchair situated by Parkes’ bed for a spin around the ward.  

“That visit was just wonderful, seeing how much Wharty lifted the big man’s spirits,” says Eves, who actually played against Wharton when both enjoyed a spot of club cricket after hanging up their boots, once having the audacity to club him for six!

Eves and Wharton were also in the same fourball at the golf day in recent years, on one occasion prompting the need for a search party after they were still out on the course when everyone else had sat down for dinner.

“I have no idea what happened with that, I think it was a nice day and we were just enjoying ourselves out on the course,” says Eves. "He was just such great company, wasn’t he?”

And then at The Fox, lunches were punctuated by ‘War of the Roses’ style verbal jousting between Lancastrian Wharton and Yorkshireman Steve Daley, the latter once setting up a highchair to greet his regular adversary when he arrived a few minutes late.

Wharton was among the stars of the LA Wolves documentary produced by Wolves to mark the post-season tour of America in 1967, and Daley was on hand at the premiere at the Arena Theatre when he noticed Wharton looking a tad miffed.

“I asked him what the matter was, and he said they were showing some clips on a loop which showed him missing a penalty,” says Daley. “By the end of the night he reckoned he’d missed it 27 times.”

So many memories of Wharton’s career both as a player and a person. And, thankfully, memories which most certainly won’t be forgotten, as they are going to be immortalised in print.

Former Express & Star Wolves correspondent Tim Nash, whose late father actually employed Wharton at Lucas, was keen to fill a gap in the club’s literary history by giving one of the stars of the Sixties the sort of platform which has been given to those of the Fifties and Seventies.

For two-and-a-half years, he has been working with Wharton on his autobiography – ‘Terry’s All Gold’ – which included weekly Saturday morning visits to Terry and Sue’s house in Brewood.

“Terry would always rise from his armchair, glasses by his side, invariably wearing a smart golfing sweater or t-shirt, and greet me with a warm handshake,” says Nash. “The TV would be tuned into a sports channel – football, cricket or rugby – but on mute, and Sue would make us a drink and leave some biscuits before heading out to walk their 13-year-old Shih Tzu, Charlie.

“During the course of our chat I would eat most of the biscuits, which became a standing joke with Terry saying I was ‘only there for the biccies’.

“Our meetings were never rushed and could be an hour or two long, but the time always flew by.

“It always felt like our protected time and that I never outstayed my welcome, although after one lengthier session Terry did ask if I wanted to join him for his afternoon nip of scotch!

“And if I ever needed a reminder of his enduring popularity, it was never far away.

“Whether it was London Wolves ringing to see if he was free for a meeting or function, or a Wolves supporter, friend, family member or neighbour passing by and stopping for a chat, Terry was in demand.  And he loved it!

“He possessed that wonderful quality of being interested in other people, and was always ready with a question or two to welcome them.”

Nash took Wharton – resplendent in Wolves suit and tie – to a ‘Swinging Sixties’ talk hosted by club historian Peter Crump at the Museum in November, and a week or so later he was back with wife Sue as the special guest of the Molineux Memories session run by Wolves Foundation.

Wharton was, as ever, brilliant company as he took part in an online Q&A with a group for people with dementia run by Stockport County, one which has been attended by his former Wolves room-mate Freddie Goodwin.  A few weeks later, those two events feel even more special and poignant.

Wharton’s funeral takes place tomorrow, and it is often said, that if you asked everyone present at the ceremony to say a few words about the person who has passed, what a tribute that would be.

With Wharton, those tributes are always so similar and so heartfelt.

“Such a genuine, down-to-earth guy, who could tell a great story and hold a room,” says O’Hara.

“The lads had so much respect for Terry and he was always the life and soul of the party,” adds Eves.

“Terry had an aura,” says Green. “When he was around, you always knew something was going to happen.”

“He loved Wolves and Wolves loved him,” concludes Nash.  “I shall miss him dearly.”

And everyone will miss him. Of course, mostly his beloved wife Sue, children Darren and Joanne and the grandchildren. But future former player gatherings will bring with them an almost seismic gap, thanks to the absence of someone who was small in stature but so big in personality and in humour. He would light up the room.

There will always be so many words to describe the life of a footballer and personality who positively impacted so many others not only by his performances on the pitch, but in being such a warm and endearing presence both to his former team-mates and the community in general long after hanging up his boots.

But perhaps the most succinct summary was provided by Daley in the former players’ WhatsApp group not long after the sad news broke nearly a fortnight ago.

“Tel was fantastic company and saw the funny side in everything,” he wrote. “He was everybody’s friend.”

- Terry’s funeral will take place at 12.30pm on Friday, January 16, at 12.30pm in the East Chapel at Bushbury Crematorium. All are welcome at the wake at Fordhouses Cricket Club.

- ‘Terry’s All Gold’, written by Tim Nash, is to be completed and published at some point this year at the request of his wife Sue. Sincere condolences to all the Wharton family following their sad loss.