Wolves blogger Nathan Lloyd felt something more inspiring than football after listening to the never-ending determination of Geoff Thomas’ second shot at life.

When I popped over to Vienna last November, I dropped in to watch Stefan Maierhofer’s former club Rapid Vienna on the training ground.

Whilst there I had a chat with a young player, Christian Thonhofer, who is good friends with Stefan and asked me how I thought he was settling in at Wolves.

If I met Christian today, I would probably give him the same diplomatic answer as I gave him back then. I told him that we’d only seen glimpses of him, and I’m sure that he’s probably frustrated at his lack of first-team opportunities.

Christian told me he had spoken to Stefan after we had lost at home to Birmingham and the Hoff had expressed how disappointed – or let’s just say it was a slightly stronger term than disappointed – that he didn’t feature in a game where the ball was being endlessly lumped into the box.

So this week’s news that Maierhofer had allegedly felt that Wolves were taking the mickey out of him shouldn’t really surprise anybody.

Even if his comments have been slightly misinterpreted, of course he is going to be unhappy at not playing, who wouldn’t be?

And when he sees manager Mick McCarthy pick Andy Keogh ahead of him after training for just a couple of days after coming back from long term injury, I’m sure he found that hard to swallow.

Maierhofer got subbed when we played a vastly weakened team at Old Trafford and must feel baffled as to why he hasn’t had a sniff since.

From the little cameo appearances I’ve seen, I don’t know if he is good enough to have a big impact. But surely if the club spends £2million on what was really a panic buy at the end of the summer transfer window, shouldn’t he get a fair crack of the whip?

Now, frustrated and fed up, he finds himself on loan at managerless Bristol City and, if there is an ounce of truth in the statement he made to the press, he has probably written his own transfer request.

My dear mucka Mick doesn’t really take kindly to anybody challenging his methods. Just ask the likes of Roy Keane, Jay Bothroyd, Freddy Eastwood, Michael McIndoe and Denes Rosa what happens when you dare question the great Eagle’s ways.

But if what the Hoff said was reported accurately, wouldn’t it be refreshing for a player to actually come out with an opinion, rather than just media trained sound bites?

How many times do you see a Premier League footballer interviewed on TV after a game and, when asked a probing question, they just answer like a castrated robot?

I loved it when Craig Bellamy recently told the press that “everybody knows what JT is like,” when asked about John Terry’s off the pitch conduct after Manchester City had given Chelsea a proper thumping at Stamford Bridge.

OK, I know that Bellamy’s no moral guardian, just ask his caddy, but it’s a shame that most footballers play it so safe with the media for fear of unwanted attention and flak.

England goalkeeper David James flippantly remarked at the end of one interview that he used to play computer games up to eight hours a day. Although he also commented it was 13 years ago and right at the start of his career, it was reported as if it was a gaming addiction he couldn’t shake off in the present day.

But there is a fine line between having an interesting opinion and saying something so utterly moronic that the player in question just can’t expect the outcome to be a positive one. On that note, what did Albert Riera expect would happen when comparing Liverpool’s season to a sinking ship?

So, you can understand why a player might be slightly guarded with the press, but don’t you just want to stick your boot through the TV sometimes when you see a player string together a bunch of footballing cliches in a post-match interview?

To quote the excellent sportswriter John Nicholson: -

“Cliche hell will be complete one day when there is a player who is a bubbly character, who has good feet for a big man, has got pace to burn, can leap like a salmon and out-strength someone while plowing a lone furrow up front who, at the end of the day, believes there are no easy games in international football, and its the not the performance that matters its the three points.”

Two players who I don’t think will have received much in the way of media training in their playing days are Steve Bull and Geoff Thomas.

Last night I went over to Codsall to see the excellent BBC football commentator, Jacqui Oatley, interview the pair on stage in aid of the Geoff Thomas Foundation.

Former Wolves captain, Geoff Thomas, who Bully quite rightly described as “a top man to be fair”, spoke eloquently about his battle against leukeamia and his continued determination to delivery new pioneering drugs from the scientist’s lab to the patient.

It was touching to hear Geoff talk about the two lives he feels he has had, and is now doing all he can to bang the drum to give more people a better chance of surviving what is still quite a rare blood cancer.

There were stories of his epic Tour De France, which won him a special BBC Sports Personality award in 2005 and of course that miss against France in 1992.

Bully was also on top form, as he recounted stories of Gazza being a flawed genius and a pain in the backside, exactly how he felt when Mark McGhee put him and Robbie Keane on the bench for the FA Cup semi-final, along with how many players he feels Mick needs to sign in the summer if we stay up.

But for once, Bully took second billing behind the inspirational Mr Thomas. It’s fitting that a footballer who was most famous for botching a shot should become famous as an ex-footballer who is making the most of his second shot at life.

If we could take just an ounce of Geoff’s determination into the away trips to Villa and West Ham this coming week, we may well have a fighting chance of a point or two.

We all know that the victory at Turf Moor was slightly fortuitous, but our chances of survival are growing ever stronger, especially as with Hull experiencing a change in management with Phil Brown out and Iain Dowie in this week.

By the time Everton roll into town next week, we could have put a little bit more daylight between us and the bottom three. Daylight? I’m beginning to sound like a post-match Premier League footballer!

Enjoy your weekend. Up the Wolves!

To find out more about Geoff’s charity, please visit www.geoffthomasfoundation.com