Five...late Wolves sickeners
Last week Five... looked at the dizzying highs of late Wolves goals - now for the gut-wrenching lows.
Wolves fans are made of strong stuff. Battle-hardened, they are seasoned veterans when it comes to pain, misery and underachievement
Decades of disappointment to those raised on tales of Wolves being the finest team in the country in the 1950s - or indeed for those seniors who watched it firsthand - have made them experts in heartache and self-deprecation.
And nothing in football hurts more than a late goal for the opposition. Especially when, as in most of these examples, the consequences are catastrophic.
There's no coming back from a late goal. Just like when (SPOILER ALERT) Pussy gets whacked in The Sopranos, the realisation that it's over hits you immediately, you want to turn back the clock but you can't - your heart goes through the floor and the emotion is overpowering.
But for Wolves fans the sorrow only makes the admittedly-rare highs just that bit more momentous.
So get comfortable on the psychiatrist's chair, have the Valium on standby and prepare to dig deep into your soul to regurgitate memories you tried to banish forever.
1. Shaun Wright-Phillips, Manchester City 3 Wolves 3, 2004
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This was the pits. The word sickener was invented for this goal. Do we really have to do this? Okay, deep breath, here goes.
Wolves were fighting for their Premier League lives in April 2004.
After being stitched up good and proper by being handed a bag of gold coins and some fake magic beans with which to build a Premier League side, Dave Jones was trying to eek every last bit of quality from his team to stay up in a race that included Leeds, Leicester, Blackburn and Manchester City.
Yes, Manchester City, in a Premier League relegation battle. Hard to imagine now but the City that Wolves faced in 2004 were pretty rubbish.
And with seven games to go Wolves had a slim chance of finishing above them and avoiding the drop against all odds.
They travelled to Eastlands though with three big problems - A) they'd just lost four on the spin, B) they hadn't won away all season and C) City were rubbish, but Wolves were even worse.
Jones sprang a surprise in his team sheet with the inclusion of erstwhile Lord Lucan-esque mystery man Isaac Okoronkwo, a defender who joined to great fanfare but had yet to make his league debut, nine months after being signed.
The fact he hadn't featured in a defence leakier than a leek with a big hole in it was made all the more puzzling when Okoronkwo reproduced something like his world-beating Championship Manager 01/02 form against City and started every game thereafter for the rest of the season.
And perhaps inspired by the presence of a man who'd won five Champions League medals (in Five...'s virtual world, clearly, not real life), Wolves raced into a stunning two-goal lead thanks to City old boy Mark Kennedy and Carl Cort.
The hosts levelled things up before half time but Wolves were a team revitalised and even Colin Cameron's penalty being saved by David James couldn't hold them back.
With 12 minutes to go Henri Camara scored his third in three games and as the clocked reached 90 it seems Wolves were set for their first top flight away win for the best part of two decades.
But no, of course not. In the 94th minute of 94 minutes a corner fell to Wright-Phillips who drilled through a crowd of players into the corner.
Proper heartache.
Two days later Uriah Rennie awarded Bolton three points at Molineux and then three games later relegation was confirmed.
City stayed up and would soon be spending more money than any other team in world football.
It could (couldn't) have been Wolves...
2. Park Ji-Sung, Manchester United 2 Wolves 1, 2010
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The Korean commentators on the clip of this goal most certainly are not Wolves fans.
Anyone of Korean descent please translate their excitable spiel and if they're not saying "Stephen Ward's got to be doing better there" then they are not of a gold and black persuasion.
A pretty simple one this - plucky Wolves are holding the soon-to-be champions at Old Trafford.
Manchester United would win 18 of their 19 home games and reach the Champions League final.
But Wolves were level on merit with former United youth player Sylvan Ebanks-Blake scoring a memorable equaliser and sending a couple of thousand away fans into a meltdown of pure joy.
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Come Fergie Time and it was proper backs-to-the-wall stuff. Mick McCarthy was in his element, wildly celebrating a Karl Henry sliding tackle on Gabriel Obertan (which denied the Frenchman a certain goal) as if Wolves had scored a late winner.
Then came the pain.
Wolves had a nasty habit of conceding late goals around this time.
A few months earlier Nicklas Bendtner scored in the 94th minute to give Arsenal the latest of 1-0 wins.
Emile Heskey and Moussa Dembele had done something similar for Aston Villa and Fulham in the weeks before the Old Trafford visit, while later in the season Carlos Vela salvaged a cruel point for the Baggies at the Hawthorns.
On this occasion Steven Fletcher carelessly gave the ball away, United worked the ball to Park Ji-Sung who cut inside Ward and finished into the corner past a helpless Marcus Hahnemann.
In the long-term scheme of things it didn't matter a great deal - Wolves stayed up, just.
But on that cold Manchester afternoon it felt like the world had ended.
3. Jostein Flo, Sheffield United 3 Wolves 3, 1995
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What a season this was.
A remarkable campaign in which Wolves used dozens of players, scored more goals than any other team, but also conceded more than most.
There were thrilling victories, a fantastic FA Cup run, heroes galore (Steve Bull, David Kelly, Don Goodman, John De Wolf) and a genuine belief that a Premier League place was Wolves' for the taking.
A horrendous run of crippling long-term injuries, though, badly hampered Wolves' promotion charge, with Tony Daley, Geoff Thomas, Steve Froggatt and De Wolf all laid low by the time Graham Taylor's team travelled to Bramall Lane in April.
Late equalisers and winners were Wolves' forte that season and earlier they had completed the most astonishing of late comebacks against Sheffield United, scoring twice in injury time to claim an improbable 2-2 draw.
United were out for revenge - and they got it.
Goals from Goodman, Bull and Kelly (assisted by Dean Richards, Mark 'Shabba' Rankine and Mark Venus...ah, memories) had Wolves 3-2 up at what was a crucial time of the season.
But Jostein Flo, the forgotten man of the fearless Flo triumvirate (brother Tore Andre once cost Rangers £10m and cousin Havard scored for Wolves against Arsenal in the cup and....well that was it) had other ideas, and stooped to nod a cross past Mike Stowell in the final seconds.
It was a bitter blow from which Wolves never recovered - they drew their final three games (against Grimsby, Tranmere and Swindon...oh, Wolves), whereas if they'd beaten United and won those last three they'd have been champions.
Instead it was the play-offs against Bolton. And we don't like to talk about that.
4. Martin Chivers, Wolves 1 Tottenham Hostpur 2, 1972
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Wolves haven't really won much in the past 55 years.
A couple of League Cups, some promotions here and there and the old Sherpa Van Trophy.
But nothing major, you know, like a league title. Or a European trophy.
They could have done, though, if it wasn't for Martin Chivers.
Wolves hosted Spurs in the Uefa Cup final (or as David Coleman pronounced it, the Yoofa Cup), which was a two-legged affair starting at Molineux.
They should have taken a lead to White Hart Lane, but Chivers denied them.
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Danny Hegan, in the form of his life, nearly scored from the halfway line with a fantastic effort in the first half, but Wolves fell behind against the run of play when Chivers nodded past Phil Parkes, who was caught neither here nor there from a deep free kick.
But Wolves rallied and a quickly-taken Hegan free kick resulted in the equaliser from captain Jim McCalliog, whose shot found its way through Pat Jennings' legs.
That should have been the cue for a deserved win but try as they might Wolves couldn't edge ahead, with Derek Dougan drilling one agonisingly wide.
Still, 1-1 wasn't the worst result, and would keep Wolves well in the tie.
Step forward Chivers who, two minutes from time, let fly from 25 yards with a ferocious shot that was too hot for Parkes.
"Chivers' sheer enterprise has swung this match", said Coleman. Indeed it had. And the tie.
Wolves fell behind in the second leg and despite a fine Dave Wagstaffe equaliser they couldn't turn the final on its head.
Some 43 years later and Wolves' prospects of another European final are more remote than ever.
5. Dougie Freedman, Crystal Palace 3 Wolves 1, 1997
Wolves' pursuit of Premier League football became a farce in the 1990s.
The big-spending Sir Jack years yielded only disappointment after disappointment as Wolves spent 1989 to 2003 in a perpetual state of underachievement.
In 1997 things were no different. But a fairly ordinary Wolves side arguably punched above its weight by launching a promotion charge under Mark McGhee.
Largely thanks to 23 goals from Steve Bull in his last great Wolves season, they pushed for a top-two spot but were pipped at the post. By Barnsley.
The play-offs offered redemption but, just as two years earlier against Bolton, they brought only the cruelest of heartaches.
McGhee's side took on Crystal Palace but in the first leg at Selhurst Park produced an insipid performance.
They fell 1-0 behind in the 67th minute, but struggled to respond.
As David Instone wrote in this publication: "They knew a 1-0 defeat would barely have been satisfactory yet, with their main play-maker Simon Osborn clearly not fit, they once again lacked the creativity to produce scoring chance."
It looked like curtains just a minute from time when future Wolves striker Dougie Freedman scored a screamer - a 25-yard volley past Mike Stowell.
But from absolutely nowhere right-back Jamie Smith immediately replied, scoring his first ever senior goal to offer Wolves a salvageable scoreline in the days where away goals counted double.
With the Wolves fans still celebrating though Palace scored a gut-wrenching third in what was a manic three minutes.
Freedman beat Wolves' flimsy offside trap and lobbed over Stowell to leave them 3-1 behind needing a big turnaround at Molineux.
It didn't happen - they won 2-1 in the return leg but Freedman's last-gasp goal in the first game was the deciding one.
