When the Wolves goalkeeping master John Burridge re-united with apprentice Tim Flowers

Forty years ago on Sunday, Wolves went to Craven Cottage and beat Fulham 2-1 infront of a crowd of 7,049.

Second half goals from Mark Buckland and Ian Cartwright, who is sadly no longer with us, secured the points after Ray Houghton opened the scoring for the hosts early on. In goal for Wolves that afternoon, under the stewardship of Tommy Docherty, was Tim Flowers. 

Just 17, Flowers was 19 games into a professional career which would eventually lead to a Premier League title with Blackburn, League Cup success with Leicester, 11 senior England caps and a place in the squads for Euro ‘96 and the 1998 World Cup. Quite a collection.   

But life back then, for Wolves and Flowers, who was following in the goalkeeping glove prints of John Burridge, was not quite as successful. 

“Wolves were pretty much on the way to going bust at the time, and had no money,” recalls Flowers. 

“The Doc came in, Budgie (Burridge) moved on, and so we didn’t have many keepers left. 

“I was given my debut at 17 as the last man standing, having been given my pro contract, on the same dough mind you! 

“I probably wasn’t ready and we were a really poor team.   We got relegated, I must have conceded 120 goals, but still got Player of the Season, which probably tells you everything you need to know!” 

That Fulham win was one of just eight mustered by Wolves in the second division that season, as they completed the second of three successive relegations which saw them tumble from topflight to bottom in the blink of an eye. 

What’s more, it would prove another 21 games in all competitions until Wolves would win again, including a scarcely believable run of seven in a row when they didn’t even trouble the scorers. 

What is the opposite of a magnificent seven? “I still remember the day that run came to an end when we finally won again, beatingCarlisle 1-0 at Brunton Park,” adds Flowers. 

“We were dancing around in the middle of the pitch like we’d won the FA Cup! 

“It was embarrassing really, ridiculous given the circumstances, and we’d have been better off just getting back on the bus and getting off home!” 

The young Flowers, whilst admitting his inconsistencies when reflecting on his spell as a Teen Wolf, was producing a level of performance that certainly suggested he was destined for bigger and better things, as was eventually demonstrated. 

But his ‘coming into bloom’ was in no small part thanks to the drive and passion of his successor in the Wolves shirt, and also a previous Player of the Year winner, in Burridge. 

The ever-effervescent Burridge now lives in Oman after a coaching career which has taken him far and wide across different parts of the globe, but the two were reunited last week at an event at the Mount Hotel organised by Wolves fan and memorabilia collector Carl Falconer, which raised an incredible £10,000 for Pancreatic Cancer UK and Birmingham Children’s Hospital. 

Catching up over a pint prior to the formalities of the night of a Q&A with event host Steve Saul, the two quickly transported themselves back over those four decades, to the time Flowers arrived as a fresh-faced apprentice, travelling in from Coventry to learn his trade with Burridge as his mentor. 

From his perspective, even all these years on, he couldn’t have had a better education. 

“I was coming in from Coventry on the train on the Monday, staying in digs for the week and then playing for the youth team at Cosford on a Saturday morning before apprentice duties if the first team were at home,” Flowers explains. 

“I’d then go back to Coventry before coming back to do it all again from the Monday, and I absolutely loved it. 

“On top of that, Budgie would drive me around and take me to watch games, as well as down to training as we’d get changed at Molineux before heading down to Castlecroft, usually an hour before the outfield players. 

“There were no such thing as full-time goalkeeping coaches back then, Jim Barron (Wolves’ assistant manager) would do a few bits with us but to all intents and purposes Budgie oversaw our training. 

“I loved him, he was a proper number one who would help all the young lads out, even with giving us gloves and looking after us when he could. 

“He lived, ate and slept goalkeeping, and was such a good role model, teaching us all so much. 

“I was up and coming in the game, and I couldn’t get away with anything, because I knew if I turned up for training and didn’t give it absolutely everything, he wouldn’t just tell me, he’d frighten me to death! 

“If I did something wrong, he’d stop me and correct me, and 100 per cent, without his impact, I don’t think I would have achieved what I did. 

“But he was ahead of his time in so many respects, doing so many things that only became more regular across football many years later.” 

Ahead of his time’ in Flowers’ eyes was, for many observers at the time, more aligned to descriptions of eccentricity and even craziness.  

“They called me mad, I was never mad,” Burridge chips in. Well, he was a goalkeeper! But the list of behaviours which were linked to his craft included many which did indeed set the standard for the game to follow. 

He was already enlisting the services of a psychologist to support his matchday preparation, including listening to a motivational tape to help ease nerves on the coach en-route to a game. 

Warm-ups weren’t delivered with anything like the structure and scientific detail of what they are nowadays, but Burridge was also pushing the envelope on that score, enraging ground staff up and down the country by practising his kicking and coming for crosses alongside stretching to prepare for kick off. 

On one occasion, he took Flowers to Molineux on the day before a game to retrieve his clearances as he put in some extra practice, only to be chased off the playing surface – with a pitchfork – by legendary Wolves groundsman Bill Pilbeam.  

Like an episode of the Simpsons! If warming up was important so too was warming down. Burridge would often call Flowers the day after a game and the two would head to a local aerobics session, to loosen the muscles followed by a sauna and home to sleep. 

He did weight training even though he was being told it would slow him down. “It made me faster!” 

Diet and nutrition was also massively important to Burridge. Whilst others ate fish and chips, Flowers recalls Burridge keeping steadfastly to far more healthy sustenance.  

Even now, the question of what makes up his regular nourishment isn’t too far removed from when he was at his goalkeeping peak.

 “Egg on toast with fried onions and carrots…sweet potato..broccoli…cauliflower…salmon.” The list goes on. 

Turning 73 in a couple of weeks, he still looks in incredible condition. 

“I did all that stuff not to be different or to catch attention – I did it because it kept me in the best possible shape,” he insists. 

“I’d also go and see Peter Shilton when I could, to pick his brains and to try and get better. 

“If I was ahead of his time then so was Terry Venables during my time at Crystal Palace which came before Wolves, because he was the best coach I ever worked for.” 

There were some incidents, however, which did perhaps lend itself to the 'goalkeepers are mavericks’ theory! 

Wolves fans of a certain generation will always remember him running out to warmup in a Superman costume on the last day of the 1982/83 season against Newcastle, promotion having already been secured. 

He even entered the room at the Mount dressed in a Superman jumper. One for old time’s sake. 

On other occasions he would walk on his hands across the penalty area, after being told not to damage the surface. 

His roommate, usually either Andy Gray or Mel Eves, would be detailed to surprise him by throwing oranges at him to test his reflexes. Testing his agility was sometimes achieved by diving out of the first floor window of his house onto a mattress below, and then there was the time with Palace when, three goals to the good against an impressive Ipswich side, he climbed up to sit astride the crossbar. 

“I just needed things like that to keep my focus, and I was up there just chatting to the fans behind the goal,” he says. 

“Ipswich had a fantastic side at the time and Terry Butcher and Paul Mariner weren’t amused and ended up going for me when we came off the pitch. 

“But I wanted to entertain, football is about entertaining, isn’t it?   It just feels to me like all the characters in the game have gone and it has changed so much.

“Imagine (Jose) Sa running out dressed as superman or hopping up on top of his crossbar – he’d become a superstar, wouldn’t he?” 

“There were two things Budgie always said to me, to make sure I enjoyed playing football and to build up a rapport with the fans,” adds Flowers. 

“He certainly did that, and it was also something that I agreed with having grown up watching so many entertaining characters in the Seventies.” 

Aside from all this of course, Burridge was, like Flowers, an excellent goalkeeper. He may have pursued a more nomadic existence – some 29 clubs in total – but earned deserved success, not just via promotions with Wolves and Palace to the top flight but League Cup victories both in England and Scotland with Aston Villa and Hibernian. 

And in keeping, excuse the pun, with his ability and determination, came an innate fearlessness. He had grown up the hard way, in Workington in Cumbria, in a terrace house with no hot water, no cooker, no inside toilet and certainly no television.  

And could be on the end of some strong and sometimes physical discipline from his father. A story from Flowers relates perfectly how nothing was ever going to scare Burridge after such an upbringing. 

“We were both at Southampton later on, he was first choice and I was in the reserves,” he begins. 

“We had an eleven-vs-eleven in training, with Budgie in goal for the first team and me for the reserves, and we had Alan Shearer as a very young striker on our side.

“A ball was knocked through which Budgie came out to smother and Al jumped over him to avoid him, as you do. 

“Budgie got up and went absolutely mad at him, saying if he was diving at a goalkeeper’s feet, he was expecting to get up with six stud marks in his chest! 

“Well, a year or so later he had moved to Falkirk and we went up there for a friendly, and Al was playing up front again. 

“Another through ball went over the top, and this time Al went in for the challenge and went right through him. 

“Budgie was in a right mess and ended up needing some stitches in his head, but he jumped straight up and screamed at Al, ‘that’s more like it – that’s what I’m talking about’!” 

They broke the mould with Burridge for sure.  And the Q&A following our interview featured so many more incredible stories and forthright opinions.  

It’s a good job it was past the watershed. It’s fair to say Burridge is not a fan of many aspects of the modern game, especially the playing out from the back which goes against his old philosophy of getting the ball forward and into dangerous areas as quickly as possible.

With no small amount of venom in his voice, he asks: “How many times have you seen the goalkeeper play it to his centre back and then pass it around and move it forward all the way to scoring a goal?

“One in a hundred maybe? But think how many goals are given away by defenders messing around with it and putting themselves under pressure. Loads.” 

Burridge did go into coaching after he retired, with several postings in the Far East, including discovering and working with Ali Al-Habsi, who went to become a success in the Premier League with Bolton and Wigan. 

Flowers, too, headed into coaching and managing, including a spell as goalkeeping coach with Saturday’s opponents Fulham, and is currently in charge at Alvechurch after moving from Redditch United at the weekend. 

Two very different personalities but harbouring very similar fond experiences of their spells at Molineux, at very different stages of their careers, with Burridge chalking up 81 appearances and Flowers, 72. 

For Flowers, now 57, footballing life on the playing front would actually come full circle, when he rounded off his career – to a standing ovation – as a late substitute for already promoted Leicester at Molineux on the final day of the 2002/03 season, just before Wolves went on to win the play-offs. 

“Micky Adams was the manager, and he knew I was about to pack in because of an issue with my hip, and I’ve actually had both of them replaced since,” he reveals. 

“It was a dead rubber with how things were in the league, so he told me I’d get a few minutes at the end of the game. 

“I came on for the last few minutes, and got an unreal reception from the Wolves fans and the Leicester fans - it was a special moment, and I was nearly in tears if I’m honest. 

“To have finished my career at the same place I started it some 20 years earlier was brilliant and made it a perfect ending.” 

Burridge admits he has taken great pride in Flowers’ progression and all the achievements he enjoyed, having played such a key part from the beginning. 

“He was my boy,” he says, with an almost fatherly satisfaction there for all to see. But as ever, when it comes to this conversation, and indeed the night at the Mount, Burridge is always going to have the last word. 

“I’ll tell you something,” he begins.

“I’d gone on to Southampton, and the manager Chris Nicholl asked me what I thought about the lad Flowers at Wolves, as he was thinking of signing him. 

“’Do it’, I replied. ‘He’s top class’. “They got the deal done, Tim came to Southampton, and then the ******* only went and took my place in the team!”