The Wolves season opener that unearthed future stars and a maverick goalscorer 25 years ago

It’s always an eagerly anticipated occasion, but few opening days can match the drama of 25 years ago, which also launched a hugely successful Wolves and England career. Paul Berry looks back.

The first game of any season always feels that little bit special. Especially when it’s on home soil. New beginnings, new hopes, new ambitions. Fans sporting freshly pressed replica shirts. Returning to regular pre-match haunts to catch up with old friends after a few months out to close-season pasture.  

‘Here we go again,’ they will say.  ‘What do you reckon this season? What do you think of the new signings? Can’t believe we put ourselves through it.’

This will, of course, always be THE year.  Optimism is usually never higher than before the first shrill of referees’ whistle and gentle kick of the football.  Even with the levels of mass hysteria that may have been chucked around on social media in the weeks leading up.

And the sun is always shining. Always.

Then, 13 seconds in, the opposition goalkeeper gets sent off.  Bonus! Your maverick new signing puts you in front. Bigger bonus. This is what it’s all about. We’re going all the way.

Unfortunately, though, you don’t add to the advantage.  Eleven minutes from time, the visitors equalise. Pin, well and truly bursting bubble.  The game finishes 1-1, despite over an hour-and-a-half of numerical superiority. 

‘Same old, same old,’ as the fans leave the stadium. ‘It’s gonna be a long nine months.’

Rewind to Wolves in the year 2000. Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown. No need for the Pulp reference, but it was Wolves against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day. Twenty five years ago next Wednesday. With Wolves, back in their historic old gold kit colours made famous in the all-conquering 1950s.

It may only have been a 1-1 draw in a season in which Wolves finished 12th, extending the seemingly inescapable second tier purgatory into its 12th year. Things would get a bit livelier over the following couple, mind you. From the ridiculous to the sublime in 2001/02 and 2002/03.

But there were many different subplots surrounding that Owls’ curtain-raiser a quarter of a century ago.  Including a couple of debuts for a future star and that maverick goalscorer.

None however could be as entertaining as the day enjoyed by Matt Murray. Why always Murray?!  

At this point, he was 19 years old.  A couple of months later he would enjoy his first loan action in non-league with Kingstonian.  A couple of years later he would be part of the Wolves team which finally overcame that top-flight hiatus and stormed to play-off glory at the Millennium.

On this occasion however, on the opening day of 2000/01, he wasn’t expecting to be anywhere near anything remotely important.

Michael Oakes was Wolves’ first choice goalkeeper at the time, but Mike Stowell, his back-up, was injured.

Former Swindon keeper Frank Talia had come in on loan, and was due to be named on the bench, until, on matchday, a researcher from Sky Sports helpfully informed the club that he had a one-game suspension to serve having been sent off on the final day of the previous season.

“I was over in ASDA, getting my egg mayonnaise baguette, when I got a phone call to say someone had recognised that Frank was actually suspended and couldn’t be on the bench,” Murray recalls.

“I had to head straight back from ASDA to the stadium and go out and do the warm-up before sitting on the bench – I was all over the place!”

So, a spot of pre-match and pre-baguette drama for Wolves’ rising goalkeeping star.  But, as alluded to above, 25 years ago next week was very much a tale of two debutants.  A goalscorer, whose most impressive days were perhaps behind him, and a teenage defender, just launching what would turn into a stellar career.

Let’s start with the goalscorer.  Temuri Ketsbaia.

The enigmatic talent from Georgia had already made his name in England thanks to a lively spell at Newcastle, marked with some direct running, fierce shooting and kicking hell out of the advertising hoardings in frustration after scoring a last minute winner against Bolton.

Incredibly, Colin Lee had scouted Ketsbaia when working as Mark McGhee’s assistant at Wolves prior to that Newcastle move, and talks had been held only for the deal to fail to get over the line.

Three-and-a-half years later, with Lee now in the managerial hotseat, he finally got his man, for £900,000, although such were the vagaries of work permits back then that Ketsbaia had to leave the country and come back in – taking a day trip to Paris – to get the appropriate stamp on his passport to be eligible to make his debut.

There was, however, sufficient time for some specific set piece work in training, particularly on the free kick that saw Ketsbaia put Wolves in front just 18 minutes into his debut.

An intricate routine involving Simon Osborn and Lee Naylor saw the ball worked to Ketsbaia to emphatically fire home from just outside the penalty area.  Murray had been the goalkeeper when they had worked on the set piece.  “The power he produced with his strike was a joke,” was his ever-honest assessment.

Ketsbaia smashed in another free kick not long afterwards, only to see it disallowed as referee Mark Halsey had already blown up for encroachment.

And Halsey and Ketsbaia had already served as the key protagonists in a record-breaking incident after just 13 seconds, which saw Owls keeper Kevin Pressman become the quickest sending-off in English history at the time, beating the previous landmark by a clear six seconds.

Pressman, six-and-a-half years after thumping a penalty into the top corner in the memorable FA Cup shootout at the other end of the pitch, handled an attempted shot from Ketsbaia outside the area, albeit unintentionally.

Despite boasting the extra man for so long, and indeed getting a goal in front, the sense of frustration which epitomised so many of those Championship years reared its head when Andy Booth, a previous transfer target who had been at Wolves for talks a month earlier, notched a clinical 79th minute equaliser.

And so, 17-year-old Wednesday youth team keeper Chris Stringer, brought on after Pressman’s early demise, was able to enjoy a happy celebration as his team walked away with a point.

But let’s get back to Wolves’ own 17-year-old debutant as mentioned previously. A debutant who would go on to make 235 appearances in the heart of the Wolves’ defence, play 26 times for England including at a European Championship Finals, and later coach his country at both Under-21 and senior levels.

Yes, the opening day fixture with Sheffield Wednesday 25 years ago launched the highly successful career of Joleon Lescott.

This was his senior league debut, but he was already known to Wolves fans, having come off the bench at just 16 and looked very much home in a friendly against Liverpool – Robbie Fowler, Karl- Heinz Riedle and all – 12 months earlier.

Lescott’s very existence at Wolves, just like others such as Murray, Naylor, Robbie Keane and Morgan Gibbs-White, was down to what could probably be termed ‘good old fashioned scouting’.

Les Green, who spent 23 years patrolling touchlines to find hidden gems for the team he supported as a boy, was a relentlessly ambitious scout who was always reluctant to take any credit for those who went on to build their careers.  To him, that was their doing.

At the same time, he was - and indeed still is now - understandably so proud of those spotted, not just by himself but the other network of Wolves scouts at the time, who have gone on to achieve success.

He still has his very first scouting report on Lescott, who was playing for Greenborne Harriers Under-13s against Penn Colts in September 1994 at Old Wulfrunians.  

‘Tall’ and ‘well proportioned’ were the adjectives employed by Green under the ‘build’ category of the report on Lescott, then playing in central midfield.

He may only have been 12 years and a month old, but Lescott’s talent was immediately spotted by Green, who was taking in the game after popping out for a sandwich.

‘Naturally two-footed strong player with genuine potential,’ he wrote, before revealing that a conversation with Lescott’s parents had revealed that he was more interested in playing football for enjoyment, and had shunned the prospect of playing for the district as a result.

That conversation, well - that was because of aforementioned good scouting, as just a couple of weeks earlier, Green, in the early stages of his Wolves career, had been dispatched to scout Lescott’s older brother Aaron, playing for West Midlands Schools Under-16s against Manchester at Radcliffe Borough.

It was because of that visit that he was then recognised by Lescott’s parents a fortnight later, who then started enquiring about Wolves Centre of Excellence, including coaches Robert Kelly and Sean Kimberley, who had impressed them when working with Aaron at Aston Villa’s Academy.

And so, Lescott was signed and registered at Wolves, where he was converted into a left-sided centre back, before deciding to return more to playing just for enjoyment, albeit with his district of King’s Norton & South Birmingham.

Although then drifting away from club football, Lescott’s registration at Molineux was kept by Academy director Chris Evans, and so, when he turned up a couple of years later playing for Derby, Evans was able to make his move and convince him to return to Wolves.

The rest, certainly beginning with that debut day against Sheffield Wednesday, is history.

For the man himself, even then as a teenager, he took everything in his stride.

“I remember that Colin Lee read the team out on the Friday before the game and my name was called,” he recalls.

“I think the other lads were more excited than I was to be fair, with high fives and so on from the more experienced players like Neil Emblen and Steve Sedgley.

“I then prepared just in the same way as I would for any game – it was the days before pre-activation so I got to the changing rooms and got into my full kit straightaway.

“Kevin Pressman getting sent off so early definitely helped, playing against ten men always makes it a bit easier and those were the days of 4-4-2 so they took a centre forward off to bring on a goalie.

“’Kets’ got our goal, and I remember clearing one off the line which made me feel like I had contributed in some capacity.

“As a defender, if you don’t manage to score a goal then clearing one off the line is nice.

“We didn’t manage to win the game, but all in all, making my debut at a young age, it was an all-round positive experience.”

Positive, too, for the watching Green, who recalls Lescott initially getting too tight on the Wednesday centre forward before quickly learning to step off, earning time to make a challenge or deal with the flick-on should it arrive.

“Just like watching games involving my good mate Gary Pierce, it was always fraught watching your players in the first team,” explains Green, who has also seen others he scouted such as Mark Davies, Elliott Bennett and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing go on to reach the Premier League, and Danny Batth captain Wolves to promotion.

“Joleon did incredibly well and was also fortunate to have John Ward and Terry Connor as coaches, and to play alongside Paul Butler.

“And the most important qualities are mentality, desire, work ethic, love of the game and the ability to take on information.

“From a scouting point of view, we had several excellent hard-working scouts who never dropped on a player who went to the top.

“We all like to be useful, and it is rewarding to know that you impacted players’ lives – that is where I get my satisfaction.”

So, what happened next? How did life develop for the main protagonists from a dramatic opening day?

Pressman stayed with Wednesday for another four years, amassing a total of 478 club appearances and becoming an Owls legend.

Ketsbaia’s stay at Wolves was slightly shorter, a year to be precise, scoring four goals in 29 games with his ‘advertising hoardings moment’ coming when ripping off his shirt and throwing it to the floor after being substituted by Dave Jones at Crystal Palace.

Jones had taken over from Lee midway through the season, and would ultimately, with Lescott as his number five, lead Wolves to the Premier League via the magical route of a play-off final victory at the Millennium Stadium.

Sadly, injury ruled Lescott out of the entire ill-fated top flight campaign, but he returned to play 41 and 46 league games respectively as he blossomed under Glenn Hoddle.

There are many different ways to leave a football club – good, bad and indifferent – and Lescott went about things the right way, signing a new contract with a gentleman’s agreement with Wolves CEO Jez Moxey that he could leave if the club failed to win promotion.

So it was that he joined Everton for £5million shortly before Mick McCarthy checked in at Wolves, from where he went on to become a Premier League winner with next weekend’s opening day opponents Manchester City.

His ended up being an incredible career, launched 25 years ago next week, albeit that debut day not perhaps finishing with the scenes of wild celebration that you might expect.

“I made my debut, played 90 minutes, and then went home on the bus,” he reveals.

“My parents came to watch me, but they’d gone home, and while the club used to pay for my taxis, that finished when I got into the first team.

“So, I went home on the bus. And that was that!”