Dave Edwards on the day Mick McCarthy got the sack at Wolves

Extract taken from Dave Edwards – Living My Dream

We knew that Mick had been under pressure and had heard whispers he’d been called to see the chairman at Carden Park after the Liverpool game.

The heat was definitely on, but even after that Albion game, surely he wasn’t going to get the sack. Not after the job he had done.

We were still outside the bottom three at that point. Hopefully the previous win at QPR would prove enough?

After losing in that manner, however, and to our fierce, local rivals, we knew there was going to be a reaction. At this time the fans were giving Mick a lot of stick.

He’d done such a great job and masterminded three successive top flight seasons, something which hadn’t happened for maybe 30 years, and hasn’t happened since. The players were still behind him – 100 per cent.

We’d been in worse positions the previous seasons and were still confident we could stay out of that bottom three. I thought Mick would be given until the end of the season.

If we did go down then, or even if we stayed up, it would all be considered then. We came in the next day and were all called into the meeting room at the training ground.

That was when we started to click that something had happened. Mick came in. You could see he looked upset. Not crying, but you could see he had maybe been welling up and was emotional. He looked at us all and very light-heartedly smiled in that way that he does. We knew this was something big.

“Look lads,” he began. “This is the end of the road for me.” He said he was absolutely gutted and devastated, but retained a smile throughout. I don’t think he wanted the lads to think of him as being upset or angry. He is a proud man, and stayed proud to the very end.

“Regardless of what is happening to me, it is all about you guys now,” he continued. “I have every faith in you. You have all done such an amazing job for me and I am sure you can stay in this league.” He went on to thank us all for what a pleasure it had been for him over the previous six years or so.

It was tough. Mick had done so much for pretty much everyone in that room. He walked out for the final time and everyone just turned to each other. The palpable feeling was: ‘What now?'

Mick was all that a lot of us had known at Wolves and that made things really difficult to take. Chief executive Jez Moxey then came in and informed us that, for the time being, TC (Terry Connor) was going to take over while they looked for a new manager. I think Jez was very fond of Mick, and whether he wanted him to go or not, you could tell the decision had hurt him.

All of the boys wanted to go and see Mick again on that Monday before he left. He was up there clearing out his office and the boys popped by, in twos and threes, to say their farewells.

I went with Kevin Doyle. We all wanted to thank him for what he had done. For my part he had transformed my career, signed me from Luton, turned me into a senior international, and played me in the Premier League.

You could tell Mick was upset by this point, which is no surprise. You live and breathe a football club every day and I think he was still confident he would have kept Wolves in the League.

I remember phoning him a few days later, just to re-iterate my thanks and appreciation and I know he went to Molineux after leaving the training ground to say goodbye to all of the office staff there as well.

A class act from a man who always tried to do things in the right way.

Dave Edwards – Living My Dream is out now. Edwards will be signing copies in the Wolves Megastore tonight from 5.30pm to 7pm.

Edwards' proceeds from the book will go towards his Little Rascals Foundation. Visit www.littlerascalsfoundation.com for more details.