Express & Star

Comment: Wolves stadium move would change club forever

Sacrilege (noun); violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.

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There are three things Wolves fans tend to regard as sacrosanct...1) Wolves play in gold (not orange), 2) Steve Bull was good enough to play at a higher level, he just didn't want to and 3) Molineux is their home.

Now, Wolves have messed around with the colour a bit this year but it's still acceptable. The Bully worship will remain undimmed no matter what anyone says. But leave Molineux? Are Wolves planning to commit a cardinal sin?

'A last resort' is how Laurie Dalrymple described the possibility of leaving Wolves' home of 129 years.

You certainly take those comments at face value – Wolves know how important Molineux is not just to the club's supporters, but to the city, the players, the staff...basically everyone associated with the club.

They know that moving home would potentially be the most divisive thing the club has ever done.

Molineux is absolutely dripping with history. The place reeks of the stuff, not to mention character, atmosphere, spirit, soul, the lot.

Its location is key to the way people feel about it. In a football world where increasingly few grounds are based in the actual town/city where the club gets its name, Wolves are in Wolverhampton. Smack bang in the middle of it.

You can quaff a pint at the Hogshead (other bars are available), scoff a pork bap at the Pork Joint (other pork-based eateries are available) and walk to Molineux in five minutes, its golden glow luring you every step of the way.

It's the heartbeat of the city. Anywhere other than Molineux, it just wouldn't feel like Wolves.

Other clubs have done it successfully, you might say. Plenty have in fact.

But can you tell the difference between flatpack Ikea-style identikit stadiums at Coventry, Reading, Doncaster, Southampton, Derby, MK Dons...they're by a retail park, generally out of the city centre, they're bowl-shaped and look exactly the same. And they lack atmosphere.

Club move new stadiums to progress. Sometimes it's necessary, sometimes it works, but in doing so they sacrifice not just history, but the whole meaning of what it means to belong to a club, to a city, that unspoken feeling of attachment, of kinship, of warmth and comfort.

A home is a home.

Arsenal may have comfier seats to sit on, West Ham might be making a bit more money than before, but ask their fans if they preferred their current homes, or Highbury and Upton Park.

Fosun's ambition is to be lauded in the strongest possible terms.

The Chinese owners have completely transformed Wolves from top to bottom. They were a Championship also-ran. They're now hopeful of making a big impact in the Premier League – and eventually become one of the elite football clubs in England.

Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. What a journey Wolves are embarking on and who knows where it could take them. But to expect more than 50,000 fans to regularly watch the team week in, week out seems a little *too* ambitious.

Only three times in Wolves' history have they posted an average attendance of more than 40,000 in a single season.

Sixty years ago Wolves had just won the English league title for a second time...their average crowd was 37,000. And this was a time when watching football was cheap to watch and not shown on TV.

So to find an extra, what, 20,000 Wolves fans in the woodwork seems a little much to ask.

Filling the place with tourists and glory hunters isn't desirable either, but as always money and profit represents the bottom line.

While land around Molineux isn't plentiful, there's surely enough room to expand the capacity to fulfil Wolves' needs, whether they're in the top four or the top 20. Liverpool have done it at Anfield.

However whether casinos, hotels and whatever else a football club aspires to have these days can be fitted in too, not to mention the increased transport links an infrastructure, is another question entirely.

If Fosun thought it made sound business sense, you suspect they'd do it. If it boils down to history and tradition versus growth, modernisation, profit, progress...there's only one winner for an investment firm.

Perhaps that's the way forward in a football world when money means everything. Fosun's strategy has worked for businesses the world over – and it's working for Wolves now. Look at how far they've come in two years.

But some things...well, they're just sacred aren't they. Some things are more important than money.

And if Wolves did abandon Molineux, a part of the club would forever die with it.