Wolves' 'million pound man' Jackie Gallagher recalls his days at Molineux

Despite going close at Euro 2024, the Three Lions returned home as beaten finalists, at the hands of Spain.

Former Wolves forward and cult hero Gallagher enjoyed a globetrotting career, which included a spell in Hong Kong with Eastern AA.

At which point, he was soon informed there was another Englishman on their way to the club.

“They told us a fella called ‘Bobbo’ was coming in for a trial,” Gallagher recalls.

“Turns out that ‘Bobbo’ was infact Bobby Moore, the former England captain.

“And yes, he had to have a trial, and I remember we played a game against the Gurkhas on a cricket pitch!

“He was nearly 40 but was still immaculate, and I remember we got to a cup final and finished fourth in the league.

“It was great just to chat to him and listen to all of his stories about football – the year I spent out there was amazing and one of the highlights of my career.”

Gallagher’s association with England has extended well beyond lining up in the same team as their all-conquering World Cup winning skipper from 1966.

He has always remained a huge fan, and, in recent years, has relished travelling far and wide to support his country along with son Joe.

That included the first two of England’s group games out in Germany ahead of Sunday’s big finale, and Gallagher was never carried away by the criticism from the early stages which perhaps masked the quality of Gareth Southgate’s team which grew throughout the tournament.

“As well as the two England games we watched others in the Fan Zone and it was another good trip,” he reflects.

“Maybe they didn’t produce the best performances at first but they are coming off the back of a long, hard season and you have to remember the opposition teams are decent and have qualified for the Euros as well!

“There are never any easy games, and then you get to the knockout stages and anything can happen from there.

“Joe was back out in Berlin and got a ticket for the final which I watched in my local pub and while it was disappointing, Spain were the best team in the tournament.

“I always enjoy going to watch England with Joe – he’s been to more of the away games than me, but we’ve done a fair few together.

“We’ve been to Wembley for several internationals, and we came to Molineux to watch the Hungary game and the 4-0 defeat!

“We also spent 10 days out in Qatar for the World Cup although the day after we got there, they put a ban on beer!

“We did manage to find a place, although it was 15 quid a pint, but we still had a decent time.”

The tale of Gallagher searching for a beer in Qatar will come as no surprise to those who know him, as he has continued to keep contact with many from Wolverhampton including turning out for the Wolves Allstars up until quite recently, even though he is now 66!

He is very much the life and soul of any party, with a mantra that life is there to be enjoyed, and that also applies to his two years spent at Wolves as a player, as the era-defining revival took hold in the late 1980s.

There is that famous – or infamous – terrace song about Gallagher that fans will remember, as jocular about his waistline as it was his transfer value, but of course he still had to be in good shape at that time to play a part in Graham Turner’s plans.

You had to put the hard graft in running on a Tuesday morning to be able to enjoy the benefits of the ‘Tuesday Club’ which followed, an afternoon and evening of ‘socialising’ in various hostelries and venues across the Midlands. Memorable time spent together for all involved.

“Ally Robertson used to organise that,” Gallagher recalls with a chuckle.

“We’d often go into Birmingham and it was the days when the pubs shut at 2pm, but he’d find us somewhere like a cellar bar to carry it on!

“They were such a good set of lads and we had some great success on the pitch and good times off it.

“Another thing I can remember is when me and Micky Holmes ended up doing some sort of supermarket sweep event where we had a certain amount of time to grab as much as we could!

“There are so many fun memories from that time.”

Gallagher arrived at Molineux in the pre-season of 1987, just after the team had missed out on promotion back from the old Fourth Division courtesy of play-off final defeat over two legs to Aldershot.

At 29, he had already picked up plenty of experience at different levels of football, and in different countries, and Turner saw him as a key addition to add strength and depth to a squad which was a few months into what would ultimately prove a spectacular rebuild.

Born and brought up in Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, whose team he would actually represent in each of no fewer than five decades, Gallagher was on schoolboy terms with Norwich City before being released.

He then moved to Lincoln, in the days when Graham Taylor was manager, serving his apprenticeship but suffering a back injury which restricted his first team opportunities to a solitary appearance.

Going back into non-league with Kings Lynn and Wisbech, his next league chance arrived with Peterborough and then, after the year in Hong Kong, Torquay United.

Next stop was Ireland and Drogheda United, albeit on a part-time basis where was flown over on a Friday for a weekend game, and where he also won the League Of Ireland Cup.

Another spell at Wisbech then preceded a return to Peterborough where Gallagher really started to make a name for himself, the goals which secured him the club’s top goalscorer status in 1985/86 including one in a 3-0 win against Wolves at Molineux on New Year’s Day.

“I was up against Ally Rob and Chris Brindley but managed to get on the scoresheet,” he remembers.

“I can still recall the crowd was just over 4,000, and all of them seemed to be huddled in the South Bank behind the goal.”

Wolves’ strikeforce that day, who were just a few weeks from clicking into quite spectacular gear, comprised Steve Bull and Andy Mutch, but boss Turner was keen to add competition up front.

So, the calls went in to try and land Gallagher.

“It was a time when there were a lot of prank calls going around in football, and he had to phone me a few times before I realised it was true,” the recipient of those calls explains.

“I went up to meet Graham and, it’s what I always said, I just wanted to play football and in that respect the negotiations were always very easy.

“Obviously Wolves had Bully and Mutchy, and so it was always going to be difficult to break in, and while I didn’t play as many games as I would have liked, I did get a few more by playing in midfield.

“I would have played anywhere to be honest, and to just be a part of the team which took Wolves back up the leagues after missing out on the play-offs was amazing.

“I lived in Codsall which was lovely and I still keep in touch with a lot of the lads now.

“The crowds built up again during the time I was there and everywhere went away from home it seemed like there were just thousands of Wolves fans filling the stadiums.”

It was certainly a special time which will forever be etched in the club’s history, the time they came back from the brink and not only enjoyed back-to-back promotions and Sherpa Van Trophy glory at Wembley, but also re-energised the fanbase and the whole town.

Gallagher’s five goals in 36 games, 23 of which involved coming off the bench, played its own part in that success, and his character and personality certainly made a positive impression behind the scenes.

These were obviously very different days for those leading the lives of footballers. Days when the sort of fitness and conditioning demands placed on players were nothing like they are today, and days when players would mix far more freely with supporters.

That Wolves group from the late Eighties would often be seen out and about across the town, and the fans loved them for it!

And for Gallagher, even THAT song, was all part of the fun and games.

“It was good banter and is just part and parcel of football, isn’t it?” he says.

“They were very different times back then.

“We had a players’ bar, a little room after the game where we’d have a drink and it would be full of fans.

“And if we went out and about to a pub in the town we’d always be chatting to people, it just felt we were all the same, you know? As footballers, we weren’t any different to them.

“There have been a lot of things that have got better in football but players don’t really get the same chance to mix with the supporters now and I’m not sure that’s for the better.

“But it’s just life, things change and move on and that’s just how it goes.”

After departing Wolves 35 years ago this summer, Gallagher spent the remainder of his career in non-league, including back at Wisbech, where he actually made an appearance in his teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and, thanks to a celebratory outing as a late substitute in May 2008, a month after turning 50. An extraordinary record.

He has also had spells in coaching and management at Wisbech, the club where one of Wolves’ greatest goalscorers Jesse Pye ended his career, and where Gallagher is very much regarded as a club legend.

More recently, he has run his own courier business, but is hopeful that retirement, or at least downscaling a little bit, may not be far away, which would offer more chances to spend time with his three grandchildren and also watch more football, with the intention of bringing Joe to Molineux for a game next season if commitments allow.

And even though injuries have since restricted those Wolves Allstars appearances, he has still always been keen to support the charity fundraising campaigns of fan and friend Jason Guy.

Memories of Wolves are never too far away.

Very soon he will be moving to Scarborough, bringing back recollections of that infamous day of his first appearance in a Wolves squad in the curtain-raiser for 1987/88, an unused substitute who watched the various incidents of crowd-related carnage unfold from the bench.

“That was quite a day, and preparing to move up there makes me feel like it’s all come full circle when it comes to Wolves,” he says.

The greatest day, however, for Gallagher at Wolves was undoubtedly the Sherpa Van Trophy final at Wembley which, at the time, probably felt as massive to the Molineux faithful as Sunday night’s events might have been to England if Gareth Southgate’s team had prevailed.

He came off the bench to replace the injured Robertson just after half time, picking up a winners’ medal as goals from Mutch and Robbie Dennison secured a 2-0 victory against Burnley in front of a crowd of 80, 841.

While Gallagher didn’t find the net in regulation time, the chance to score at Wembley was not one he was willing to pass up.

“I’d always wanted to score at Wembley, and wasn’t sure I’d get on the pitch during the game,” he explains.

“So, after we had walked out and stood there before kick-off for the handshakes and so on, I got the ball and ran towards the goal.

“I didn’t shoot until I was about six yards away – I wasn’t going to risk whacking it and missing the target – but I made sure that I could always look back and say I scored at Wembley!”

What a moment. ‘Worth a million pound’ for sure.