What if Jim Melrose would have stayed at Wolves?

Death, taxes and never falling in love with a loan player. The three certainties of life, according to Benjamin Franklin.

One of those may not be factually correct when it comes to Franklin’s quote. But it can often ring true in the world of football.

Those players that are borrowed, and fit in, and excel, to such an extent that being called back or returned to their parent club causes untold angst and devastation to those that they leave behind.

For any Wolves fans watching the club 40 years ago, then Jim Melrose would certainly fit into that very criteria.

Wolves, back in the 1984/85 season, were in a state of unpredictable flux.

Not so long after almost going out of business after topflight relegation, promotion under Graham Hawkins had been followed by a seemingly inevitable immediate relegation after a lack of investment to strengthen.

Still though Wolves had plenty of quality in the squad, notably young talents such as Tim Flowers, John Humphrey, John Pender and Paul Butler, with experience including Alan Dodd, Alan Ainscow, Mel Eves, Tommy Langley and Tony Evans.

And then came Melrose, brought in on loan from Celtic thanks to a connection with Wolves boss Tommy Docherty and a desire for first team football.

It has to be said, it didn’t start particularly brilliantly.

Melrose made his Wolves debut at Middlesbrough, but, somehow, his boots didn’t make the journey. So instead of his normal size seven boots, he had to borrow a pair of size tens. And then he got injured after coming on as a substitute, a collision with the goalkeeper worsening a pre-existing hamstring niggle which would affect the first month of his temporary stay at Molineux.

In the second month, however, he exploded into life.

In the final four games of his nine-match spell, Melrose scored four, and Wolves won all three in the league – the Championship equivalent as was – and drew 2-2 at topflight Southampton in the first leg of the League Cup Third Round, the Scotsman grabbing both goals.

“It was Tommy Doc who got me to go down to Wolves, and he was a manager that gave me my head in terms of how I wanted to play and getting the best out of me,” Melrose explains.

“There were three managers like that in my career – Tommy at Wolves, Jock Wallace at Leicester, and Lennie Lawrence at Charlton.

“Every one of them knew how to get a tune out of me and that meant getting a return in terms of a goals-to-games ratio.

“I relished the opportunity of getting down to Wolves to play some football, and there was a really good group of lads there at that time, including Danny Crainie who I had played alongside at Celtic.

“There were obviously a lot of things going on behind the scenes at the time, with the Bhatti Brothers owning the club, but on the pitch, I think we had a really good group.

“We were having to take our own teabags and biscuits in, having to wash our own kit, and the lads were worried about whether they were going to get paid – buttons compared to what players get nowadays - but sometimes that brings you together more, you know?

“It kind of added to the mystique of the club, but there were a lot of young lads there who just needed a lift.”

Melrose and others were able to provide that lift, and, in the final home game of his loan against Cardiff – where he went off after sustaining a ‘bang on the head’ – the 3-0 victory, the third in succession, Wolves were occupying mid-table, comfortably some distance away from the relegation zone.

But that game was to prove the last for Melrose at Wolves, the club were unable to provide Docherty with the £40,000 needed for his permanent signature, and the dip in fortunes which followed was spectacular.

The feeling among fans that afternoon that Melrose’s future was pivotal to the club’s future fortunes was palpable. The collective groans of disappointment when he had to leave the action, equally prescient.

Following the striker’s departure, having just won three league games in a row in October and November, Wolves would only win another three over the remainder of the season, and just one of the next 22. At one stage, they actually went seven consecutive games without troubling the scorers. Inevitably, that led to a second successive relegation, soon followed by a third, as the club nearly went out of business once again before the revival of the late 1980s.

Melrose plays down the suggestion that things might have been different had he been able to stay, but he certainly wanted to.

“I was 25 at the time, and had come to a great club which was just going through a bad moment,” he recalls.

“I’d already been down to watch a Wolves game at Molineux a few years earlier as part of a trip with my boys’ team, and remember seeing some of the greats like Munro, Bailey, Hibbitt and Dougan.

“There was a lovely set-up around the squad with Tommy supported by Jim Barron and Frank Upton, and we got that little run going and I was enjoying it and playing well.

“I wanted to stay, and Tommy wanted to sign me, but the club wouldn’t give him the 40k - I think the owners were more interested in trying to build a supermarket.

“I remember after getting the bang on the head against Cardiff, I was lying in a hospital bed on the Sunday and one of the directors came to see me.

“The loan was coming to an end and I was going back to Celtic but Wolves had the second leg against Southampton coming up, and he asked if I could just stay for one more game!

“I said if the club weren’t going to put their hands in their pockets for me then I wasn’t going to stay for one more game.

“But I did really enjoy it and have always looked out for Wolves’ results ever since.

“I was sad it went so badly for them over the following couple of years, and what was strange was that a while after I had left the club, I was at a McDonald’s in Wilmslow when a guy there, a Wolves fan, told me if I hadn’t gone, they definitely wouldn’t have been relegated.

“It was nice to hear, but I don’t think it was true! It’s never just about one player.

“And the following year Wolves signed Andy Mutch and Stevie Bull and that was the catalyst for their return up through the divisions.”

Heading back to Celtic wasn’t, however, the last Melrose had seen of Wolves during that 1984/85 season.

He immediately signed permanently for Manchester City, and, as Wolves were losing 5-1 to Grimsby the week after he left, Melrose was making his Maine Road bow against Birmingham.

Then, on Boxing Day, a Wolves side now in the grip of their deep malaise headed to City and were beaten 4-0, Melrose setting up one of the goals.

As Wolves finished bottom of the division, City were third, and promoted, although Melrose’s hopes of a sustained run at top-flight level were then hampered after a falling-out with boss Billy McNeill.

“I remember that City game against Wolves as I spent about half an hour sitting with the Wolves lads beforehand having a great catch-up,” he recalls.

“It was brilliant that we went on to get promoted, which we sealed by winning our final game against Charlton, but I will always remember that day not so much for that result but that the awful tragedy of the Bradford fire.”

If Melrose wasn’t then handed too many opportunities following promotion, he had already picked up plenty of experience in the First Division during spells with Leicester and Coventry respectively.

Born in Glasgow, he had begun his career coming through the youth ranks with Partick Thistle, then a part-time club, along with turning out for amateur side Eastercraigs, all the time learning the trade of electrical engineering, on the advice of his father.

The move to Leicester followed, for a club record fee, which later included playing up front alongside a certain Gary Lineker, as well as delivering a little piece of history.

Liverpool were unbeaten in 85 home matches at Anfield when Leicester, then bottom of the league, won 2-1 in January 1981, with Melrose popping up with the winning goal. A feat echoed by Steve Mardenborough with Wolves some three years later.

“I miskicked one in from 25 yards,” Melrose says with a laugh.

A decent return with Leicester preceded the move across the Midlands to Coventry, where he was also among the goals for a season, before landing that move north of the border, to Celtic.

As a boyhood Rangers fan, that was perhaps never going to be a match made in heaven, although he scored on his league debut against Hibernian, and was twice on the bench in the League and Scottish Cup Finals in 1984 just a few months before heading to Molineux.

“As a Rangers fan, it was the proverbial lead balloon, me going to Celtic,” he reveals.

“It wasn’t a good mix, which happened once or twice during my career, but Celtic is a magnificent club, and I will never say a bad word about them.

“The club were great to me, the manager and players were fabulous, but the fans didn’t really take to me, simple as that.”

Trying to follow in the footsteps of Charlie Nicholas, and win a regular starting berth in competition with Frank McGarvey and Brian McClair, was always going to prove a tough ask, but having rebuilt his career with Wolves and Manchester City, Melrose was then to flourish under the guidance of Lawrence at Charlton.

And that also featured scoring Charlton’s quickest ever goal back in 1986, after just seven seconds away at West Ham, when the Hammers had actually kicked off!

“Right place, right time,” Melrose modestly reflects, slightly underplaying the very neat finish which etched his name into Addicks folklore.

“There was no skill in it, or planning, and it could just as easily have tucked it past the post or over the bar but on the day, it went in – end of story!”

Post-Charlton, which had also included a Wembley appearance as a beaten finalist in the 1987 Full Members Cup Final, Melrose picked up more game time with Leeds and Shrewsbury, before heading into non-league with Macclesfield Town, Curzon Ashton and Halesowen Harriers.

Football was in the blood and so, after hanging up his boots, he remained heavily involved in the game, initially as an agent.

In doing so, having already played alongside Mick McCarthy at Manchester City, he ended up working with two future Wolves managers, as he helped broker the deal which took Paul Lambert to Borussia Dortmund, where he would win the Champions League, and then back to Celtic.

“Mick is as good as gold, a lovely big bloke, and the funniest man in the world with such a dry sense of humour,” says Melrose.

“He was an absolute bugger on the park, as hard as nails, but a gentleman off it.

“As soon as the clock turned to 3pm he was like a changed man!

“I enjoyed my time as an agent later on, working with players such as Neil Lennon, Steve Lomas and Paul, who had a great year out in Germany and did really well.”

Presiding over the deal which took Lennon to Leicester also ultimately led to a working relationship with then boss Martin O’Neil, for whom Melrose enjoyed several years working as Chief Scout with the Foxes, a role he later reprised under Lennon at Bolton Wanderers.

Now though, having turned 66 last week, Melrose is involved in the business of corporate finance, another industry which has kept him busy since his playing days came to an end.

“I love it, and have done it ever since I finished playing,” he confirms.

“You meet some good people and you meet some chancers – very much like you do in football!”

It’s very much more of a watching brief for Melrose when it comes to the modern game, taking a keen interest from the outside rather than being involved, hands-on.

He was a Rangers season ticket holder until their 7-1 defeat against Liverpool in the Champions League two years ago this week took the shine off it somewhat, although his son Ross – whose mum is dedicated Wolves fan Suzanne Waterhouse – is still playing non-league in Wales, having been on the books of Wolves Academy as a youngster, albeit later transferring his support across the Black Country to West Bromwich Albion!

“He was at Wolves as a kid but then took his support over to the Boing Boing’s,” Melrose says with a chuckle.

Melrose isn’t a huge fan of certain elements of the modern professional game, namely the reduction in the amount of physical contact allowed, diving and what he perceives as a lack of numbers putting in the hard yards at grass roots level, as well as talent identification.

“I think a lot of kids are now being coached by guys who don’t really know the game in the way coaches in our day did,” he argues.

“It feels like there is too much of an interest in height and athleticism rather than ability.

“In the past, players would be spotted for their talent and everything else worked around it whereas now it’s more like they are looking for lads who are big and strong and can run, and then they try and turn them into footballers.

“It feels like we’re moving towards a stage when the only thing missing now is a helmet and shoulder pads and only being able to score goals from corners and free kicks!”

Those feelings however don’t stop Melrose closely following the fortunes of his former clubs, two of which will lock horns at Molineux on Sunday afternoon.

“Wolves are a decent side who are at the wrong end of the league at the minute, and sometimes that just happens,” he insists.

“When you are bottom of the table, no matter what happens or how well you play you can lose, and at the top you seem to be able to get away with playing badly but still win.

“I really believe Wolves are better than a lot of the teams just above them, and the important thing for me is to stick with the manager – get around him and do that and I think they have a chance.

“As for City, what can you say? They are a monster, a beast. And it’s going to be difficult to look past them again for the league this season.”

Promotion with City as a player was one of many career milestones enjoyed by Melrose.

He also once scored from the halfway line in a game against Notts County, alongside all those other key goals including that winner for Leicester at Liverpool, another winner against Manchester United and the quickfire record notched with Charlton.

He also secured international recognition with Scotland all the way up to Under-21 level, also featuring in winning the Under-18 World Cup in France.

But, 40 years ago this week, he was enjoying a purple patch in front of goal in Wolves’ colours which would sadly prove way too brief.

No one will ever know whether it would have made a difference had he stayed, whether he would have carried on scoring, maybe even helped arrest Wolves’ seemingly unstoppable decline.

One of those intriguing ‘What If’ moments. Moments which prompt the sort of debates among fans which are another of those certainties, both of football, and in life.