Farewell 'super Mick McCarthy'

I've got a feeling this is going to seem more like an obituary than a blog, writes Wolves blogger Tim Spiers.

After the best part of six years at Molineux, Mick McCarthy is no longer Wolves manager and it makes me feel almost numb to write that.

We won't know until May 13 whether it was the correct decision to sack him, although an initial bookies' favourites list containing Billy Davies, Ian Holloway, Steve Bruce and Neil Warnock suggested it looked very risky indeed, with only Alan Curbishley a decent early standout candidate.

Steve Morgan's previous assertion, made just 32 days before he bit the bullet, that his management style was not to make kneejerk reactions which provide no stability, has been ruthlessly abandoned.

"It's not the way I do things in any other business and it's not the way we do things here. All I can comment on is Wolves and we're not a hire-and-fire club," Morgan had said.

Well something changed his mind between January 12 and February 13, quite possibly the emotionally loaded defeats to his beloved Liverpool and our great rivals West Bromwich Albion.

But whatever the rights and wrongs of the decision or the timing, and whatever the future holds for Wolves and McCarthy, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the legacy of the man whose initials stood for Merlin the Magician.

In the summer of 2006 I, like many others who bleed gold and black, had very nearly fallen out of love with Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Many, sadly, had fallen by the wayside altogether after Glenn Hoddle ripped the heart and soul out of the club with 18 months of cold, clinical, heartless management.

Sideways pass after sideways pass resulted in draw after draw after draw – the monotony was soul destroying and a rank stench of apathy filled the Molineux air.

He wasn't even sacked, remember, but when Hoddle made the best decision of his Wolves tenure and jumped ship the club was at a desperately low ebb, with talk of surviving relegation to League One being the aim for the following campaign.

McCarthy's appointment was initially greeted with scepticism, particularly from those who wanted a young up-and-coming manager such as Paul Ince to blow away the Hoddle cobwebs and reinvigorate the club.

But the doughty Yorkshireman not only managed to do just that, he helped reinvent an entire philosophy and made it enjoyable to be a Wolves fan again – he and Wolves were a perfect fit.

Working on a shoestring budget, fielding several players from the club's academy and placing a huge emphasis on hard work and team spirit, Super Mick rolled up his sleeves and enchanted the Wanderers faithful.

I imagine there have been few sporting occasions when a team have lost 6-0 and been applauded from the field with the crowd chanting the manager's name, but that astonishing display of defiance against Southampton from fans previously regarded as fickle shows you the initial impact he made.

That first season of McCarthy's was one that will live long in memory – team, manager and supporters were united as we were given a cause to believe in and fight for.

Empty rhetoric you might say, but for those who were there, living and breathing that unlikely promotion charge, it was something truly special.

A win over old foes Albion against all odds, when Matt Murray was Superman for the day, was a highlight, as was an unforgettable afternoon in sunny Leicester at the season's climax.

Promotion was initially one step too far and the first chinks in the McCarthy armour appeared the following season when a dalliance with the vacant South Korea job, while performances on the pitch suffered, strained relations, as did the bizarre Andy Keogh/Freddy Eastwood debacle.

The McCarthy love-in was rekindled a year later when, at the third time of asking, everything clicked as we secured promotion and then survived in the Premier League.

Graham Turner, Graham Taylor, Mark McGhee, Colin Lee, Dave Jones and Hoddle had tried and failed to achieve what seemed to be the impossible mission – establish Wolves as a Premier League club – but McCarthy got us there and then kept us there for three successive seasons.

Many beloved memories were forged along the way, none more so than away days at Nottingham Forest and Derby in the promotion run-in, the victory over QPR to secure Premier League football, wins over Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea and West Brom in 2010-11 and the valiant draw with 10 men at Arsenal just a few weeks ago.

He brought so many great players to the club, too, some of whose transfer fees will go down in legend, so ridiculously cheap do they seem now.

Michael Kightly was snared for just £25,000, Karl Henry for £100,000, Stephen Ward for £150,000 and England international Matt Jarvis for a reported £250,000, while even Kevin Doyle and Steven Fletcher turned out to be bargains at £6.5million apiece.

McCarthy's greatest gift to Wolves though was something unquantifiable – the pride and honour he injected into our great club, which had temporarily lost its spirit and identity.

He was by no means perfect, his occasionally endearing stubbornness often frustrated beyond belief, his tactics were too predictable, his distrust of flair players infuriating.

And he of course made mistakes, none with a greater consequence than taking the captain's armband off Henry and handing it to Roger Johnson, whose hangdog expression and awful form seemed to spread like a cancer throughout the team when things went belly-up.

But McCarthy had attributes which served the club outstandingly well over nearly six years.

Honesty, integrity, respect, class, dignity, passion, work ethic, commitment – he had them in spades and he demanded the same of his players.

His pre and post-match sound bites were rarely anything less than smart, sincere, witty and unashamedly truthful, a welcome and refreshing change from the PR guff most managers sprout these days.

And of course he was also hugely likeable and affable – in short, a man I was proud to call our manager.

It's been 21 years since I first set foot inside Molineux and in that time the most enjoyable years have, by a huge distance, been under McCarthy and for that I will be forever grateful.

In the end, he paid for a lack of progression during three years in the top flight, although if you'd asked most Wolves fans in, say, 2006 if they'd have settled for having a regular seat at English football's top table like we do now, the answer would surely have been a resounding yes.

His final game in charge, undoubtedly the low point of his tenure, was not indicative of what had gone before it and was a sad note on which to end the McCarthy love affair, just before Valentine's Day.

It was a distasteful conclusion and sadly not enough respect was afforded to him in those final days, weeks and months, something which I hope he doesn't dwell on when remembering his time here.

Unfortunately for McCarthy the one thing he could no longer count on from the majority of Wolves supporters – loyalty – proved his undoing as he paid the price for placing faith with the players who had earned him promotion in 2009, with too many not reciprocating that loyalty with their performances on the pitch.

Still, what a noble quality to be 'guilty' of showing too much of, and that was our Mick McCarthy down to a tee.

So, thanks for the memories, thanks for promotion, thanks for three seasons in the Premier League, thanks for the laughs, the many, many highs and for giving me my football club back.

To me, you will always be known as Super Mick.