The Black Country Derby: Goals, collisions and carrots!

Peter Odemwingie’s hat-trick, five goals conceded, Keith Andrews with the coup de grace at his former club, and the end of Mick McCarthy.

All a far cry from a year earlier when McCarthy’s men were firing and a Steven Fletcher brace inspired Wolves to a crucial 3-1 victory. And Richard Stearman fell over.

Unfortunately, that has been something of a rarity on home soil in recent years. Wolves have won only three of the last 12 at Molineux, George Ndah my Lord with a brace inspiring one of those other successes, and VAR destroyer-in-chief Jay Bothroyd’s clinical finish the other.

Little wonder that even with the divisional supremacy of the last near decade – it’s 2017/18 that Wolves were last below Albion in the final league placings – one or two home fans will be approaching high noon on Sunday with a certain amount of trepidation.

But we digress.

Let’s head back instead to one of the more dramatic draws of recent history, a game that ended in a high-scoring stalemate with two goals apiece. And with versatile defender or midfielder Tom Bennett, finishing up in goal!

It was April 1991, in the Second Division, or Championship in new money. Just a season after the renewal of hostilities had been met by Steve Bull grabbing a dramatic late winner at The Hawthorns, and then repeating the feat just a few minutes earlier at Molineux.

Wolves were 10th in the table, five points off the play-off places, with Albion, three months after their FA Cup exit at home to Woking, sitting third bottom, battling against relegation.

“Those Wolves/Albion games were always really tasty weren’t they,” says Robbie Dennison, who made 20 appearances for the Baggies after arriving from Northern Ireland before moving to Molineux for the princely sum of £20,000. “I’d played against Villa for Albion but these felt a bit different, maybe because we hadn’t played each other for a while.

“Especially in those first few seasons, and with the Bully connection, with all the goals he scored for Wolves, and Albion fans maybe looking at it as one they had missed out on.

“I think any derby game, most people will tell you, they are the best games.

“I understand that for some fans there is that massive fear of losing and going into work on the Monday, but as players, while understanding the strength of the local rivalries, you still have to go out and play as well as you can to win a game of football.”

Dennison had been a key part of the team in that 1989/90 season when Wolves delivered the Bull-inspired double. He actually equalised in the win at the Hawthorns, smashing in a free-kick from inside the box after Stuart Naylor had been penalised for time wasting.

“I didn’t usually smash the ball from a free kick, I’d usually try and place it, but it worked on that occasion, and afterwards I just turned and ran back to celebrate as it was in front of the Brummie Road End,” he recalls. “I remember Bully grabbing me, pointing back to the Albion fans and saying, ‘Denno, Denno, give them some!’

“I was like, ‘you give them some Bully’, because I was happy enough having scored to run back to the centre circle!

“But of course for Bully to get the winner late on, after Mutchy’s (Andy Mutch) cross, in front of the Wolves fans, it just couldn’t have worked out any better for us.

“It was one of the best finishes to a game, the circumstances around it, Bully getting the goal, that I ever experienced.”

Fast forward to 1991 and Dennison was on target again, this time with a fierce first team shot from distance after a pass from Mutch.

Albion equalised before the break, and then right at the start of the second half, Mike Stowell was on the end of a stray elbow going up for a challenge and was knocked unconscious, also falling awkwardly which caused a knee injury ruling him out for the remainder of the season.

In the days of two substitutes – and Wolves had already made one with Tim Steele stretchered off and replaced by Mark Todd – Brian Roberts came off the bench.

But that still left one big problem. Who was going to replace Stowell in goal?

“We’d never really spoken about who would go in goal if Mike was injured as you never really expected it to happen,” adds Dennison. “I’m not sure if Tom grabbed the gloves or if someone grabbed them for him but he was always a confident young lad who was happy to put himself forward.”

For Bennett, there was another motivation for putting his hand up, and the gloves on, when Stowell was forced off.

“I was having a stinker at right-back,” he admits. “The gaffer came on to warm me up and it was hammering down with rain and he was pinging balls at me and I was dropping them all and wondering what on earth I was doing!

“We got into it and they were putting a few crosses over and, once I did get my hands on them, I remember the ball was just sticking to the gloves like glue!

“Although it was so windy and we were against it so I could barely kick the ball out of the 18-yard box!

“I was trying to stand in the positions I thought a goalkeeper should and I did get beat by a great shot when I went down like a sack of potatoes – but we did manage to get an equaliser, so we ended up with a point.”

It was Tony Ford who fired home Albion’s second goal before Mutch equalised following a scramble in which Wolves substitute Todd, on loan at the time, saw his header saved in what was the only local derby played in his career.

“Given the fact we’d lost Mike, and that it was a bit of a scramble for the equaliser, in the circumstances it ended up being a decent result,” says Dennison. “There was nothing Tom could have done about the goal, I’m not even sure Stowelley would have saved it, but to come back and get a point felt like we got out of jail a little bit.”

Of course, Bull and Dennison aren’t the only players to have crossed the Black Country divide to such positive effect for Wolves. Andy Thompson, who arrived on the same day as Bull, is also a Hall of Famer, while Ally Robertson, after a superb career with Albion, became an influential voice of experience at Molineux which included lifting the Sherpa Van Trophy in front of an adoring 50,000 Wolves fans at Wembley.

For Don Goodman, scorer of Albion’s first goal back in 1991, the balance between the two fierce local rivals is more equally distributed in appearances than the aforementioned group.

Between four and five years spent at each club, more goals at Albion although he was often used out wide at Wolves, and, during his career, a popular figure at both.

Ultimately welcomed at Wolves, especially with his all-action contribution and memorable moments including an FA Cup winner at Leeds and decisive shootout penalty against Sheffield Wednesday, he acknowledges there will always be split opinions among supporters about those who have represented both.

“I’m now 60 years old and it’s 40 years since I signed for West Bromwich Albion,” Goodman explains. “That means there are a lot of Albion fans who never saw me play for the club – who never saw me go out there with broken toes and broken ribs and spilling blood for the cause.

“For those fans, there might be an issue that I went on and played for Wolves further down the line, but I find that day-to-day, those fans that saw me play, they are still good with me and have a lot of respect for me.

“But I have no issue if the younger ones don’t like the fact I went on and played for Wolves. That’s their prerogative.

“I mean, when I was playing against Wolves for Albion, and even for Sunderland as well, I used to get dog’s abuse from the fans, and that’s also fine – it’s football!

“It all moves on quickly, and when I got to Wolves I was treated really well by the fans, just like I had been at Albion.

“They were two very different experiences really.

“At Albion it felt like we were always trying to stay in the league and I scored more goals there than anywhere else, and when I came to Wolves for the first six months or so I was playing on the right wing.

“I didn’t score for a good few games and the fans stuck with me but finally I got on the scoresheet and, at the start of the following season, Bully was injured and I played down the middle and had got 10 goals by the start of October.

Goodman and Bull once posed for a legendary photo in full gangster-style gear for the Express & Star. At one point they were fierce local rivals, later they would become team-mates, and now, great friends.

Like all with any connection to the Black Country Derby, both will have been enjoying the build-up to high noon Sunday, and indeed both will be working for the media at Molineux.

Dennison, meanwhile, is also ready to report for duty as he will be Wolves’ guest in the museum and corporate lounges.

A very technical player who perhaps wouldn’t be expected to shine amid the muck and nettles of such an intense and fiery environment, Dennison did manage to flourish in those big derby-day shindigs, especially after what is usually a frenetic start to proceedings.

“The thing is with games like this,” he begins, “is that there is always an intense tempo at the start, but it’s very hard to keep that tempo going for 90 minutes.

“Eventually it has to settle down, and it becomes more of a game of football.

“We know it’s a derby and as a player, even if you try and treat it as a normal game, when you are going to the stadium, when you arrive, even during the game, there is always a different atmosphere.

“For the likes of myself, who let’s say wasn’t the most aggressive player in the world, maybe it’s easier to keep everything under control, but in our day there would be a pretty mad 20 minutes and then it would settle.

“In the modern game, with the different nationalities involved and more of an international flavour, I think maybe it settles down even quicker?

“There are always flashpoints, and you know it’s a derby, but it does become more of a game of football and that is when you want to try and do what you can to make an impact.”

Back in 1991, the draw came during a spell of just one win in 14 games which derailed Wolves’ promotion push to a 12th-placed finish. For Albion however, it was one of an incredible seven draws in their last nine games which, even with winning the other two to remain unbeaten, wasn’t enough to stave off relegation.

This time around, on Sunday afternoon, both teams are far better placed, even at this embryonic stage of the new Championship season.

Albion are in third, with 14 points from their first seven games, and Wolves are in seventh, three points behind the Baggies but with a game in hand.

It couldn’t be much closer.

Also back in 1991, the second half was briefly interrupted when a pitch invading fan – not to be condoned and with an action that would prompt a lifetime ban these days – ran on to present Albion defender Graham Roberts with a carrot.

The carrot on Sunday, heading into a three-week international break, is not just local bragging rights, but also securing a very healthy position in the early jostling for promotion places.

“It’s been a few years since we had this rivalry in the league and I’d love nothing more for it to be a rivalry which is back in the Premier League,” says Goodman. “Ultimately, that is where I’d want both of these football clubs to be.

“The game returns with Albion having had a surprisingly fantastic start and Wolves just behind them with that game in hand.

“It’s a brutal league the Championship, it really is, and when I look at the league table, and the performance levels in the games, there’s nobody dominating every single game they play in.

“It already feels quite open, and before a ball was kicked I’d have picked six teams which I thought would definitely have been around the top eight.

“That would have been the three relegated teams – Wolves, West Ham and Burnley – and then Norwich, Middlesbrough and Southampton. The big surprise has been how difficult Burnley have found it so far.

“Albion would have been among the unknown quantities, but have started really well, while Wolves are without doubt a team which should be fighting for a top two spot.

“It should make for a really interesting game on Sunday, and while I am looking forward to it, given my fond feelings for both clubs, it is also never easy!”

For Goodman, it will be his first co-commentary of the derby at Molineux since that last one in front of fans, when the 5-1 defeat brought an end to McCarthy’s magnificent Molineux reign.

For Wolves fans, it can’t get any worse, can it?