'He's got no hair and we don't care': Wolves play-off winning hero Alex Rae recalls his memorable Molineux days

There are some players who, even if not at a club for all that long, leave an indelible mark which allows their popularity to stand the test of time.

Here for a good time, not a long time.  Like Alex Rae and Wolves. Sort of.

Because in the case of Rae, the top and tail of his three seasons at Wolves ended in disappointment.  And, even in the successful one in the middle, he wasn’t massively involved towards the end, one incredible memory-making moment aside.

Yet he remains so fondly remembered by all of a gold and black persuasion. Rightly so.

As a player, a midfielder, he was so fiercely determined, so combative.  As well as being extremely good in terms of technique as well as tackling.

As a person, open, engaging, willing to give of his time.  It was a perfect combination.

And that’s why he has always been so highly regarded not just at Wolves but also Millwall, Sunderland, and Rangers, amongst others.

“I always enjoy going back to my former clubs, and am lucky to get a pretty decent reception,” says 56-year-old Rae, who recently joined Matt Murray, Mark Kennedy and Colin Cameron for a great night at the Cleveland Arms.

“You sometimes wonder who remembers you as a couple of generations now probably don’t, but I feel grateful to have stayed close to all of those clubs.

“I was fortunate to have had over 20 years as a player, and since then more as a player and coach – I love it!”

Rae is now assistant head coach at Partick Thistle in the Scottish Championship.  When we speak, he is bemoaning a 1-1 home draw with Arbroath which pushed them further behind St Johnstone at the top of the table.

“But it’s not about looking behind, all about looking forward,” he quickly counters.

Fortunately, he is happy to look back and chat in glowing terms about his time at the two teams in action at the Stadium of Light this weekend.

First though, the story of how the comeback was stronger than the setback.  How Glasgow-born Rae’s career may have hit the buffers before it had even started. When he was released by his boyhood club Rangers whose then manager Graeme Souness would later try and sign him for Blackburn.

“I was devastated,” Rae recalls.

“I had been released by the football club I supported as a boy and had put so much expectation into becoming a success.

“I wasn’t sure which direction I was going to go after that, and when you get a kick in the – let’s not lower the tone – when you get a setback, it can be difficult to react.

“I was fortunate because a guy called Joe Woods, a local builder with his own company, contacted me out of the blue.

“He was the manager of an amateur team, Bishopbriggs, and asked me to come back and play for them.

“I said no initially, but thankfully Joe persevered, and for a few months I went to play for them and just started to enjoy football again.

“We had a little bit of success at that level, and that led me to getting back on the merry-go-round with Falkirk.

“I am indebted to Joe, really indebted, and it wasn’t just me – there were so many other released lads who he helped get back into the game to enjoy successful careers.

“He was such a good guy Big Joe, with a really kind heart, and I never forgot what he did for me.

“It was in 2004, when I went back to join Rangers after being at Wolves, that I was in the local ASDA and a lady in her 70s came up and asked how I was.

“I presumed she was a Rangers fan, but she was actually Joe’s wife, and told me that unfortunately he had passed away a couple of years earlier.

“I said to her that I had really wanted to see Joe and tell him how important he had been to my career, and this wee lady started laughing.

“’Oh Alex,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry – you were always one of his favourites’.

“She told me that Joe used to pray for me at the chapel, and over all the years he carried on looking out for me, and that speaks volumes for him, and really made my day.

“I probably would have gone on to have enjoyed a career of some description, but you never know.

“I look back and understand just how important that intervention was.”

A real sliding doors moment, and one which Rae’s future employers were certainly extremely grateful for.

A successful stint with Falkirk saw him head south of the border, for six happy years with Millwall where his 71 goals put him in the upper echelons of the club’s overall goalscorers.

It also saw him build both a friendship with future Wolves manager Mick McCarthy, who was initially a team-mate, and then his player manager.

“We had a great team which did well in the Championship and Mick delivered a good brand of football,” says Rae.

“I did struggle with the transition of Mick going from a friend to manager, as one minute he was my mate and the next he was the gaffer.

“I remember the once he called me into the office and told me I was going to be playing right midfield.

“’No, I’m not’, I replied, as I wanted to play in the middle, and after a lot of back and forth he told me he’d made his decision, and I was on the bench!

“I was out for six or seven games and then he called me back in and told me I was back in the team.

“There was me thinking he had come to his senses and was putting me back in my natural position but he asked me if right midfield was ok?

“’Yes of course,’ I replied.  And I ended up going out and scoring two goals in the game.

“The thing about Mick was that he never pulled any punches, and I learned my lesson.

“Fast forwarding to my last ever game with Rangers against Hearts, and the manager asked if I had ever played at right back before.

“I said that of course I had, even though I hadn’t.  When you’re younger, you think you know best, but once you get a bit older, you’re happy to play anywhere!”

Rae’s spell at Millwall included playing at Molineux for the South Bank’s last stand in 1993, and it was three years later he left for Sunderland for a fee in excess of £1million.

He faced challenges both on and off the pitch on Wearside, but recalls it as one of the most enjoyable times of his career, even with the rollercoaster ride during his five years as a Mackem.

“I made some lifestyle changes at that time and performance-wise, I played in the Premier League which was the highest standard I had been at,” Rae explains.

“When I look back, we were playing, and competing, against the Arsenals and the Chelseas who were flying and coming up against World Cup winners.

“In my first season we got relegated from the Prem with 40 points, we then got 90 points in the Championship but lost a crazy play off final to Charlton, then we won the league with 105, and had back-to-back seventh place finishes in the Premier League.

“It was definitely a rollercoaster ride but overall, some really good times.”

Up next came Wolves.

If Sunderland was a rollercoaster ride, then you ain’t seen nothing yet!

A first season when Wolves played some of their most exhilarating and exciting football in years, only to fall away, let slip an 11-point lead to their fierce local rivals, and lose in the play-offs.

A second when a mixed first half to the campaign was lit up by an FA Cup win against Newcastle and promotion, finally, courtesy of a memorable play-off final win against Sheffield United at the Millennium Stadium.

And then a third when, having ended a 19-year wait to return to the topflight, there was a lack of sufficient investment, and improvement over the second half of the season wasn’t enough to prevent immediate relegation.

It took a few games for Rae to break into the team after joining Wolves, a slight frustration given he had dropped down a division having found opportunities limited at Sunderland.

“At first I remember thinking why have I dropped down a division to sit on my backside,” he says with a chuckle.

“But I could understand it because when I arrived the boys were doing so well and winning most weeks.”

Once he got in the side, there was no shifting him, although his own play-off hoodoo – he had lost them with both Millwall and Sunderland – continued when Wolves were beaten by Norwich.

And in that second season, the glorious season, he wasn’t heavily involved as the resurgence built up, and didn’t even get off the bench on that epic afternoon in Cardiff.

“Colin (Cameron) and Incey (Paul Ince) were playing well together and I was just getting wee cameos from the bench,” Rae explains.

“When we got to the play-offs, I thought my time at Wolves might have been up, I was into my 30s by then, in the twilight of my career, and knew I needed to be playing.

“But genuinely, when I look back at the final, whilst I was disappointed I never got on, there was something bigger at play that day.

“I thought it might have been the end of the road for me at Wolves, but it was all about Sir Jack (Hayward), what it meant to him, seeing him walking across the pitch.

“When you are a wee bit older, as I was then, you can look beyond your own situation and have the ability to have a bit of perspective.

“To think how much money Sir Jack had put in, how desperate he was to succeed, and to see the punters so happy after all those years, that was the highlight for me that day.

“Even though I thought I was going to be moving on, which is always part of the gig in football, that’s what I always remember.”

Little wonder that Rae was so loved at Molineux.  Not just by the fans, but by those characters of the club, sadly no longer with us.

Not just Sir Jack but also Baroness Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, Graham Hughes, John ‘Fozzie’ Hendley, Rae was always high on their list of favourites.

And in the Premier League? He bounced back.  It wasn’t the end of the road for him individually, even if it was for the team.

Again, he didn’t start the first couple of games, heavy defeats against Blackburn and Charlton, but soon found his way in.

Across the season there were highlights. Plenty of them.  An incredible volley at Bolton.  An equaliser as Wolves came from 3-0 down to beat Leicester 4-3.  A last gasp leveller to avoid FA Cup embarrassment at Kidderminster Harriers.  Going up – successfully - against Keane and Scholes in a memorable win against Manchester United.  He was also the team’s top scorer, with eight goals.

“The lads I’m coaching now, never saw me play and sometimes ask if I ever came up against any big opponents,” says Rae.

“So I say, ‘let’s have a look at the Manchester United team that day’, and there were the likes of those midfielders, not to mention Cristiano Ronaldo and Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

“I think they struggle to believe that I once played against Ronaldo – I tell them I had him in my back pocket!”

Despite those highlights, despite a year in which most fans felt Rae, and not Henri Camara, should have been crowned Player of the Season, Wolves were relegated, and the proud Scot moved on.

There had been some contract talks, and he had certainly considered staying, but ultimately the lure of a return to Rangers, where he had been released almost two decades earlier, was understandably huge.

He won Scottish Premier League and League Cup medals in his first season, and then went on to play for Dundee and back in England with MK Dons, where he made his final first team appearance in League One, 15 years ago, against Brighton.

Then came the next phase, coaching and management, which at different stages has included linking up with former Wolves pal Ince.

The two admitted separately to some trepidation when hearing Ince was arriving at Molineux to join Rae – ‘there’s no way I’m going to get on with him’ was the view from both sides – but the opposite proved true and Rae has since served as his assistant at MK Dons, Notts County, Blackpool and Reading.

He has also managed himself, at Dundee and St Mirren, as well as working under Alex McLeish at Genk in Belgium and Philippe Clement at his beloved Rangers.

The journey has now taken him to assist Mark Wilson at Partick Thistle, and a hopeful promotion push to try and reach the Scottish Premier League.

It’s a young squad, and Rae sees many parallels amongst those charges whom he now coaches, and himself as a teenager coming through in Scotland.  He loves the challenge.

“I met a coach working at Celtic the other day who reminded me that I did my coaching badges with him, at Durham when I was at Sunderland, so I would have maybe been around 28 or 29.

“To still be involved in football all these years later, 27 years down the line, makes me feel extremely fortunate.

“I still have such a buzz about football, and have come to realise over the years, that there is nothing better than working with a young player who wants to learn.

“A few of the midfield lads aged maybe 19, 20, 21, were asking about shooting from outside the box which seems to be a dying art these days – people tend to just pass it more now.

“Over the course of several weeks, some discussions and work with some of these young boys saw them end up scoring goals from distance, and from that perspective it is so rewarding.

“I am working with a manager in Mark who has some great ideas, and it’s all about trying to get them into the group and seeing where it takes us.”

Rae has pretty much seen it all during his career so far, both as a player and in the dugout.

He has lined up alongside some lively personalities, particularly at Wolves, where the dressing room was never a place for the faint-hearted!

And we can’t finish without perhaps the defining memory of his three-year Wolves’ tenure.

Because while he may not have enjoyed any minutes in the play-off final, he went a long way to ensuring Wolves actually made it there, during a late cameo in the semi.

A tense finish was in store during the second leg with Wolves 2-1 to the good at a very strong Reading side, but Rae’s expert low finish, eight minutes from time, calmed the nerves.

Prompting a wild celebration signifying a story so often told, but one which never grows old.

“When we were warming up, there was a Reading fan who had come from the halfway line to scream at us from the stands,” says Rae.

“He was calling Incey every name under the sun, and I remember saying, ‘crikey Incey, this fella clearly knows you well!’

“I was in hysterics, but Incey was absolutely fizzing – the fan had really got to him – so he got us together and said that whichever one of us scored, we had to make sure we properly gave it back to him.

“As it turned out it was me, and that’s why I did that crazy celebration and Incey and everyone was pointing at the fella.  He was sat there with his head in his hands!”

A memory, like the player, which will endure for the ages.

‘He’s got no hair, but we don’t care, Alex, Alex Rae.’