Barking At The Moon

Monday 15th April - Thursday 18th April

Yet more e-mails from my Wolves team mates (who I have yet to meet). The great humour and camaraderie we are all enjoying prior to our big day is building up a real team spirit amongst us. We've been through all the essential pre-match ideas - what celebrations to do when we score, the pre match Liverpool style huddle, the slogans one or two will have on their T-shirts under the Wolves shirt, etc. Several players have filled in one of Notts FC 'Player Profiles' which seems to reveal a bunch of beer swilling, kebab eating, overweight, ageing piss artists (just like a normal Notts side, eh?) More worryingly, at 44, I appear to be the oldest of all of them!

Friday 19th April

The big day. We have to be at the ground at 4:30 p.m., two hours prior to kick off. It's only when I get near the famous stadium that the nerves really start.
Things start to get calmer once we are inside and we start putting faces to names and introduce ourselves to the team mates we know fairly well already. They all prove to be even better company in the flesh than they are in writing. We have some short speeches from the charity organisers and from the Wolves secretary before we meet our star player (and hero), Steve Bull (and his interpreter) and our manager for the day, Steve Froggatt.

The opposition are a much younger and strangely quieter team. They have Keith Downing and Robbie Dennison playing for them. An hour to go and we are taken to the fantastic changing rooms where all our kit and named shirts and hung up waiting for us. The names just trip off the tongue, Jones, Bull, Salmon, Byrne...... Steve 'Gaffer' Froggatt has a team meeting before we walk the pitch and we all agree that Bully should play up front leaving just the three of us to play at the back!

Hmmm, big pitch, not too fit - should be interesting! At last the kick off comes around and we line up, Premiership style in the tunnel. Pre-match team shots are followed by the game itself in front of 300 odd family and friends.

19/4/02 Wolves 'Home' 7 Wolves 'Away' 6

We go a goal down early on as Downing chips our tubby keeper and we are under the cosh for 20 minutes until we break forward and we equalise from a superb left wing cross by the evergreen, youthful, over lapping full back (guess who?) which is headed in by our centre forward from Margate for the first of his hat trick. The talented Salmon then blots his copybook by misplacing an easy header from 6 yards out from a corner!

At half time we trail 2-3 and Bully isn't happy! The competitive ex-England star hasn't netted and he doesn't like losing. He also isn't impressed with our 6' 5' centre half who is slow and awkward to say the least. 'How much did he pay?' Bully confides in some of us. 'I'll get my cheque book, pay him back and he can f**k off now!' he continues.

The second half sees the home team keep possession in a much more controlled way. Salmon is recalled (having only been due to play 45 minutes) due to injury and I complete the last 30 minutes at centre half. The 'home' team surge into a 7-4 lead with 10 minutes remaining and Bully eventually gets a couple as we start to run riot. With the game won, we relax a bit and they pull a goal back before the ball arrives at the feet of ex-Northern Ireland winger Robbie Dennison who finds himself one on one with 'experienced' Tim Salmon. Obviously there is only one winner! Dennison proceeds to 'skin' two more players, leave the keeper on his arse with another dummy and flick the ball into an empty net to give us a grandstand finish!

Happily we hang on for a jubilant 7-6 victory and after some after match presentations we retire with our family and friends to the bar to reflect on the game of our lives. A fantastic experience - worth every penny and more besides!

NB - Football Aid raised over £8000 for this game alone and with all the Premiership and Division One clubs involved this year, nationwide they expect to raise half a million pounds.