When Steve Bull played, everything just felt different.
Wolves weren’t anywhere near winning any major honours, they weren’t even occupying the top division.
But everything felt, well, just different.
“If you were there, you really don’t need it explaining,” says Charles Ross. “And if you weren’t – it’s beyond explanation.”
And that pretty much sums it up.
The Steve Bull story? Well, that has always been there for all to see.
Of how he progressed from working in a bed factory, builders’ yard and warehouse, to playing and scoring for England, and appearing at a World Cup. The backstreet international.
Of how he and an unshakeable Band of Gold and Black Brothers rebuilt one of football’s most treasured institutions, dragging Wolves back from the dangerous brink of near extinction and embarking on an exhilarating journey to respectability.
Of how he rejected several offers to move on to far greater and more lucrative opportunities, to loyally and selflessly devote his career to Molineux.
‘Hark now Hear the South Bank sing, a new king’s born today.’ Or, more accurately, six decades ago tomorrow.
Bully is turning 60, and next year it will be 40 years since he and Andy Thompson trundled up the A41 in an orange Ford Cortina to help transform the life of a football club and its thousands of passionate supporters.
The facts speak for themselves.
A total of 561 appearances for Wolves, and 306 goals, a landmark which will surely never be broken. Back-to-back 50-goal seasons, 18 hat tricks. Thirteen senior international caps for England, four goals.
But enough of the numbers.
Because even those, wildly spectacular as they are, will never fully complete the story.
The tale of a powerful crew-cutted bustling striker who had a fierce and relentless attitude to scoring all sorts of goals cannot be told via statistics alone.
To pinch the famous Maya Angelou quote: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Wolves supporters who were there, will never forget how Steve Bull made them feel. Never.
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“After some really difficult years, when Bully came along, we finally had someone to get behind.
“As much as anything else, he was one of us.
“There were no airs and graces, you’d see him down the pub and have a pint with him, infact most of the team would drink in the Goalpost.
“None of that ‘we’re too good for you’ nonsense. They would all muck in and have a laugh with you, Bully as much as anyone.”
Russ Evers is a well-known and lifelong Wolves fan and long-serving co-organiser of the popular Hatherton Wolves Supporters Club.
Even now, all these years on, the memories return to his consciousness like it was just yesterday. And that’s the thing about Bully. Even the most hardened veterans of the South Bank are prone to go a little gooey and misty-eyed when recalling those days when he reigned supreme.
When Evers wrote a book to mark 30 years of Hatherton Wolves back in 2017, a total of 306 copies were printed, one for every Bully goal.
Like many others, although perhaps not too many others given the crowds when the fearless goal-grabber first arrived, Evers had been there from the start.
When ‘Bully and Thommo’ arrived from West Bromwich Albion for a combined fee of around £64,000, boss Graham Turner hailed ‘two bright young players with a lot of potential who will prove a wise investment’. Didn’t they just.
“I remember Bully’s first couple of matches where he had some chances and was blasting them all over the place,” Evers continues.
“I was at Cardiff in the Freight Rover when he got his first Wolves goal, and then again at Hartlepool for his second after he rounded the keeper.
“That is when I realised that this bloke had got something, and yet it was just the start of something very special.
“Then at the end of the regular season, he got his first hat trick in the home game against Hartlepool when everyone invaded the pitch and someone nicked his boots.
“Bully was that good, he would probably have been able to score without them.”
Wolves missed out in the first ever play-offs in that first half season, but Bull, and the team, were most definitely on the charge.
Back-to-back lower league titles followed, not to mention a Sherpa Van Trophy final victory against Wembley in front of over 80,000. It was a proper team effort, including so many other legends such as Andy Mutch, Robbie Dennison, Thompson, Floyd Streete, Keith Downing and many more. But Bully was at the forefront.
‘We’ll drink-a-drink-a-drink to Stevie the King the King the King.’
And once again, how did he make fans feel?
With Bully it was about more, far more, than just the goals – or even the results,” says Ross, who, between 1993 and 2012, oh-so-diligently edited 141 issues of the A Load of Bull fanzine which took the legendary goalscorer’s name, and had been launched by Dave Worton in 1989.
“He lived out our own dreams, and played as we liked to imagine we would play if only we were blessed with his ability and, most of all, his attitude.
“No cause was ever lost with Bully.
“I’ve no idea what size shirt he took, but, when it was a Wolves one, he filled it like no other.
“As fans, it was as if a part of us took to the pitch with him – we, too, were wearing that number nine shirt.
“Those wilderness years outside the topflight aren’t always fondly recalled.
“But, on many a wet afternoon, and even in a game we didn’t win, there was always a chance of a Bully goal down our end.
“Mayhem…and a happy journey home.”
It wasn’t all sweetness and light of course. It never is in football. Even for Steve Bull.
There were a few red cards along the way. Several nasty injuries, including the one to his knee which eventually forced his retirement at the age of just 34, emotionally breaking the news on the steps of the team hotel during a pre-season tour in the coastal town of Solvesborg in Southern Sweden and prompting a ‘Bully – The End’ front page splash on the Express & Star.
‘Colin Lee’s words that ‘Steve has decided to retire’ put a lump in the throat even of those who had suspected the reason for our gathering,’ wrote David Instone, the only reporter present at both the beginning and the end of the great man’s career. ‘That’s it then, 306 goals and out.’
“Every summer I used to dread that Bully might leave – and he never did,” adds Evers.
“It wouldn’t have been the fact that Bully scored all those goals had he moved on, but he was like our best mate.
“But when there was that picture of him on those steps in Sweden, as he announced his retirement, there were tears shed I’m not ashamed to say.”
Perhaps even worse than his retirement, particularly as for every Wolves fan the dream was to see Bull representing the team in the topflight of English football, was the photograph of him sat, destitute, in the middle of the pitch at Burnden Park after the hugely controversial second leg of the 1995 play-off semi-final at Bolton ended in agonising defeat. That, under Graham Taylor, was the year it looked for so long like the stars were finally aligning.
“Bully sacrificed so much on the altar of trying to get Wolves into the top-flight,” says Ross.
“No one who was there on that awful night at Burnden Park will forget the sight of him slumped on the pitch at the end. Heartbroken.
“And we felt it more – far more – for him, than we ever did for ourselves.”
And yet. For all the near misses, for the play-off finals which ended in tears, the missed opportunities to see Bull back at the top table where he had actually made a solitary appearance during his time at the Hawthorns. Well, surely it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Talking of photographs….
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“Everything about him was perfect. With his short, cropped haircut and chiselled features, he looked a bit like the Action Man figure!
“Because of all that, you really couldn’t go wrong when you were photographing him.”
Dave Bagnall worked as a photographer with the Express & Star for 29 years, including the entirety of Bully’s Wolves career.
He didn’t take the iconic signing picture of Bully and Thompson on their first day at Molineux with the ball balanced between their heads, but did capture the moment when they recreated the shot, marking the 30th anniversary of their arrival, during half time of the Championship game with Sheffield Wednesday in 2016.
“I can remember when he reached 25 goals, and Brian Clifford (former Express and Star Sports Editor) asked me to go and take a picture of Bully with 25 footballs,” says Bagnall.
“The trouble was – and this is how bad things were at Wolves at the time – they didn’t have 25 footballs!
“I had to go off and borrow a load of plastic footballs of all different colours and dot them around Bully as he sat on the ground.
“A lot of players would have been embarrassed and not wanted to do it, but the thing I loved about Bully was that it was never an issue for him at all, he has always been so down to earth.
“I remember other examples, like getting him with a darts board hitting a bullseye for his 50th goal, and when I was trying to locate a sports shop on Cleveland Street when he signed his boot deal with Quasar, and turning the corner to see a queue of 200 people waiting outside – ‘ah I’ve found it!’
“As time went on, it got to the stage where I’d turned up and Bully himself would be suggesting ideas for the picture – he has always been good fun to be around.”
Bagnall not only followed Bully’s rapid progress home and away with Wolves. He also documented his emergence on the England scene, initially with the Under-21s and ‘B’ team, and then at senior level.
He didn’t quite make to Italia ’90, Martin Swain was the reporter detailed with following the fortunes of Bully and Villa’s David Platt, which also included tucking over 700 good luck cards in his luggage to deliver from fans.
But Bagnall’s photo of Bully’s spectacular first goal at Wembley against Czechoslovakia, on the night a couple of months before the World Cup that he and Paul Gascoigne firmly announced themselves to the nation, adorned the wall of the legend’s restaurant which he ran in Tettenhall for many years.
And, even before that, Bully never let ‘Baggers’ down.
“I remember an England ‘B’ game against Italy played at Brighton when Bully was in the team alongside the likes of Gazza and Tony Adams,” he recalls.
“Without getting too technical, with the way the Express & Star was printed – and of course remember we were still processing films in those days – I was desperate to get a picture within the first 20 minutes that could then be immediately processed by a colleague to make it into the next day’s first edition.
“Sure enough, ten minutes into the game, Bully took off like a train, and the Italian defender went into a full length sliding tackle to try and take him out.
“Bully just skipped over the challenge and kept on running, which gave me a cracking picture – he never let me down!”
Those England experiences were another huge part of the Bully story. Not just for his own incredible achievements, but, once again, for the uniting of an entire Molineux fanbase, which was bursting with Black Country pride in following him all over the country, and sometimes beyond, during his stint with the Three Lions.
Evers recalls taking a coachload to Portman Road when Bull scored a penalty for the Under-21s against Albania, and two to Plymouth for a Friday night tie with Poland just under six weeks later, when fans were greeted by stewards with ‘if you’re from Wolves and here for Bully you can go in the away end.’
That away end at Home Park finished up pretty much full of thousands of adoring Wolves fans. There to watch their hero.
Evers didn’t make it to Hampden Park for Bully’s debut England goal from the bench against Scotland – a decision taken when he was left out of the starting line-up revealed the night before – but recalls the jubilant atmosphere in Wolverhampton as fans watching on television spilled onto the streets to celebrate his goal.
“Town was alive that day, it was brilliant,” he says.
“It was like a New Year’s Eve celebration, everywhere was bouncing.
“That was one of only two Bully goals he scored in Britain that I didn’t see ‘live’, the other being one at Reading when we were losing 4-1 and I left before the end.
“Going to England with loads of Wolves fans was incredible, and I think we helped the England attendances as well!
“That night against Czechoslovakia the crowd at Wembley was only just over 20,000 which is incredible when you look back – I think Wolves fans were the catalyst for getting more people going along.
“They were such special times, and I’m really glad I was there to see them.”
The same sentiment applies for Bagnall, who photographed hundreds if not thousands of players during his decades in the job.
“The word legend is one which is certainly over-used in football, but it certainly applies to Bully.”
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Football is, naturally, about winning. And Wolves had their fair share of that during the Bully years.
But sometimes, the winning isn’t everything that matters. It’s about the culture, the sense of belonging, going to games with family, sharing a pre or post-match pint with friends.
Those Bully years, that handful of seasons when he and others regenerated a team, a club, a stadium and a whole town, encapsulates all of those feelings.
Even now, there is something magical and mysterious about that era. Something which is ultimately difficult to explain.
Two sides of the ground shut but the South Bank in all its pure, unadulterated glory. Irrespective of age or background, colour or creed, everyone was well and truly together. A seething mass of deliciously vociferous support, fans knowing they were witnessing something truly special and wanting to savour every last drop. ‘Bully’s gonna get ya, Bully’s gonna get ya.’ It felt unique.
Following the extraordinary successes of the team of the Fifties, followed by the cup-winning class of ’74 and ’80, after the years of desolation and devastation which followed, finally Wolves had a team, and a cult figure, to be proud of.
And after years of poor publicity, or no publicity, Bully was hitting the headlines, even before the ‘Let the Bull Loose’ campaign from Jimmy Greaves at Italia ’90, and the subsequent fan clamour for Bobby Robson to give the Tipton Terrier more minutes.
There was a great piece on his emergence on ‘Saint and Greavsie’, further profile as one of the mystery guests on A Question of Sport, and then as a panellist on the programme itself. And no Bully, the answer still isn’t Terry Butcher.
To risk slipping into a spot of self-indulgence, being of my teenage years at the time, that team was my team. And Bully was my hero.
Waiting outside Molineux, or heading off to the various destinations to watch training – including the North Bank Car Park – to grab a photo or autograph, became a rite of passage. Just like it did for all of us.
Matchdays were something else. School weeks built up to a Saturday at Molineux, or were lit up by a fixture in midweek, and away games became a staple as I got older.
And, even though I loved that whole team, a Bully goal always seemed something special. Something different. One of my favourite games remains the second leg of the Sherpa Van Trophy semi-final at home to Notts County, then a division above, prior to winning the final against Burnley at Wembley.
The atmosphere crackled that down. And Bully was magnificent, scoring two brilliant goals. I can close my eyes and be back there, the teenage elation and tangible delight. Those were the days, my friend.
We would turn up, not just anticipating that Bully would score. We expected him to score. Imagine now, a sequence of a trio of successive home games in late 1989 when Wolves beat Huddersfield 4-1, Preston 6-0 and Mansfield 6-2. Bully scored two, four and three respectively. And we’ve not even mentioned the four-goal New Year’s Day salvo at Newcastle, the late winners against Albion and Birmingham, the hat trick at Grimsby, left foot rocket against Bolton. Nor the battles with Steve Walsh.
It was well and truly the time of our Wolves-supporting lives. The club could go on and win the Premier League, the Champions League, and I’m not sure it would feel the same as it did back then. As Ross says: “If you were there, you really don’t need it explaining.”
And Evers too.
“When we got back into Europe, and were flying again under Nuno with so many quality players, I was still thinking, ‘imagine if we had Bully now’,” he says.
“I’m half sad he missed it all, because I’m pretty sure he would have scored a bucketful in that team.
“It’s brilliant that he’s still in and around the club, and that he hasn’t changed, and still has his spark.
“He still looks in good enough shape that he could run out on a Saturday and score us a few goals!”
And therein lies the rub. The beautiful, Wolves-related rub,
As a club Vice-President, Bully, as he approaches his seventh decade, is still around the place, and still delivering so many different ambassadorial duties.
Over recent years he developed such wonderful relationships with sadly departed Molineux legends such as Billy Wright, Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, Graham Hughes and John ‘Fozzie’ Hendley.
He ‘got’ them. And they ‘got’ him.
The accolades have also – so deservedly – also stacked up. From an MBE, to the Wolves Hall of Fame, the club Vice-Presidency, to the Freedom of the City.
And yet, all of those, whilst accepted with honour and good grace, probably don’t mean as much as the continuing opportunity to mix and interact with his people, the Wolves fans, past and present, who still cherish his contribution.
Whether he’s pacing around the park walking his dog, or dashing between stands at Molineux on a matchday to fulfil club commercial commitments, Bully isn’t one to hang around. Just like when he was playing, pursuing his insatiable appetite for goals. Always on the move.
Steve Bull and Wolves remains an affiliation, and story, for the ages. One that will never be repeated. ‘He’s the greatest, centre forward, that the world, has ever seen.’
Happy 60th birthday Bully. And thanks for the memories.
