The atmosphere, and anticipation, was building. Kick-off in a crucial FA Cup quarter final and passionate Midlands’ derby in front of a crowd of over 50,000 was barely minutes away.
Players were going through their customary warm-ups, loosening the limbs, straining the sinews.
And then, all of a sudden, one of the stars of the show, the talismanic experienced striker, crashed to the ground.
He had been struck in the head by a ball sent powerfully over from the left wing by the substitute.
Welcome to the weird, wild and not so wonderful prelude to the last FA Cup quarter final between Wolves and Coventry, which took place this very weekend, back in 1973.
“This is how it was,” begins Steve Kindon, the unintentional protagonist behind the whole incident whose skills as a pacey and powerful forward are matched by that as a skilled and extremely humorous raconteur.
“When we used to warm up, I’d be on the left wing near the tunnel sending in crosses for Lofty (goalkeeper Phil Parkes) and John Richards would be in and around the penalty spot.
“Lofty would put his hand up in the air if he wanted me to lob in a cross, or hold it out if he wanted me to drive one with more power.
“I’d cross one in, Phil would catch it, and then John would fire two or three into Phil’s chest, then I’d cross one in again.
“Before that Coventry match, our striker Derek Dougan was doing his own pre-match routine and, once he was warm enough, started to walk towards the North Bank to conduct the Wolves fans who were singing his name.
“Phil put his hand out, requesting a driven ball, so that’s what I did, I drove the ball towards his chest.
“And then, about three yards before it reached him, the Doog was walking the other way, not looking in my direction, and the ball smacked him on the side of his head.
“As I used to say many times while doing my after dinner speaking, for once in my life I had actually hit the ball accurately.”
With Dougan lying crumpled on the floor, all hell broke loose.
Sammy Chung, later a promotion-winning Wolves manager but at this time assistant to Bill McGarry, sprinted on from the dugout, smelling salts at the ready.
Kindon and the other concerned Wolves team-mates crowded around.
“We had some great back-up players at that time, including Kindo, our substitute that day,” recalls Richards, who had got to know Kindon as a fellow sports-mad Lancashire schoolboy born in Warrington.
“He was exciting, and always a threat who could ignite a game when coming off the bench.
“On that day he created some excitement even before the game had kicked off, knocking out Derek with a beautifully drilled cross intended for Lofty.
“After the ball smacked him on the side of the head, he was unconscious!”
No-nonsense boss McGarry had been taking his seat up in the stand as the drama ensued, so took a little longer to arrive at the scene of the crime.
The extra distance, however, hadn’t tempered his anger.
“He came steaming in and called Steve a few expletives that I wouldn’t dare repeat now,” another near bystander, Wolves midfielder Kenny Hibbitt, recalls.
“Yes, he wasn’t best pleased,” adds Kindon, with a slight touch of understatement.
“Sammy had told me not to worry and that it was an accident but Bill McGarry went berserk at me – ‘Kindon, what the hell are you doing? – or words to that effect.
“I apologised and then must have said something about him giving me enough criticism and now I’d actually managed to stick a decent ball in and he wasn’t giving me any praise.”
Fortunately, the smelling salts did the trick, and Dougan came around.
The concussion protocols of today were not in existence back then and so, after a five-minute delay, the game kicked off.
And then, seven minutes later, Dougan won a towering header which helped play in Richards for a fantastic opening goal to put Wolves in front.
The Doog’s recovery was complete, though not as complete as the run and finish from Richards, outmuscling Coventry defender Bobby Parker before running on and dispatching a clinical finish past Bill Glazier.
“John went off like a bullet to get us that early goal,” recalls Hibbitt, who was then himself under the spotlight shortly after half time when Richards was bundled over in the area and Wolves were awarded a penalty.
“That was when my nerves started to take over,” Hibbitt continues.
“I knew how important the penalty would be to get 2-0 in front as there would be no way back for them, but also negative thoughts came into my mind about perhaps missing it.
“I always tried to put my penalties in the same place, apart from once against Birmingham when my brother (Terry) was there so I thought he would have told them and I changed my mind.
“That one ended up in Row H of the South Bank and probably knocked a policeman’s helmet off – I shouldn’t have changed my mind.
“Against Coventry, it was hard ground and the ball was nice and dry, and I just went for the same corner that I always did.
“I always felt that if you hit a penalty into the corner with enough pace a goalkeeper would always struggle to get there.
“Thankfully I put it away and the tension was eased.”
And there had been tension, because Coventry, also in the top division, had very much been in the tie.
Their chief threat had come from a certain midfielder by the name of Willie Carr, who would join Wolves a couple of years later, and be part of the team which won the League Cup Final in 1980.
“He had the long hair and everything back then,” says Hibbitt, of his future friend and colleague who went closest to breaching the Wolves defences.
“From what I recall we generally controlled the game, apart from the odd threat initiated by Willie,” says Richards.
As for Kindon, he was actually called upon by McGarry not long after Richards had opened the scoring, when Jim McCalliog pulled up with a leg injury.
It was that role, coming off the bench to make an impact, which Kindon chiefly had to fill under McGarry’s stewardship, as he moved into his mid-twenties.
While he enjoyed his time at Wolves after joining the club from Burnley, he would have preferred to have sampled a little bit more game time.
“I can still remember when I was at Burnley being called to the club and told there was someone who wanted to sign me,” Kindon reveals.
“When I got there, I heard them refer to someone waiting in a different room as ‘Bill’ – and I thought it was Bill Shankly wanting to sign me for Liverpool as I’d seen a report that Frank Worthington had failed a medical there.
“It was actually Bill McGarry, and, after saying all the nice stuff, once I had completed the seven different signatures you needed on a contract, he told me he wasn’t going to play me much in my first season.
“And this was after making me the club’s record signing of £100,000!
“When I asked him why, he told me I was a centre forward or a left winger, and that they had Derek Dougan as a centre forward who was better than me, and Dave Wagstaffe as a left winger who was better than me!
“I think he saw me as a really effective supersub, a bit like David Fairclough at Liverpool, and so many of my appearances under McGarry came from the bench.”
Being an effective sub probably didn’t include knocking out one of the team’s key figures during the warm-up, but, ultimately, there were no lasting after-effects for player and team as Wolves made it through to the semi-finals with the 2-0 win, in front of a Molineux crowd of 50,106 which hasn’t been surpassed since.
Taking into consideration reaching the UEFA Cup Final in 1972, winning the Texaco Cup a year earlier and then the League Cup in both 1974 and 1980, across an 11-year period Wolves reached no fewer than eight semi-finals.
“At the time, we were a very good cup team, and for some reason the knockout competitions brought out the best in us,” says Richards.
“We had a great team, capable of beating anyone on the day, and especially at Molineux, and the fans were always up for a cup run.
“We had some great lads with a good mix of players – top quality seasoned professionals like Mike Bailey, the Doog and Waggy, supported by younger top-class talent such as Lofty, Frank Munro, Derek Parkin, John McAlle and Kenny.
“When everybody was fit, we feared nobody.”
Sadly, so many of the epic cup runs ended at the semi-final stage, including this particular year, after the Coventry win, when a tale of missed chances saw Wolves fall to Billy Bremner’s second half goal against a strong Leeds side at Maine Road.
“At the time, Leeds were probably the most consistent and successful team in the First Division,” Richards recalls.
“But we had beaten them in the final game of the previous season and, as I have mentioned, we always fancied our chances against anyone.
“We lost 1-0 in a very tight game which was a massive disappointment because, in hindsight, we probably should have won.
“A key factor in my opinion was the absence of our captain, Mike Bailey.
“He had a hamstring strain and was on the bench, and we certainly missed him that day.”
“That was another tough one for us to take,” echoes Hibbitt.
“Just as it was losing to Arsenal at Villa Park, and then Spurs at Hillsborough when we should have won in extra time but then had to play them at Highbury in the replay.
“We had lots of opportunities to get to cup finals, and there have been a couple of semi- finals for Wolves since, including under Nuno a few years ago when it was so close.
“I was watching that one on the television and remember telling my grandson I would take him to the final but then came that last gasp penalty which just deflated everyone.
“When thinking about this weekend, it’s worth remembering I had a couple of happy years at Coventry at the end of my career which I really enjoyed.
“Although I left in 1986 and they went and won the FA Cup the following year – so maybe it was me that was the cup jinx!”
Wolves went on to finish fifth in the top-flight in that 1972/73 season, as well as making it a double of semi-final defeats having been beaten by Spurs in the last four of the League Cup three months prior to the loss against Leeds.
For Richards, it was one of his best ever seasons in a Wolves shirt.
He finished on 27 league goals, just one behind overall top scorer Pop Robson, added a further nine in the different cup competitions and achieved his solitary senior England cap – of course it should have been more – against Northern Ireland at the campaign’s conclusion.
“Personally, it was a successful season but the goals came thanks to the team’s performances,” he reflects.
“It was an honour to receive that England call-up for the end-of-season home internationals and a European tour, and to pick up one cap and a couple of selections on the bench.
“Looking back, it was maybe disappointing not to receive more, but at the time I was just delighted to be included and to be part of a squad including the likes of Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Alan Ball.”
To bring it back to the present, both Richards and Hibbitt, the latter who will be at Molineux with fellow Wolves and Sky Blues alumni Carr and Barry Powell for this Saturday’s lunchtime showdown, have confidence that the men in gold and black have the potential to go all the way this season.
Winning the FA Cup for the first time since 1960, and etching their names in Molineux folklore, is a tantalising three games away for Gary O’Neil and his team.
There have been other cup meetings in the last 50 years, notably a couple of replays and a win for Coventry in the FA Cup back in 1984, and a fiery League Cup win for Wolves towards the end of 1995.
Remarkably, however, the two old foes are locking horns for the first time in a decade, since Dave Edwards was on target in a 1-1 draw in the penultimate fixture of the League One winning season of 2013/14.
“I’d love to see Wolves get back to Wembley, particularly for a final, so the younger generation can have that feeling that we had back in the 70s and 1980,” says Hibbitt.
“My wife Jane is telling me Wolves are going all the way this year, so if it doesn’t happen, we can blame her!
“I’ll be there on Saturday, sat next to Willie, who probably can’t lose given he was such a great player at Coventry as well as Wolves.
“I’ll be giving him a nudge if Wolves get a goal or two, that’s for sure!”
“Probably unlike now, the cup competitions were as important as the league when we played,” adds Richards.
“Every player wanted to get to a cup final, particularly at Wembley – it was every young footballer’s dream and every football supporter’s dream too.
“Apart from the Doog, none of the early Seventies’ Wolves team had played at Wembley in a cup final, and we were desperate to get there and to win something because we had the team to do it.
“Eventually we managed to achieve our dream – and you can’t do any better than that!
“Looking ahead to this weekend, I have a similar feeling to the one I had prior to the game in ’73.
“The current Wolves team is capable of beating any other on its day, and I don’t think Coventry will fancy coming to Molineux.
“As ever, the Wolves supporters will play a key role – this is a great chance for them to fulfil their dreams and create an amazing memory.
“So, it’s a déjà vu moment, I’m predicting a 2-0 win for Wolves – and on to Wembley!”
For Kindon meanwhile, the mere mention of the fixture brings back all the memories of that bizarre pre-match moment, the legacy of which lingered on for some considerable time.
“It was a good six months later that a letter was sent to the club from some students at the University of Wolverhampton,” he recalls.
“It said it was a survey, asking lots of questions about me and football, multiple choice so would I rather do (a), (b), (c) or (d) etc.
“With every single question, the fourth option was ‘or would you rather knock Derek Dougan out with a shot before a big FA Cup game?’.
“It raised a chuckle in the dressing room that’s for sure – it’s a moment I’ve never quite been able to live down.”
