SIX OF THE BEST: OPENING DAY WINS

Start as you mean to go on...

17 August 1996: Grimsby 1-3 Wolves

After the shambles of an ending to 1995/96 under Mark McGhee (0 wins and four points from the final eight games, limping to mathematical survival in the penultimate game of the season, a 20th placed finish being our worst by a distance since we returned to the second tier in 1989, and indeed our worst to come until the catastrophe that was 2012/13, being told by our esteemed manager that Steve Corica was better than Georgi Kinkladze), we opened the new campaign up in Cleethorpes showcasing a new 3-5-2 system. Some might say that McGhee was following the time-honoured mediocre manager template of watching an international tournament and copying the tactics of a team (Germany, in this case) who'd done well. I couldn't possibly comment. Anyway, as we were to find out throughout the course of the next few months, this formation worked very well for us away from home, giving us the ability to break with speed and hit teams on the counter. The less said about our results at Molineux, the better. Here we saw Steve Froggatt assist all three of Steve Bull's goals – his final league hat trick (there was one more to follow in the League Cup against Barnet in 1998). That third goal is a thing of beauty, unlike our teal away kit.

Team: Stowell; Richards, Atkins, Venus; Romano, Thompson, Osborn, Corica, Froggatt; Bull, Roberts. Subs: Wright, Young, Ferguson.

9 August 1997: Norwich 0-2 Wolves

Fast forward a year and the atmosphere around the club had soured somewhat. Frustrated by McGhee's failure to gain promotion (as well he might have been), Sir Jack Hayward had pulled the plug on any further lavish spending; from now (and for the first time since he took ownership of the club in 1990) we would have to largely generate funds through the sale of players. This led to our squad being noticeably thinner in pre-season than had previously been the case and in the unauspicious surroundings of Stirling Albion's Forthbank Stadium, a spindly 17 year old kid named Robbie Keane pulled on a first team Wolves shirt for the first time. He impressed hugely in the preparations for the season and was added to the main squad in short order. This was less McGhee showing great faith in a fantastic youth product than him taking a bit of a flier on someone because we didn't have a great deal else – his pet project Corica was injured, for one - but by now we knew better than to expect any kind of grand vision from him. So it came to pass that he made his senior debut on the opening day of 1997/98 at Carrow Road, playing in a withdrawn role behind the familiar faces of Bull and Don Goodman. It could scarcely have gone much better. The quality of his two goals was astonishing for one so young; one lashed in left footed from the edge of the box, one impudent jink into the area and simply slipped past the keeper when one on one. It was apparent immediately that this was no Shaun Bradbury/Darren Roberts style flash in the pan; we had a genuine star on our hands.

Team: Stowell; Smith, Curle, Sedgley, Kubicki; Atkins, Ferguson, Froggatt; Keane; Bull, Goodman. Subs: Robinson, Crowe, Westwood.

8 August 1999: Manchester City 0-1 Wolves

If by 1997 we were in “sell-to-buy” mode, in 1999 we were a couple of rungs below that – into the territory of not being able to afford to renew contracts of existing first team players. The squad with which we entered 1999/2000 was threadbare in the extreme; we were only just about able to fill the now five man bench and had virtually no back up to the front two of Keane and Havard Flo (although later this month, Colin Larkin would make one of those flash in the pan style short lived impacts that we mentioned earlier). Everything was themed around Keane's impending departure; we knew we couldn't hold on to him any longer, we needed the money from his sale to build a squad and it was simply a matter of time before he left. However, owing to Aston Villa refusing to stump up the money demanded, he started the season here. This game against newly-promoted City (featuring future Wolf Mark Kennedy) saw Keane score his penultimate goal for Wolves in a largely backs to the wall 1-0 win, although Flo did also hit the post and for all City's dominance, they didn't create all that much. I'll be nice to Carl Robinson and say he meant that little flick round the corner rather than miscontrolling it. Colin Lee may have been a fundamentally dull man and often played fairly dull football (especially away from home), but he did generally send out balanced teams until he totally lost the plot in 2000/01. That was quite a welcome relief after the lunacy of some of the stuff his predecessor sent out at times. From a personal point of view, this win came around a month before I moved to Manchester. Two years later, England beat Germany 5-1 a week before I moved to Germany. If anyone wants to fund a move to Barcelona for me in a couple of years, you know where to reach me.

Team: Stowell; Muscat, Emblen, Curle, Naylor; Bazeley, Robinson, Osborn, Sinton; Flo, Keane. Subs: Mautone, Sedgley, Green, Simpson, Corica.

13 August 2011: Blackburn 1-2 Wolves

Yes, there's a massive gap between that City game and this one. This isn't my fault. I don't have selective amnesia which means I have no recall of what happened between 2000 and 2009 (quite the opposite, in fact). We just didn't win any opening day games (six draws and four defeats) in that period. 2010 saw a win over Stoke at home which almost made the cut for this piece, and a year later we travelled to Ewood Park for a re-run of the heart-stopping, “please don't ever put me through that again” final day of 2010/11. We were of course looking to push on from there, having hit the 40 point barrier (which turned out to be just about enough) and make last-ditch relegation scraps a thing of the past. We're up against a team here who we'd expect to be competing directly against. We've brought in the centre half that the fanbase almost to a man demanded. It's at a ground where we've taken a few batterings in our Premier League past. And we do a number on them. Even had time to miss a penalty. Even had time to bring Stefan Maierhofer on. Talk about false dawns. Roger Johnson was genuinely excellent here, we looked like a seasoned Premier League team for the most part and it looked like we'd made that next step. Of course we all know what happened next.

Team: Hennessey; Stearman, Johnson, Berra, Ward; Hunt, Henry, O'Hara, Jarvis; Doyle, Fletcher. Subs: De Vries, Elokobi, Foley, Milijas, Hammill, Ebanks-Blake, Maierhofer.

10 August 2014: Wolves 1-0 Norwich

There are not many times when I've been thankful to be in the Championship. Forget all your guff about it being an exciting league and loads of fun. It isn't, on either count. It's soul-destroying. But it is better than League One, where we'd found ourselves in 2013/14. Rumour has it that some Welsh imbecile took us there, but I don't like to talk about him. So, back to the absolute minimum level where we should ever be. Playing Norwich (newly-relegated at the time) certainly beats playing Stevenage or Crawley. This was a big test for us; two teams who mere weeks previously had been separated by two divisions. We'd done well in League One – as you would expect us to – but transfer activity going into 2014/15 had been minimal with only Tommy Rowe (injured in pre-season) and Rajiv van La Parra arriving, both on free transfers. Would we be able to stand up to the test a level up? Would we continue with the aesthetically pleasing possession style that Kenny Jackett had employed through the second half of 2013/14? The answer to both was yes. In a game of few clear cut chances, van La Parra had one of those rare days where it looks like he does indeed know how to play football and he terrorised Martin Olsson throughout, leading to the Swede being sent off in the second half and his cross to Dave Edwards providing the only goal. True to form, 5-10 minutes before he scored, I'd been asking for Edwards to be taken off as he wasn't doing anything other than flapping around ineffectually. He had an occasional knack for doing that.

Team: Ikeme; Doherty, Batth, Stearman, Golbourne; Evans, McDonald; van La Parra, Edwards, Sako; Dicko. Subs: McCarey, Ricketts, Ebanks-Landell, Price, Henry, Jacobs, Clarke.

5 August 2017: Wolves 1-0 Middlesbrough

Finally we come to the start of the Fosun era. The confused muddle of 2016/17 had been put to bed and the sense was very much that this was the real start for Fosun, with a full pre-season available to attract the manager they wanted and bring in the players he desired. Of course, we didn't know if it would go well. The media were intent on pursuing their crusade that these Portuguese lads wouldn't like it up 'em. Middlesbrough represented a very tough assignment on paper, another newly-relegated team, one who themselves had splashed the cash in the summer of 2017 and highly fancied to make an immediate return to the Premier League. We knew we were missing both Ivan Cavaleiro and Helder Costa for this one, which was essentially all our attacking threat from the previous season. We certainly didn't have it all our own way. We were indebted to John Ruddy on his debut for some fine saves; on another day, we could actually have lost this one. But on the whole this set the tone for the whole season. We passed the ball with comfort right the way up the pitch. Ruben Neves played one pass in particular that had everyone gasping; a few months later, we would take it as read that he'd pull one of those out a game. Diogo Jota proved that he wasn't a bit of a showpony coming in from abroad as he dug in down the left hand side. Leo Bonatini stepped more or less off a plane onto the Molineux turf and stuck away the only goal. Willy Boly was immense at the back. Romain Saiss had shed the bag of spuds down the back of his shorts and looked an imposing presence in midfield. We rubbed our eyes and wondered if this really was the same Conor Coady and Matt Doherty that we'd seen in previous years. Could it continue? You bet it could. That season was by far the most enjoyable I'd ever known in 30 years of watching us. And there was much more to come.

Team: Ruddy; Miranda, Coady, Boly; Doherty, Saiss, Neves, Douglas; Enobakare, Bonatini, Jota. Subs: Norris, Bennett, Batth, Edwards, Ronan, Graham, Dicko.