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Howling at the Moon
Issue 1
by W. Lupus
We thought we'd kick off (pun intended) this first edition of our new fanzine with a combined little potted history of both our manager and our beloved club.
Our long serving manager Ray Wallace has been in FFO since the back end of Season 20 and is now about to enter his twelfth full season with the one club. By all accounts he set out to take on a young side to try to build from the bottom and with the old Bradford City side he inherited that was very much as close to the bottom as you could get back then in the old third tier Conference division. He steadily built a side the best he could over the seasons with limited finances and with a name change to Preston North End along the way. The enforced leap from the Conference to the Championship at the end of Season 23 due to reducing team numbers certainly didn’t help our cause by suddenly pitting us against far stronger teams before we were quite ready. We were starting to see the green shoots of progress and then along came the big restructuring of the league with a move to Molineux and another name change to become Wolves. The signing of a big name between the sticks followed that when M_Neuer was picked up from the auction. That strength at the back led in turn to a creditable first season in the newly minted Championship where we gained another undeserved promotion despite finishing 5th. Although at least this time we did look good for most of the campaign until we dropped away from the sharp end of the table after a horrendous run of form to finish the season. The season also saw us have a decent run in the DB Cup but just falling short at the second to last hurdle.
This season saw us make our first bow in the top flight of english football and what a baptism of fire it proved to be. We had some amazing games, beating Manchester City along the way, but we had too many losses against the teams around us. We were left with it all to do to clamber out of the bottom three and having to win our last few games. Thankfully we put together some decent performances and managed to stay up by the skin of our teeth.
We’ve had our ups and downs along the journey, but I think the general consensus amongst the supporters is that we are starting to look a lot more competitive while still retaining a reasonably youthful side. The arrival of both Y_Tielemans and G_Veron from Feyenoord and A_Ramsdale from the auction have definitely helped in the development of this squad. In fact it was only last season we sadly parted ways with both our first ever signing in H_Ozkan (Melendo), signed from John Read while he was caretaking FC Basel, and our last retained player from that original Bradford squad in S_Kalajdzic (although he was D_Rossi and before that a fresh faced 19 year old A_Ademi in those days).
On the subject of our manager, he has also split his time on occasion acting as caretaker for several clubs over the years, Eintracht Frankfurt, Real Sociedad and Porto to name a few, but the most notable for him was being able to guide Ajax to their very unlikely EFL Cup triumph over Barcelona in Season 25 after beating both Inter Milan and BMG along the way.
So far, between manager and club that has been the only silverware to date in a long old struggle to drag ourselves up to try to attain a degree of respectability.
Issue 1
by W. Lupus
We thought we'd kick off (pun intended) this first edition of our new fanzine with a combined little potted history of both our manager and our beloved club.
Our long serving manager Ray Wallace has been in FFO since the back end of Season 20 and is now about to enter his twelfth full season with the one club. By all accounts he set out to take on a young side to try to build from the bottom and with the old Bradford City side he inherited that was very much as close to the bottom as you could get back then in the old third tier Conference division. He steadily built a side the best he could over the seasons with limited finances and with a name change to Preston North End along the way. The enforced leap from the Conference to the Championship at the end of Season 23 due to reducing team numbers certainly didn’t help our cause by suddenly pitting us against far stronger teams before we were quite ready. We were starting to see the green shoots of progress and then along came the big restructuring of the league with a move to Molineux and another name change to become Wolves. The signing of a big name between the sticks followed that when M_Neuer was picked up from the auction. That strength at the back led in turn to a creditable first season in the newly minted Championship where we gained another undeserved promotion despite finishing 5th. Although at least this time we did look good for most of the campaign until we dropped away from the sharp end of the table after a horrendous run of form to finish the season. The season also saw us have a decent run in the DB Cup but just falling short at the second to last hurdle.
This season saw us make our first bow in the top flight of english football and what a baptism of fire it proved to be. We had some amazing games, beating Manchester City along the way, but we had too many losses against the teams around us. We were left with it all to do to clamber out of the bottom three and having to win our last few games. Thankfully we put together some decent performances and managed to stay up by the skin of our teeth.
We’ve had our ups and downs along the journey, but I think the general consensus amongst the supporters is that we are starting to look a lot more competitive while still retaining a reasonably youthful side. The arrival of both Y_Tielemans and G_Veron from Feyenoord and A_Ramsdale from the auction have definitely helped in the development of this squad. In fact it was only last season we sadly parted ways with both our first ever signing in H_Ozkan (Melendo), signed from John Read while he was caretaking FC Basel, and our last retained player from that original Bradford squad in S_Kalajdzic (although he was D_Rossi and before that a fresh faced 19 year old A_Ademi in those days).
On the subject of our manager, he has also split his time on occasion acting as caretaker for several clubs over the years, Eintracht Frankfurt, Real Sociedad and Porto to name a few, but the most notable for him was being able to guide Ajax to their very unlikely EFL Cup triumph over Barcelona in Season 25 after beating both Inter Milan and BMG along the way.
So far, between manager and club that has been the only silverware to date in a long old struggle to drag ourselves up to try to attain a degree of respectability.
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