My passion for 430-mile round trip to home games had been coming under strain through the back end of last season and the early games this season too.
When I was more likely to see injuries than victories what keeps me coming back? HOPE
Hope that one day soon things will turn around for us and the next game is the one I will be celebrating a scintillating performance and the ecstasy of victory. Today hope came true.
One of the Wolves fans on the train back to Waterloo at full-time said to me “you should have got a cricket score” and he was absolutely right.
Sure it took a pitiful 77 seconds for Nathan Collins to open our account today and our lead only lasted till Matheus Cunha’s 4th minute equaliser, but we should have been 2-0 up before that and it was only the sterling work of Sam Johnstone between the Wolves sticks that kept us out of double figures by the final whistle.
We were on song from the first minute to the last and completely wiped the floor with a wolves team that were so woeful that they were booed off at half and full-time.
Playing at 100,000mph we overwhelmed the visitors in midfield and every time we swarmed into the final third we should have scored.
The lack of structure in either team’s defence was shocking, but with total command of the midfield Brentford were the only team that ever looked likely to take advantage of the opponents shaky backline.
Wolves only scored in the aftermath of conceding when the home team were still riding the wave of celebration circling the stadium, Jorgen Strand Larsen getting the visitors’ last equaliser 6 minutes after Bryan Mbuemo had doubled the host’s lead from the spot.
The visitor’s would only be level for 2 minutes though before Christian Noorgaard restored the host’s lead just before the half hour mark. Ethan Pinnock would add another for the host’s in the dying moments of first-half stoppage time, Brentford’s 4th of a blockbusting 6 goal half.
The first 45 kept up such a frenetic pace that it was only reasonable to expect the 2nd half to dawdle along somewhat and in comparison it certainly seemed too.
The visitors threw substitute after substitute onto the field in a vain attempt to gain a foothold in proceedings.
None of them helped and the first of them, replacing Andre with Hee-Chang Hwang, drew a chorus of deafening boos from the away support interspersed with chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” aimed at Head Coach Gary O’Neil.
The clear animosity between fans and team, coupled with the dreadful ‘performance’ on the pitch today and the results this season so far tell me Wolves will be dropping down to the championship in May unless something drastic changes fast.
Brentford were only prevented from scoring a hatful more goals by the lack of fresh legs off their paper-thin, injury-ravaged bench.
Fabio Carvalho and Yehor Yarmoliuk were only unleashed in the 77th minute but it was fitting when a combination between them in injury-time resulted in the former tapping home the host’s 5th and final goal of the match.
Everyone left in the stadium was too busy celebrating that goal to spot Wolves snaffling a consolation 3rd at the other end before the ref finally blew for the end of the match.
The celebrations that had been reverberating through the home ends since Carvalho bulged the net were now turned up 11 and would continue to ramp up and up as the victors took a lap of honour around the stadium.
Normally I have to sprint for a train at full-time but this time I’d worked slack into my schedule and stayed a full 15 minutes after the final whistle to allow the glory of hope fulfilled to permeate my soul.
With that feeling I can survive the international break till the Bees are back in action at Old Trafford in a fortnight. BRING IT ON
The Football tourist 