My visit to Molineux (20 years ago)

Me outside Wolves home ground Molineux

In June 1987 I went on a tour to Europe, I was considered lucky because at that time, who had any money to spend without having worked a day in his / her life ? Thanks to my supportive parents,they paid the then princely sum of S$ 2,500 for an all expenses paid trip of 28 days in Europe on a Tracks tour group. To cut a long story short, the visit to England was the last leg of it and by that time - 28 days into the tour, I had made many firm friends, who are all lawyers by the way.

My group of 5, 4 guys and a girl, extended our visit for another 1 week in England, and I suggested that we visit Molineux as well as Old Trafford and Everton (yes Kannan, I went to Merseyside too). The visits to the grounds on a typical Saturday were a complete eye-opener and changed my perception of English football forever.

Molineux, the stadium of Wolverhampton Wanderers is located in the city center of Wolverhampton. The city is in my opinion, one of the greyest and ugliest I had seen in my life what with the poverty and poor town planning. The factories and commerce which had been the bedrock of English industry in the Midlands had left maybe in the 70s and what was left was a grey and crumbling city. There were plenty of migrant people of Indian, Sikh, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin and one would not be faulted if he or she thought that they had stepped into an Indian city.

This is in the 80s ; before even more migration from the former colonies set in. I cannot imagine how it is like 22 years later.


Ki Keong says, "come on support Wolves !"

However, Molineux was new then and we went in by the side entrance and managed to get ourselves onto the pitch. We had a great time pretending to be players and running around and kicking and basically having a great time. It was a pity Wolves were playing 'away' that week else I might have had a chance to watch them.


Clockwise top left, Peter Chow, Chong Ki Keong, Simon Tan and Me

A booming voice shouted " Hey ! what the hell are you doing ?" It turned out that we were intruding into private property and no one was allowed on the pitch. The groundsman had a shock when he saw 5 Asian students and he then changed his tune and let us continue taking our pictures and that was the end of my visit to Wolves home ground 20 years ago.