Barry Powell: “It’s lovely to see the proper Old Gold”. Former Wolves player and coach on his return to the city with a new memoir.

His introduction to the first team came at the age of 19, in March 1973, after progressing through the schoolboy and apprentice ranks at Molineux. It was a double header in the capital, that Powell will never forget.

“They were amazing times,” he recalls. “I came in and went on an away trip where the first team were playing Chelsea in midweek and then Crystal Palace on Saturday. All the youth team players that were with me said, ‘Baz, you’re in the team!’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but I’ll only be changing the boots!’

“I went to Chelsea and was just there helping out sort the kits, then we went to Crystal Palace after staying down in London and I got 20 minutes as a substitute. The game was that quick I never really got a touch of the ball because it was just bypassing me, to play at that level was something different.”

Powell walked into a team of stars and soon enough one of them was helping him out in an unexpected way on the pitch.

“I made my home debut against West Bromwich Albion and after three minutes I got an elbow in the mouth,” he explains. “The physio was already busy looking after another injury, so Derek Dougan came over and sorted mine!”

Powell spent a couple of years in digs with John Richards and Kenny Hibbitt as youngsters which helped him on his journey. They became friends off the pitch, along with Steve Daley, who was another up and coming player.

There were so many crunch games in the early Seventies, but one in particular sticks in Powell’s mind: the 1973 FA Cup semi-final defeat to Leeds United at Maine Road. There was plenty of bad blood in the air after the previous season, where Wolves denied Leeds the title on the final day of the season.

“That semi-final was a big game and lots of Wolves fans will remember me from missing an opportunity, which I did, and it upset me,” he recalls. “It was a shot inside the box and the keeper got down and saved it reasonably well. It was a chance and it probably could’ve taken us a bit further to get to the final.

“That was probably the biggest game I ever played in against Leeds, and it was ever so strange because it was very early in my career and I invited my parents to come and watch so I met them when I got off the coach. My mom got kicked by a police horse, which wasn’t too clever!”

A year later there was a cup run that went one better. Powell played in six of the seven League Cup fixtures leading up to the final against Manchester City but was on tenterhooks when it came to his place in the squad for Wembley.

“I found out before the game because Bill McGarry put a reserve team game on for us and wanted myself and Phil Parkes to play because we’d got a few injuries in the team,” Powell explains. “Phil didn’t make it because he had a bad ankle. All the rest of the team had already travelled down near Wembley so it was me, Bill McGarry and a guy from the newspaper. Bill went to the toilet so I asked the reporter if Bill had mentioned anything about the team.

“He said, ‘He’s mentioned the team and said you’re not coming down just for the trip.’ So that told me I was close to playing. I got 15 minutes as a substitute and everyone was totally wiped out after the game. They were all laid down on the floor because being at Wembley for that occasion drained everything out of your body.”

The 2-1 win was the culmination of McGarry’s fine work over several seasons. A year later Powell moved on from Molineux, for a spell in the North American Soccer League with Portland Timbers, before returning to Wolves at the age of 32, where he brought the curtain down on his playing career and took his first steps into coaching.

“I was nearly finished playing then so I went to Hong Kong and then I got a phone call from Graham asking if I could coach,” Powell continues. “I said, ‘Of course I can coach’, but I couldn’t! I was doing my badges, though. I went back as a player-coach which was lovely because I started to coach Steve Bull and Andy Mutch. We won the Fourth Division and then won the Third. After that, Graham said he couldn't give me another contract.

“I had some fun with Steve Bull, he missed a chance with his left foot against Scunthorpe, I had a go at him and he came running over and said ‘Well you don’t do anything!’ On the Monday I took him down to the racecourse and I got him practising receiving the ball on his left foot and striking it left-footed. We played a game on the Saturday and within a few minutes he struck the ball left-footed and it went into the top corner.

“He ran over and gave it some and I thought, ‘Well, at least I do something right!’ He improved through that and I think he enjoyed that one-to-one coaching. There were some young players there. Colin Taylor was one I remember at the time. Plenty of good memories.”

On the opening night of the new Championship season, Powell was back in Wolverhampton signing copies of his new book, The Beautiful Game and Beyond, at The Great Western pub. And there were plenty of supporters keen to reminisce about two very different spells at Wolves.

“I’ve never thought about writing a book in my life, until I went home to Kenilworth,” Powell reveals. “When I finished working completely I started to go to local pubs and coffee shops and have a drink with the youngsters I used to go to school with. We all used to sit around a table in this one pub, there would be about ten or so of us, and they all wanted to know what I’d done in football. They used to burst out laughing and say why don’t you write a book? So here I am.

“I never really thought I was doing enough in the game before, but when I look back at places I’ve played and the people and teams I’ve played against, the countries I’ve visited, it’s unbelievable. Clive Corbett [co-writer] has been great and hopefully he’s got it all in there!

“I am a Wolves fan really because Wolverhampton Wanderers gave me the opportunity to play football professionally. They signed me as a 13-year-old boy, then at 15 as an apprentice and at 18 they signed me professionally. They gave me everything that I needed to play professional football.”

For copies of Barry Powell’s book contact Clive Corbett via email corbettnco1@gmail.com