DOUG ELLIS - BONEY KNEE - WORLD CUP 90
email Steve Bull

Even Steve Bull's army of admirers would never claim he was the greatest player they ever saw. They might well argue he was the hungriest; the man himself modestly considers himself lucky. But put the ingredients together and Wolves ended up with a man who turned rejection on its head and fashioned a career which ensured he became one of the Black Country's most famous sons.

Bull's humble, working class origins explained the hunger which drove him to risk life and limb in pursuit of the goals which brought him his glory. But throughout his career he was fearful that his luck would not hold out and an injury kept secret from the world would end it all.

"I was quite set for a factory life, just like the rest of my mates and family," Bull remembers. "When I was playing for Tipton Town as a teenager, they found a little piece of bone had flaked off my right knee and was floating around. "I was 17 and that's when the doc told me: 'Son, you can forget about professional football.' To be honest, I never thought I'd be good enough anyway. The news was hardly going to change my life. I had a job just like mum and dad and thought that was it. Work hard all my life.

"So I always feel like one of the luckiest men alive. That bit of bone is still there to this day. In fact, if you check back on any film of me, or if you can remember, take a look at me after I have gone into a real hard challenge. "When I start to get up, my right leg is always bent and people always thought that I was adjusting my pads or socks. But what always happened in those challenges was that this little bit of bone would move and my knee would be locked. "What I was doing was pushing it back into position so I could straighten my knee out again! It was the left knee which eventually forced me to retire but the right knee was the one that I always felt could give in at any time.

"Whenever I read or hear about young players getting a broken leg or a serious injury that stops them playing League football, I keep coming back to that word. Lucky. Lucky that my body was strong enough to cope. "That floating bone was there when I made the move from Albion to Wolves. It was like: 'Oh, we'll have to get that done eventually,' but we never did. It's still there to this day. We're only talking about something half the size of fingernail but it had a big impact on me and my career.

"Everybody says 'you should have moved' but there was no guarantee I would have passed a medical. It looked like I would go to Villa on a couple of occasions. At the World Cup in 1990, me, Gazza and Gary Lineker swam out to the yacht of the Tranmere owner at the time, a guy called Peter Johnson. Doug Ellis was there, we got speaking and he said to me: 'I shall be coming for you soon young man.'"But he never did. He never made that call. I suppose if I were around today, it would have been different. I would probably have an agent who would have made something happen. I possibly could have made another million or two on top of what I've got now.

But I never had an agent really. My ex-father in law used to look after my diary for me but that was about it. And all the time, I never knew how long that knee was going to last."Had I known then what I know now, maybe it would have been different, but I always felt the next moment of my career could be my last. That's how I played the game and that's how I looked at things.

When Wolves put a five year contract in front of me for the last time I couldn't wait to sign it." And the hunger? The hunger ensured that, not only would Bull sweat blood for financial rewards unimagineable to a young gun from the factory floor, but that he would fight tenaciously to keep it. "Growing up, we hardly had any money," he says before laughing: "Sunday was like a carnival because we would have a proper Sunday dinner. "But during the week it was jam sandwiches, fish-paste and cheese on crackers! Can't stand fish paste to this day! But we were just typical working class - very close but not much money. That's where the hunger came from when I played. That's why I always kept my feet on the ground.

"Money never changed me, I'm thankful for that. I do think it's the root of all evil but I don't think I will ever let it get to me. I've got a beautiful house but I've earned it. I worked bloody hard for it. "But when you start off with nothing, you make sure you look after your money. I could have more I suppose. But at what cost? A move to the wrong place can get you a fortune but can also send you off the rails."Look at Lee Hughes. He was a fool to himself. I know Lee, know him quite well. He was just the same as me. But the good money changed him and what happened was tragic. "He has got to get himself sorted out now and I hope he will. He has done the crime and he has to do the time. He needs to get his head down and start all over again when he comes out."

Those, then, were Bull's motivations. What he did with them was extraordinary. Perhaps it is only now that he can truly grasp the enormity of his journey from Tipton to Turin by the time he was 25 - some 560 games and 306 goals with Wolves, 13 England caps and four goals including the only one of his career he would have liked to have seen from the stands.

Bull recalls: "I wish I had been a spectator to watch that debut against Scotland. I would love to have been up among the fans that day celebrating that one. Of all the things that I have done in my career, that goal gets me the most stick. "I can be up in Scotland, even now, and they will still slaughter me for scoring against them.

"Of course, I do wish I had had more of a chance but you look back and realise you were around at the time of Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley and that's a tough act to break through."

But Bull's memories of his World Cup at Italia '90 are entirely positive - save for the snapshot of devastation in the England dressing room on that infamous night of Gazza's tears after the semi-final defeat, in a penalty shoot out, to Germany. "The biggest frustration was in the semi-final because I thought I was going to get on," he adds. "We were 1-0 down in the second half and Bobby Robson told me to get warmed up: 'You're going on.' Gary Lineker was coming off."So I started warming up and getting ready, up and down the line . . . but minutes later, Lineker shot through someone's legs and we were level. How are you supposed to feel? Bobby says: 'Sit down a bit Bully.' "The night we went out to Germany . . . I've never known a dressing room like it. And that's because we felt we could have won it. Gazza was crying again in the dressing room afterwards; big Terry Butcher was going around saying we couldn't have done any more. "But there was no lifting us that night. We were in the gutter.

"And I have great friends from that period. . . playing cards on the coach with Terry Butcher and Bryan Robson. I think there was about £150-£200 on the table but I am playing with guys who were earning £5,000-£6,000 a week. I was on £350 a week. So for me, that's a fortune on the table! The pot got up to £350 and I was crapping myself. But I eventually won £375 and had to fight to keep the smile off my face. That was it for me. I played one more round and then it was 'Sorry lads, got to go and check something!' 'Butch says: 'Hang on, you can't leave now.' Try and stop me, I thought.

"But those lads were different class and many have become good friends. Platty, Gazza. It was a tight group. Maybe to start with you feel a bit of a stranger but once you get to know the players, you realise that we were all in the same boat. "Behind all the big names and the big profiles they just want to play football and, most of all, win the World Cup.

"I think it's all a bit 'I'm bigger than you' these days. I can't get my head round it when they come up with excuses to miss England games. 'So-and-so has got a bruised toe.' I'll never understand players dodging the chance to play for England. But then it is changing isn't it?

"But it as a Wolves player, who almost single-handedly dragged the team out of the gutter in the late 1980s, for which Bull is most fondly remembered and the framed photos on the walls of his Shropshire home tell the story of the goal feats that, to this day and for many years to come, he is in demand.

So, Bully, take it away - top five Wolves memories.

"Well, the first would be easy - the Sherpa Van final. Purely for the sheer scale of the occasion. I know it's not the biggest trophy in the game but what staggered me that day was the size of Wolves support."Until then, we weren't sure quite how big the club was or what it meant to people. I think we filled three quarters of the ground. It was a minor Cup but it was still Wembley and I knew that day that I wanted more. I obviously never thought I would play for England there but I knew I wanted to go back with Wolves.

"New Year's Eve in 1990 would be next - four goals at Newcastle. Although not so much because of the goals but because four of us were half cut the night before!"We were in the hotel and Graham Turner gave us the chance for a couple of pints and a phonecall home to wish our loved ones a happy new year."I don't know how many drinks later - maybe four or five - but me, Paul Cook, Andy Mutch and Andy Thompson are thinking: 'Shall we go clubbing?' And then it dawned on us that we would be playing in front of 35,000 or more the next day and we went straight to bed in a panic. We kept out of Graham's way the next morning but we were all in the side but very, very sluggish in the first half. I've got a memory of Mark McGhee missing one and then my goals just starting to fly in. It must have sobered us up. It was nice because the Newcastle fans eventually applauded me as well but I suddenly thought while me and the boys had gone to bed, their lads must have stayed out drinking!

"Bull rates the weekend of his second child's birth, in February 1996, as another striking Wolves memory as he dashed from a Friday night stay at a hotel in Norwich to sit up all night with his second wife Julie before their second son was safely delivered. The following morning, he raced back to Norwich, told the then manager McGhee that he was fit to play . . . and scored twice in a 3-2 win. "Now that was weird," he says. "The adrenalin from the birth just kept me going - it was like everything was happening in slow motion on the pitch."Neither can Bull forget his 195th goal at Derby in February 1992 which saw him overtake John Richards at the top of Wolves scoring chart but the highlights are rounded off, inevitably, by that dramatic October day in 1989 when he returned to the Hawthorns - and scored a winning goal in his first Black Country derby."I think most Wolves fans tell me that's their favourite but I remember it for the celebration after the ball went in," he says. "There was never an anti-Albion thing for me, never.

"Occasionally, I get a Baggies fan who takes me to task for leaving but I point out that it wasn't by choice. I was shown the door. They calm down then and shake hands."But there was a lot of attention on me that day and when I scored, I thought our fans were going to spill over the wall and on to the pitch. I have never seen such a response to a goal. . . and I can still see Mutchy (Andy Mutch) checking back to cross to me.

"We did well in those early battles with Albion. I remember Graham Roberts winning a challenge with me patting the back of his shorts in one game and all the Albion fans cheering, signalling that he had me in his pocket. But you don't get mad, you bide your time and get even. A few moments later we scored."

Courtesy of Express & Star