MY WOLVES FAN DAD WAS THERE TO SEE MY HISTORIC TREBLE
Roberts’ Hawthorns hat-trick was ‘my best day in football’
were really good. Obviously, as a striker, you want to hit the ground running. But I never did that.
“Fortunately, on the Tuesday before that game, I scored my first goal for the club at Oxford. That took some off the heat off me.
“We went to The Hawthorns on the Sunday. And West Brom – I’d always done well against them for some reason.
“I scored the first goal in the first five minutes.
I headed home from Steve Froggatt’s corner and all of a sudden, the pressure just dropped from my
shoulders. That allowed me to enjoy the rest of the game. I didn’t think I’d get a couple more. “My first two were identical, Bully got his standard goal and then they pulled one back before I got my third in front of 7,000 Wolves fans in the Smethwick End.
“The look on their faces is something I will never forget.”
Roberts (left) only played at Molineux for one season, but his stay underlines the impact scoring against your rivals can have on a player’s career. “For me, it shows the power of hitting the net in derby matches,” he said, “because the fact is, I didn’t have the best of times there. I only scored 12 goals in total – and four of them came against West Brom.
“We did the double over them that season – the last time Wolves did the double over them.
“And because of that, some – some – fans always hold me in high regard.
“But I had a habit of doing it. I netted at Portman Road when I played for Norwich. I scored for Leicester against Derby.
“I remember when I signed for Huddersfield and I played in a local dust-up at Valley Parade against Bradford City.
“I was getting pelters. At Valley Parade you go into the dressingrooms at half-time and they’re in the corner of the ground. You have to walk past the away fans.
And the Terriers’ fans were letting us – and me in particular – know they weren’t happy because we were two down.
“I scored two goals in the second half. And I won them over. I went from zero to hero.”
And Roberts knows his hattrick against the Baggies earned him a lot of goodwill at Wolves.
He said: “For me, now, looking back, it was one of my best days in the game.
“A hat-trick in front of 7,000 Wolves fans, and my dad – who was a Wolves fan – saw it happen at West Brom.
“I was the first man to score a hat-trick for Wolves at The Hawthorns in a Black Country derby.
“And, no matter what happens, they can’t ever take that away from me, can they?”