Bully’s hat-trick hot streak – will it ever be bettered?
LET me take you back thirty years to an incredible few months in the career of a 23 year-old Wolves striker from Tipton.
Between 26th November 1988 and 18th March 1989, Steve Bull scored an incredible six hat-tricks (career hat-tricks 7 to 11) and 27 goals in just 22 games.
Lift-off for Bully started with a 6-0 thrashing of Preston on Saturday 26th November in which he turned in a performance described fulsomely by their manager John Mcgrath; “I have never seen a better goal-scoring display”.
Bull’s goals came on 13, 30, 59 and 76 minutes. It was the first time that a Wolves player had scored four times since Kenny Hibbitt did so against Newcastle on 24th August 1974. It was the first time that Wolves had scored six since winning 6-1 at Hereford on 2nd October 1976 and the first 6-0 home victory since Portsmouth were overcome on 13th October 1956.
In addition, it was the best winning margin since Chelsea were dispatched 7-1 in March 1975 and the heaviest home victory since the Albion had been beaten 7-0 at Molineux on 16th March 1963.
As his four goals put him on top of the Football League scoring list with 17, Smith went on: “Graham Turner does not need to be told that he would be lynched from the John Ireland Stand if he were even to contemplate selling him.”
Bull helped Wolves to an eighth successive league victory that equalled a 73 year-old club record.
With a nine-day gap in fixtures, third-placed promotion rivals Port Vale were the next visitors, in the Sherpa Van Trophy. Only 9,734 fans turned out to see ex-wolf Bob Hazell tormented by Bull, who this time scored four from four-and-a-half chances as the South Bank belted out their first chorus of ‘A new king’s born today’.
Four-timer
Bully scored twice in each half, along with a last minute goal from Andy Mutch, to see off Port Vale 5-1. Graham Turner commented: “Bully’s goals were top quality strikes, examples of tremendous finishing. The game looked awkward for the first twenty minutes but, in the end, it was comfortable.”
Wolves had now won 3-0, 4-1, 6-0 and 5-1 in their last four games at Molineux.
The end of the 1988 home programme came just four days later, on Saturday 17th December with the visit of Mansfield Town, arriving with one of the best defensive records in the league.
It ended with another Steve Bull hat-trick on the same day that nearest challengers Sheffield United lost at home. After 7 minutes Simon Coleman gave the visitors a shock lead, although it was the seventh time that Wolves had gone behind at home that season. The league leaders were slow to react but exploded into life with six goals in 37 minutes, three created by Gary Bellamy.
Bull’s hat-trick took him to the 25 goal target for the season that he had set himself in August. His career tally was now at 99 in 127 matches (96 for Wolves and 3 for Albion).
He became the first Wolves player ever to score a hat-trick in three successive home matches, although Roy Swinbourne had netted three in four (one away to Cardiff) in the 1955-56 season. The last time that Wolves had scored 17 in three home games was in 1946-47.
It set off the first ‘Bully for England’ chants’ midway through the second half, and these left him commenting: “I’ve just had nearly 13,000 people chanting ‘Bully for England’, so why should I want to leave?”
The Christmas Eve Sporting Star ran a Martin Swain story under the headline, ‘It’s Bully for England! Robson has his eyes on Wolves cracker’.
Swain quoted England manager Bobby Robson: “I’ve seen Bull play just the once, he scored, but I am regularly receiving reports on him. Of course, we have to strike a note of caution. However, the Second Division can sort out most players, and if and when Wolves are promoted, and Bull starts scoring there as prolifically, we shall have an even closer look.
“He has flaws, but I am intrigued as to what he may be like surrounded by good players.”
Years later Bully looked back: “After the 50 goals I started to get a little whiff about England, but I thought, ‘Why are England going to pick a Third Division player? They ay going to do that are they?’ I thought nothing of it. I hadn’t got a first touch at the time, had I?”
Astonishing
Bully had scored an astonishing 54 goals during 1988 and started with a goal and two assists (for Mick Gooding and Andy Mutch) against Chester City on the 2nd January. On January 10th Wolves were back in action at home, with Mutch and Bull scoring in the first 35 minutes to secure a victory over Cardiff. The goal left Bull on 99 for the club.
Mutch then scored twice to see off Reading at Elm Park in what most observers, including Graham Turner, agreed was the best 45 minutes of the season to date. Then a home win over Chesterfield on 21st January saw them establish a ten-point lead at the top of the table. Bull, who had recently picked up the Evening Mail Sports Personality of the Year Award, had been without a hat-trick in five weeks but put it right in the Sherpa Van Trophy First Round match against Bristol City on 24th January.
Bully felt it was time, although it had only been a two-and-a-half game wait for a goal: “I have been stuck on 99 goals long enough and don’t intend to have to wait any longer. I’m due a goal tonight.”
He duly got his 100th goal in a disjointed and very untidy game that was witnessed by 14,176. Mark Kendall’s fourth successive clean sheet was almost forgotten amidst the excitement generated by the Tipton goal machine. Bully’s century, achieved in 126 games, did not match that of Dennis Westcott (106 games) but was better than all other challengers: Phillipson (128), Harthill (132), and Swinbourne, Richards and Dougan (all over 200). Incredibly, Bull’s last 44 Molineux appearances had yielded 60 goals, and he had now scored 23 times in the last 14 Sherpa Van ties.
A 1-1 draw secured by a second half goal from Mutch on a Sunday lunchtime at Notts County brought the January Manager of the Month award for Graham Turner, and on Saturday 4th February Wolves were pitched against second-placed Port Vale at blustery Vale Park.
Swooped
Bull failed to add to his 31-goal tally in a one-sided game that Wolves somehow contrived to draw 0-0. The following weekend saw Fulham dispatched with five more Wolves goals and a fifth Bull hattrick of the season. The visit of Ray Lewington’s team on 11th February saw a twelfth game without defeat, the best run in six years. Bull scored twice in the first 13 minutes, and Dennison and Downing came close, but Fulham pulled one back on 20 minutes through Gordon Davies.
Then on 67 minutes defender Doug Rougvie mis-hit a back pass and Bull swooped to drill a low shot under Jim Stannard, and celebrated with the trademark soaring aeroplane celebration. Rougvie reduced the
arrears on 89 minutes from a Walker cross.
Fulham boss Lewington declared Bull to be Molineux’s greatest ever asset; “Why shouldn’t he score goals higher up the league? I can’t see what a First Division defender is going to do so differently to my players today. It’s a very direct style. Bull is very quick, very persistent and very strong. The ball is just knocked forward and all you can do is ask your players to compete with him but he wears you down. He’s got no tricks and doesn’t try to be clever. He just sticks to what he is good at and his ratio of shots on target is very high.”
The three took Bully’s seasonal total to 34 in as many matches and with 18 league games and a possible five in the Sherpa Van Trophy left, everyone was speculating as to whether he could match the tally of 52 in 1987-88. He needed around a goal a game to equal his 52 goals of the previous season but only six had come on Wolves’ travels.
Tuesday 21st February brought Northampton to Molineux for the Area Quarter Final of the Sherpa Van Trophy and in front of a crowd of 16,815 Wolves suffered a big wobble, eventually winning 2-0 after extra time. With a Friday night trip to Wigan washed out, February was seen out by a 2-0 win at Blackpool watched by Bobby Charlton. In the 101st successive game that Mutch and Bull had played together, the latter thrashed home a fierce right-footer on 63 minutes, the 50th goal of the season between them..
Bull’s goal-scoring heroics were rewarded with a call up as an over age player in Bobby Robson’s Under 21 squad for the visit to Albania, something that Graham Turner informed him of:
“I’m delighted,” said Bully. “It’s every player’s ambition to play at Wembley and winning international honours, and it looks like I’ll have done both in the space of a few months. I don’t know where Albania is but I’ll be finding out pretty soon.”
On Saturday 4th March the lack of Division 1 matches due to the international break brought a number of national reporters to Molineux for the clash with Bolton. Bull did not disappoint the observers with the only goal of the game on 34 minutes. A long ball from Thompson was flicked on by Mutch to find Bull 30 yards out with his back to the North Bank goal.
He turned to flash a ferocious left-footer into the top corner of Felgate’s net to score one of his best efforts for the club. Bull made his England Under21 debut in the Vojo Kushi Stadium in Shkoder on Tuesday 7th March, the day before the full squad played a World Cup qualifier in Tirana. Although he did not score, Bull drew this compliment from manager Dave Sexton, who admitted that he had now seen the striker go four games without a goal: “He had a fine game and gave our attack the sparkle that had been missing in Greece.”
Crazy
The following Friday both Bull and Wolves looked pale imitations of themselves in a 3-1 defeat at Southend that ended a 15-match unbeaten run and saw them failing to equal a club record set some 30 years earlier. In the following midweek a 15th successive home victory was secured over Keith Burkinshaw’s Gillingham, bottom of the Division 3 pile. Wolves easily dispatched a very poor outfit. Two goals in the first 20 minutes and four more in a crazy ten minutes either side of half-time set Wolves on their way to a 6-1 victory.
Another thrashing followed on Saturday 18th March when Bury were sent packing, 4-0, in a game when Mike Stowell, on loan from Everton, made his debut in place of Mark Kendall. He remembers some advice from the manager:
“Kick it early. The crowd will walk out if you hang on to it for too long!” Taking his tally to 40 goals in 40 games, Bull scored yet another hat-trick, his sixth of the season and yet again at Molineux, as Wolves maintained an unbeaten home record dating back to the 1-0 loss to Peterborough on 22nd March 1988. His first goal came on 36 minutes and was set up by Gooding, and a second came just five minutes after the break when he headed home a Dennison centre.
Andy Mutch made it three five minutes later, and Bull’s third came on 86 minutes after the keeper had fumbled a Thompson cross. That was the end of Bully’s astonishing 1988-89 purple patch. He would of course score many more hattricks for the club, surpassing Billy Hartill’s 16 to set a new record of 18. The next would of course be the fabled four-timer at Newcastle on New Year’s Day 1990, but perhaps more of that in a year of so!
Let’s leave the last words to Steve, talking when I interviewed him for the recently released book, ‘Golden Balls’. He explained why goals and hat-tricks were so important to him:
Gold Dust
“As a kid I was a selfish player but I didn’t know what a hat-trick was, and I didn’t score one until I started playing professionally. We never had anything as kids and when I got my first I found that you get to keep the ball! I thought: ‘Is that mine? Can I keep it? You sure?’ Cos they were like gold dust in those days. I thought ‘I’ll have some more of this’. It spurred me to go on and try to get more.”