The perfect match on Valentine’s Day
YOU know you are getting old when your baby sister is celebrating her Ruby anniversary.
And Valentine’s Day this year marks forty years since Sue Corbett married Ian Garden on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon when snow covered the ground at St Mark’s Church in Pensnett.
The previous Sunday my wife Heather and I returned from North Wales, where we had attended her grandmother’s funeral, to learn that my dad, Reg, had suffered a massive heart attack. Only 47 years old, he would spend the bulk of the week fighting for his life in the intensive care unit of the Corbett Hospital. Fortunately he pulled through but was of course unable to give my sister away. Uncle Barry stepped into
Dad’s shoes and I was best man, with Heather and cousins Bev and Emma bridesmaids.
On that wedding day our thoughts never strayed far from the hospital where Dad was out of immediate danger and improving but hardly fighting fit.
Bow tie
Sue, Ian and Mom were able to visit him in their wedding finery and as the photograph shows he wore a bow tie with his pyjamas to mark the occasion. The very next year Reg was admitted to the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry for open heart surgery which gave him almost 25 years of extra life. He repaid their expertise with a hefty cheque funded by one of the many sponsored walks that he arranged for good causes.
Sue and Ian’s wedding reception was at the Wagon and Horses in Wall Heath, an establishment that later became Christopher’s night club before demolition in the 1990s to make way for a small housing development.
The public house stood at the corner of Enville Road and Swindon Road at the south eastern end of the village. The ‘do’ was held in a separate wooden building that was used as a dance hall, one of the few venues for local entertainment, and a small shop where sweets, chocolates and locally produced sticks of rock could be bought.
Match
Regular readers would be disappointed if I didn’t bring football into the story. On the back of an undefeated sevengame run Wolves welcomed
Reign
Left: Newly weds Sue and Ian, with Sue’s mom, visit a recovering Reg Corbett in hospital
Division 2 Wrexham to Molineux that same Valentine’s Day in 1981 for a fifth round FA Cup encounter.
It would be the thirtieth cuptie of the John Barnwell/richie Barker reign, and of these, fifteen had been played in the premier cup competition (with eight won, five drawn and only two lost, including the semifinal against Arsenal in 1979).
Score flashes from the cup tie at Molineux were eagerly anticipated via a car radio at the Wagon and Horses, and we found that Wrexham had taken a shock lead through a Steve Fox header on the half hour, an advantage that was maintained until the 71st minute.
This was when match-winner Norman Bell shot home
from eight yards after John Richards had helped on a Geoff Palmer centre. Norman had been called from the bench as the Molineux Street clock showed 4.15pm.and his second just three minutes later was an identical finish, but this time set up by Andy Gray from Paul Bradshaw’s long punt up-field.
Goal
Due to the brave efforts of the visitors, the game remained in the balance until the very end when a Richards goal secured Wolves’ quarter-final place. Gray was denied by Dai Davies, but the keeper succeeded only in punching the resultant corner to Derek Parkin on the edge of the box. The full-back hit a shot into the ground, but the bouncing ball was expertly directed by Richards’
head into the North Bank net.
With Dad still in hospital and slowly recovering, it must be admitted that our thoughts were well away from Molineux and football though. Wolves’ 1981 cup dream ended at the semi-final stage at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur after a replay.
Fortunately, Sue and Ian’s dream lasted much longer and is still going strong forty years on.