View from the Visitors: John Richards on KDB, Colin Bell and City v Wolves | OneFootball

Today, we chat to an opposition legend – ‘King’ John Richards, a darling among the Molineux faithful and who spent 14 years at Wolves, spanning three decades, scoring 194 times in 485 games as well as winning League Cups in 1974 and 1980.

How do you look back at your time at Wolves?

I was delighted with how things went and the length of my career there.

I wish we could have won a bit more but I think a lot of players would feel the same.

I actually think we should have won more especially with the team in the early 1970s where we had, in my opinion, the best Wolves side I played in.

I had 14 great years. That 1972, 1973, 1974 period, we got to two semi-finals in the FA Cup and League Cup, we got to the UEFA Cup final and really only ended up winning the League Cup in 1974. I just felt that team could have done a little bit better.

Of course, you faced Manchester City in that 1974 League Cup final, what do you remember of that game and the Blues in that era?

You have to look back a few seasons building up to it, really.

The City v Wolves games were always amazing. You looked at the players in each of the squads, lads I admired like Big Joe Corrigan who seemed to be forever in a Manchester City team, Tony Book, Willie Donachie and then obviously the famous front three of Summerbee, Lee and Bell who are so revered. Then there was Denis Law and Rodney Marsh, too.

We always had really cracking games, really high scoring encounters. We were both attacking sides, some of the matches I can recall – I think in the season before the final, we beat City 5-1 at Molineux and then the season before that, we lost 5-2 in the League Cup and 5-2 in the First Division.

So it was always an open game, an entertaining game and I felt that’s how it would be in the final itself.

And that’s how it turned out to be and fortunately we had a goalkeeper, Gary Pierce, who was the stand-in and he played out of his skin on his birthday. I think without Gary it would probably have been another 5-2 to Manchester City.

You scored the winning goal in that 1974 final. Not many people get to experience that. What was it like?

It’s a schoolboy’s dream, isn’t it. It’s what you play football for.

Jimmy Greaves was my hero. I watched him at Wembley in the 1962 FA Cup final and you think to yourself ‘I’m Jimmy Greaves’ and you’re in the back garden and you imagine it’s Wembley.

That was my first appearance at Wembley so it was a dream come true to just get there in all honesty.

You hope you’re going to score but it doesn’t always work out that way.

I was fortunate because the way the defenders played and, as I said our goalkeeper Gary, we just kept plodding away.

If you watch the game and you watch the goal, it actually flicks off Rodney Marsh’s heel to the penalty spot where I was standing and it was one of those instinctive hits of the ball and I just hit it hard and low.

We hung on for seven or eight minutes and when I say hung on, I really mean we did. Manchester City threw everything at us understandably and we got away with it.

To play in a cup final and score the winning goal and against a team like Manchester City, who at the time were one of the best teams in the league, was fantastic.

Who were the best City players you came up against in your era John?

Colin Bell!

He was a standout, no question.

His skill was so natural that he made things look so, so easy. He did it so comfortably.

He was such an amazing player – his stamina, his quality, he very rarely made mistakes.

Then you had those with a bit more exuberance like Rodney Marsh, he was absolutely outstanding.

But the whole team was strong from Big Joe, who I got to know really well on an England B tour, fantastic man, great professional and then obviously the likes of Willie Donachie, Mike Doyle and Tony Book, who I really admired.

He came into the game from nowhere really, non-league, to come in from that level and do what he did, you wondered why he hadn’t been picked up before.

I thought he was an outstanding player and the captain, too, of course.

You’re known as King John. We had ‘The King’ Colin Bell and now King Kev, Kevin De Bruyne. It must be lovely to be held in such high esteem by supporters?

It’s very flattering. It’s embarrassing at times when you’re introduced like that. And you think ‘goodness me’.

But it’s all to do with the connection you have between players and supporters. I feel very privileged to have had – and still have to be honest – such a wonderful relationship with the fans.

I moved to Wolverhampton as an 18-year-old and I’ve been here for over 50 years. It's our home.

How much are you looking forward to City v Wolves on Friday?

I’m really looking forward to it.

We were dreading it a couple of months ago because of the situation we were in but I think all the hard work the manager has put in with the players had paid off and they seem to have this strong team ethos.

The games I have seen, they have changed from a team where you think ‘oh, I hope we can hold on and get a point today’ to now thinking ‘this is another we can possibly win’.

If Manchester City aren’t at the top of their game, we have a good chance because the way we’re playing right now, we have become a difficult team to beat.

We also have the players who can score goals if given the opportunity.

When you look at the last few games we have had goals coming in from Pablo Sarabia, Matheus Cunha, Jorgen Strand Larsen. There are players there who can score a goal.

We snook one towards the end against Manchester United and we are capable of holding on to it, too.

I think it’ll be a tough game for City, to be fair but it will also be a good test for us to continue the run of six successive wins in the Premier League. That’s been an amazing sequence and a record for us.

What have you made of the Pep Guardiola era at City - 18 trophies, Treble winners, Four in a Row, 100 points in one season….

Exceptional. Unexpected. You wouldn’t think a team would dominate English football in such a way. To be able to do that has been amazing.

And, I think even if you’re a neutral it’s a City team you want to watch. When it’s on the TV, you go ‘it’s Manchester City, there are fantastic players’. That’s even if your team aren’t involved in the game. You want to watch them. It’s as simple as that.

They have done exceptionally well and they’ve had some great, great players.

As a striker, you will have loved a steady supply line. What do you make of what Kevin De Bruyne has done at Manchester City?

You just pat the lad on the back and recognise a world-class talent.

They are few and far between. He’s recognised for his consistency and his continuity.

He’s been performing at that top-level for a long, long time.

He’d be a dream to play alongside as Colin Bell would have been.

There are a lot of similarities between Kevin and Colin – as personalities, quietly understated but not in their output.

Kevin, like Colin before him, is a quality player who makes the game look so easy.

It shines through when they make a pass or make a run and you think ‘wow, I never saw that coming’. You hold your hands up and just admire it.