Thanks for the heads up irishregan. I really appreciate the kind words 
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March 2006
We started the month with a 2-0 victory over
Burnley, who fell into the relegation battle after the result was confirmed.
Paul Wotton scored our opening goal with one of his trademark freekicks and then
Colin Cameron wrapped up the 3 points with an opportunist's goal, following a top notch cross from
Carl Cort. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday present from the lads than this win.
After the match I invited the whole team and their spouses to come to a fancy dinner at one of the posh restaurants in Birmingham. Granted it was a late dinner, but I didn't care. The lads had earned their meal on the night and I was going to let them enjoy themselves, because soon enough the seriousness of the league would take over again.
The following weekend we had to come up against a red hot
Crystal Palace team and this would be a test of character. Fortunately it was to be played at
Molineux, so that helped us immensely.
Seol Ki-Hyeon scored his first goal of the season, when he managed to twist away from his marker and then slide the ball into the near corner. But we couldn't cheer too long, because
Jon Macken pulled
Palace level in the dying moments of the first half, with a goal that came about after a series of errors on our defensive end. In the second half
Paul Wotton came to life and scored one of his trademark piledriver freekicks, but 4 minutes later
Davenport gave away the ball in a poor position and that cost us a goal, which
Marco Reich scored. In the 79th minute we went a man down, when our opening scorer
Ki-Hyeon was stretchered off injured. I decided to throw caution to the wind and ordered our 5 midfielders to attack with all their might and that bore fruit, when
Wotton scored with a glorious header, deep into injury time.
After the match I told the players that they'd been a disgrace to the club, with the exception of
Wotton and if I saw more of the same, changes would be made.
Wotton revealed this fury in his post match interview and said that he agreed with everything that I'd said in my scalding speech. He was about to give everybody hell when I came in and took the words right out of his mouth.
Next up was a visit to
Derby, who'd been doing rather poorly in their recent matches.
Colin Cameron got us a lead with a great individual effort and then
Leon Clarke lobbed the home goalkeeper for our second goal. Despite them being a man down after only 18 minutes, they came after us like crazy and we really had to work hard to avoid conceding a goal. Finally
Cameron added his second and our third and that settled it. Following the match,
Phil Brown got sacked from his position as
Derby manager.
That win secured our spot in the playoffs for promotion, but I wasn't satisfied with that. I wanted to secure automatic promotion and I wasn't ready to relax until that had been secured. All of our training was set towards that goal.
Next up was another FA Cup night, this time our opponents were
Man City. All hopes of a surprise win came to nought, as the match petered out to a rather boring 0-0 draw. I couldn't help but sympathise with the lads, because we'd had a few good chances to score, only to be thwarted by
Nicky Weaver in the visitors' goal and MOM
Richard Dunne at the back.
Three days later we had to play host to the
Welsh representatives in the Championship,
Cardiff City. It was a fierce and hard fought game and we could count ourselves lucky to win the game by two goals.
Kenny Miller got us a dream start when he scored in the 2nd minute and then
Cardiff were reduced to 10 men in the 46th minute, when
V�*ctor Manuel Torres Mestre got sent off for his second bookable offence. We added another goal after 73 minutes, via
Mark Kennedy, and then
Cardiff's poor fortune was confounded when their goalkeeper,
Neil Alexander, was stretchered off in the 83rd minute. 2-0 was the final score and despite their bad luck, they still fought back and it took all of our resolve to withstand their onslaught at the end of the match.
Summary All matches Championship, unless otherwise stated
Wolves –
Burnley 2-0 (
Wotton,
Cameron)
Wolves –
Crystal Palace 3-2 (
Ki-Hyeon,
Wotton (2) –
Macken,
Reich)
Derby –
Wolves 0-3 (
Cameron (2),
Clarke)
Wolves –
Man City 0-0
Wolves –
Cardiff 2-0 (
Miller,
Kennedy)
Top 6 at the end of March:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1st | Pl | Wolves | | 40 | 28 | 5 | 7 | 83 | 37 | +46 | 89 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 2nd | | Southampton | | 40 | 26 | 5 | 9 | 71 | 36 | +35 | 83 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 3rd | | Crystal Palace | | 40 | 24 | 10 | 6 | 86 | 45 | +41 | 82 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 4th | | Norwich | | 40 | 22 | 10 | 8 | 57 | 31 | +26 | 76 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 5th | | Leeds | | 40 | 21 | 10 | 9 | 62 | 42 | +20 | 73 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 6th | | Sheff Utd | | 40 | 20 | 8 | 12 | 50 | 39 | +11 | 68 | </pre>
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