Shouty Man and the Intangibles

The Summer of Tributes just keeps rolling on. It really is the ripping up of a football team, after somewhat of a false dawn last time out. This time round, it’s Conor Coady’s turn. 

After what has become a prolonged goodbye, beginning with last summer’s opening day benching versus Leeds, the time appears to have come to wave off our Scouse Leader. Over 300 games in Gold and Black, with a record of only three games missed over the course of the last 6 seasons contracted to Wolves, you would assume there would be some sort of swansong or outpouring of emotion from the club and its fans.  This is the Club Captain, lest we forget, the man who led us into the Premier League and subsequently European football on the pitch.

And yet, Coady departs as something of a joke figure. ‘Shouty Man’ as he has become ‘affectionately’ known on social media is the poster boy for Wolves’ demise. Images of him sat on the bench as Wolves hurtled towards a calamitous defeat against our fiercest rivals in the last Black Country Derby at Molineux are seared into our minds, having conceded a penalty earlier in the fixture. The conversation around solving our woes in front of goal have circulated around our need to transition to a back four and thus, render Coady obsolete. The discourse has become entirely around what Coady can’t do and maybe that’s understandable.

Wolves haven’t been a particularly good team for a while now. We’ve played well in fits and starts, but it’s fair to say the onset of the pandemic caused a downward turn that none of us could have foreseen. That aforementioned record of attendance with barely a blemish on Coady’s name, means he’s there for it all. The successes. The failures. There were no occasions where we wondered what on earth it would be like without Conor Coady. Until last season of course. 

For what it’s worth, I was on board with the plan. We needed a more mobile, aggressive centre back to partner Max Kilman and in came Nathan Collins, who ticks a whole host of boxes on that front, and it started rather well. Except, it didn’t solve our problems in front of goal. At which point the pressure increases on that defence. It’s totally fair to say our defence were not the issue when it came to overall performance during this season and we’ve managed to rediscover our solidity on home soil at least, to the point where the majority of fans won’t be pining for Coady’s booming voice on match days.

We know, and I’m sure Conor knows and understands his limitations. He isn’t particularly quick, especially on the turn. He isn’t particularly physically dominant, especially aerially. And the way the team was set up under Nuno was entirely to mitigate those factors.

So what does he bring? Well the clue is most definitely in the title. Shouty Man may be the most back-handed of compliments, but I’d urge those who bestowed the name upon him to try and navigate a football match without a hell of a lot of shouting. Willy Boly himself specifically asked Coady to keep him honest in games as he admitted to drifting from time-to-time. His reading of the game was generally on point, and while he was always protected within the 3-4-3 system, his interventions always felt assured and necessary. And then there’s the passing. That long, raking drive out to Matt Doherty felt like a symbol of the Nuno era. If it wasn’t happening, we probably weren’t playing well, it was that much of a ploy in our possession play. The ‘Coady Role’ was a bespoke position spoken about within the depths of the training ground. They even went as far as recruiting an heir apparent for the youth team in Christian Marques, implementing the shape across all age groups. You wouldn’t do this for someone who wasn’t an integral part of the set up.They also say the best ability is availability, and Conor couldn’t be faulted on that front. And then there are the intangibles. 

It takes a certain type of individual to unite a group as disparate as ours. So much is made of our Portuguese contingent, their professionalism and the way they took to life in Wolverhampton. But none of that matters a jot if the group becomes ‘cliquey’. Coady was that unifying presence, the bloke everyone could relate to in some way. There’s something chicken and egg about it, because winning football matches obviously breeds a healthy camaraderie, but no one can question the impact of what Nuno built, placing Conor at the centre of it all in that famous pre-season in Austria. And for the next two seasons it was pure, unadulterated joy. Coady was the son-in-law every mother in Wolverhampton wanted. He was the man every bloke fancied a pint with – he really, really was. But most of all, he was the man the average bloke from any corner of Wolverhampton was proud of as our captain. They said he was a Scouser, he’s really Gold and Black, as the song goes.

The more I write these tributes, the more frustration I find myself feeling due to the pandemic and all of the knock-on effects to our club. A whole season without watching Wolves took its toll. It was like us fans had gone on the shittest gap year ever, with some bloke called Willian Jose constantly loitering in the background when you’re Facetiming home, returning to find your bedroom had been renovated badly by David Luiz and that your parents were divorcing. There’s always the temptation to point the finger of blame somewhere and often it was Coady who took the flak. Because he was there. Barely ever missing a game, fronting up to the media in the bad moments. Our frustrations naturally gravitated towards him. 

There was actually something of a renaissance under Bruno Lage. Coady had broken into the England set-up and nobody can tell me they weren’t beaming at the sight of him in an England shirt and celebrating his England goal. Nor can they convince me they weren’t delighted at a goal away at Man City, a late equaliser against Chelsea and the winner up at Goodison Park. You just had to be happy for the guy. He was a man given a second chance, who grasped it with every sinew of his mind, body and soul and has reaped the rewards of the kind of career he wouldn’t have imagined a while ago.

It’s well documented that Conor was itching for the opportunity of that World Cup experience in Qatar, and whichever way you look at it, the move was right for all parties at the time. He got what he wanted, Wolves didn’t have him in the plans and ultimately the respective clubs achieved what they needed to by the end of the season. 

He will always be remembered by me as the man who led the finest Wolves team I’ve ever seen, one that I will cherish till the day I die, that took me to Braga and back. So thank you Conor Coady, you were a servant to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the truest sense of the word.