Results tagged “Jones” from Birmingham Mail - Wolverhampton Wanderers Blog

I never got to know Dave Jones all that well.
Having started covering Wolves just prior to the Premiership campaign, that season then involved the whole media circus that English football's top tier understandably involves took up plenty of Jones' time.
Infact it was only the following pre-season, and what turned into his final few months in charge, that I perhaps started to see the real Jones, the private Jones which made him such a popular figure among the vast majority of Molineux staff.
In public he was low-key and sometimes dour, phlegmatic, even though he once took issue with that particular description.
Behind the scenes he was bright, bubbly, jovial, always ready with a dry one-liner and, according to the Wolves press office, a dream to work with.
All press requests were dutifully met, even if Jones - up until the final months of his tenure - rarely rose above the monotone and a string of stock answers.
"We'll keep plugging away.....if this is pressure I'll take it any day.....we've just got to put a shift in...."
It was only when his job was on the line that Jones came out fighting at his weekly press conferences, only then that the media corps got to see the verve and passion which was transmitted to his players.
"See you then you miserable bunch of *******s," was one of his more memorable parting shots at one of his last Friday morning press conferences.
Wolves' press officer Lorraine Hennessey would often hear Jones ranting at raving at his team after a game whilst waiting to take him from the dressing rooms to his press conference.
The door would then open and he would walk out, completely cool, calm and collected, as if a mask had suddenly come down and transformed his character.
I may not have worked with Jones too closely as a journalist, but I enjoyed watching his teams play.
And for two years, the season of the Devon Loch-style collapse and the second half of the following campaign which finally brought the much-treasured promotion, it was a real pleasure.
Jones is not an archetypal tracksuit manager who studies coaching and tactics in minute detail.
Get in good players and let them play is more his approach.
When it works, as it did for the bulk of those two aforementioned years and indeed the latter stages of the Premiership season, it can work like a dream.
When it doesn't, as when Wolves struggled to cope with their relegation and Jones couldn't find an answer to their woes, it becomes more troublesome.
He is however clearly a talented manager, the only one in almost 30 years to take Wolves into the top flight and indeed now, the only one for 81 years to take Cardiff into an FA Cup final.
And the fact the fans were calling for his head earlier this season, and some were indeed sending him hate mail, is another sign of the streetfighter in him which has kept him going through troubled times on and off the pitch.
Now then for the second biggest day of his managerial career - behind May 26, 2003 of course - as he leads the Bluebirds out against Portsmouth tomorrow.
Wolves and Cardiff may have their history, but I imagine there'll be a fair few of the Molineux faithful in the Welsh corner come 3pm.