This season Prostate Cancer UK is the official charity of The
Football League. To celebrate, we've asked bloggers from each of
the 72 clubs to count down their top five strikers to have worn the
No9 shirt, in recognition of the fact that prostate cancer
affects one in nine men.
Bull's eye: Steve Bull hit a colossal 18 hat-tricks for Wolves. Photo courtesy of Action Images
Here blogger Thomas Baugh, from wolvesblog.com, selects
Wolves' five best No9s… and one to forget!
5. Andy Gray
(1979-83)
Signed from Aston Villa for a then British record £1.5m fee, Gray
wrote his name into Molineux folklore by netting the winner against
Nottingham Forest in the 1980 League Cup final. An old-fashioned
No9, the Scot possessed wonderful heading ability, which heavily
contributed to his total of 45 goals for the club.
4. Sylvan Ebanks-Blake
(2008-)
SEB joined from Plymouth in 2008, and the 25 goals he banged home
in his first full season saw the club promoted back to the Premier
League as champions. He showed glimpses of his finishing ability in
the top flight, but saw his chances heavily restricted by the
club's preferred style of play and the form of Kevin Doyle.
3. Derek Dougan
(1967-75)
In an eight-year stay at Molineux, 'the Doog' plundered 123 goals
in 323 appearances. A colossus both in the air and on the ground,
Dougan remains the only Wolves player to have scored a hat-trick in
a major European competition, after he notched a treble against
Académica in the 1972 UEFA Cup.
2. John Richards
(1969-83)
A tally of 194 goals, including the winner against Manchester City
in the 1974 League Cup final, made Richards a Wolves legend. A
natural finisher, he was capped at every level for England, albeit
just once for the senior team, against Northern Ireland in
1973.
1. Steve Bull
(1986-99)
There is - and probably only ever will be - one true Wolves No9 -
Stephen George Bull. Stolen from arch rivals West Bromwich Albion
for peanuts, Bully notched a gigantic 306 goals including an
eye-watering 18 hat-tricks. He dragged the club from the point of
extinction all the way back to the verge of the top flight. Bull
never played in the Premier League, but four goals in just 13
appearances for England showed he could do it at every level of the
game. A legend, an icon, there will never be another like
Bully.
And the worst…
Tomasz Frankowski
(2006-07)
Poor old Tomasz will always be remembered as 'the Pole without a
goal' after his disastrous short stay. Infamously labelled 'the
missing piece of the jigsaw' by then manager Glenn Hoddle, the
striker was anything but, squandering copious chances before
eventually being farmed out to Tenerife on loan. Has scored goals
wherever else he's played though, including 10 for Poland at
international level, so he can't have been that bad - can he?
Follow Thomas on Twitter @ThomasBaugh