Steve Bull interview: On turning 60, life after football and his Wolves legacy

A Black Country lad with an eye for goal and a full-throttle style - Steve Bull was the Wolves icon of a generation and remains a club legend.

He joined alongside Andy Thompson from Albion for around £65,000 in 1986 and in 13 years at Wolves a relatively unknown young striker grew into a local hero.

Today, Bully celebrates his 60th birthday and the Express & Star has been celebrating the career of the Tipton Skin this week.

We sat down with the former forward at Molineux ahead of his milestone birthday.

"I always say to all my mates, when I was 49 I never had an ache in my body, nothing at all," Bully told the Express & Star.

"As soon as you hit 50 it starts and now, 10 years on, oh my word, I'm just creaking even more! My knees, my back, my shoulder, everything's just creaking at the moment. But I'm still here, I'm still going."

Bully has gone on to become a club ambassador and vice-president at Wolves but he is remembered more fondly by supporters for the 561 appearances he amassed and the 306 goals he bagged.

A ruthless finisher and fierce scrapper on the pitch - Bully won the hearts of the Wolves faithful, but did he ever expect the kind of adulation he received?

Bully said: "Not really, if you knew you were going to win the lottery, you'd put the right numbers on!

"To look back now on the years I've been here, I've been privileged.

"Next year is 40 years I've been here and I remember the day me and Thommo came, it was scary.

"On that first day we walked through the corridor there was water all over the place, cockroaches everywhere and we'd just come from that stripy lot up the road and we thought 'what have we done?'

"But they didn't want us. It's their loss and Wolves' gain."

And Wolves' gain was his goalscoring ability. Headers, volleys, chips, tap-ins - Bully bullied defenders and made their life a misery.

"I absolutely loved doing it," he said.

"I'd love to revisit certain games and turn back the clock, but I've done my bit now, I'm enjoying my life.

"My talent was to score goals.

"I haven't got any skill at all, but I banged them in the net.

"That was my job, full stop, and I absolutely loved it.

"Plus, I was on £100 a goal, so I needed to score more goals!"

Hated by local rivals and adored by Wolves, Bully's journey from Albion outcast to Wolves legend is a unique one.

Coming through the non-league scene before joining Albion, he played a handful of games for the Baggies before crossing the Black Country divide to join Wolves.

There are dozens of impressive and crucial strikes among his 306 Wolves goals, but some stand-out more than others.

In October 1989 he returned to play Albion for the first time since they sold him and, in typical Bully fashion, he chested down an Andy Mutch cross and volleyed the ball home for a last minute winner at The Hawthorns.

The scenes in the away end were truly a sight to behold as the travelling Wolves fans erupted.

A few months earlier, in May 1989, Bully was called up from the under-21s to the senior England side for a game against Scotland.