Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Home match with true unsung heroes

He went on: “They are unsung heroes, but they don’t want to be anything else other than unsung heroes.” The former Manchester United manager was talking about the job done by the landladies and their families who offer homes to the academy footballers trying to make the grade at a professional football club.

United had one particular landlady, Annie Kay, whose home overlooked United’s old training ground, at The Cliff, in Salford. Future stars such as Mark Hughes and David Beckham were among those welcomed into the Kay household, where Annie would nurture them through some of their most formative years, alongside her husband Tommy.

When sitting down to chat about the role in the Kay’s front room many years later, she proudly produced a wedding invitation she had received to the Beckham’s star-studded ceremony. The players never forget the job done by their surrogate families.

Wolves have their own unsung heroes. A dozen host families look after the club’s young hopefuls.

The busiest household is run by Ann Schorah and her partner Arthur Benton. They currently have four players under their roof – Luke Cundle, Dean Pinnington, Faisu Sangare and Jimmy Storer.

It is a full-time occupation and more. On the winter afternoon we meet up at her home near Dunstall Park to chat about the role, Ann is standing over a mountain of ironing that she has been working through for the past hour.

“I can’t dress it up can I?” she says. “I’ve just had a brand new washing machine put in because my last one went up the stump.

“I bet I’ve had four washing machines in 10 years. It doesn’t sound a lot, but it is really. I don’t iron socks, that’s the only thing I wouldn’t iron”.

Ann provides breakfast if the players want to eat before they arrive at the training ground, and she also caters for meals every evening.

Ann also supervises at the South Bank turnstiles on home match days. Wolves have been part of her life for more than 20 years. It all began when she took a job sorting the mail in the Wolves ticket office at Molineux, back in 1996.

One day, the ticket office manager, Lynne O’Reardon, came into work asking if anyone in the office had any spare accommodation to help out the Wolves academy manager Chris Evans, who had been appointed to the role in 1991.

“He’s a tremendous man,” Ann recalls. “He was a one-man band back then, whereas now they have someone for every different part of the academy. I said that we had a spare room, so a friend in the ticket office phoned Chris and he came over and visited us the next day.

“He said it would be an ideal place for one of the boys. He said at the time: ‘I’ve got the next boy who is going to conquer the world!’ Well, aren’t they all?”

A young Irish lad called Gary Mulligan was the first to walk through the doors of Ann and Arthur’s home. Like most of the youngsters, he never went on to forge a career in the game. Since then another 38 hopefuls have set up digs at the couple’s home, in the age range of 14 to 18.

Right on cue the front door opens and Arthur walks in to the front room, after a busy shift at his company, OCS. Arthur’s love of Wolves goes beyond providing a home for the young hopefuls. A season ticket holder, he has been a steward on the official away match coaches for the last 20 years.

The boys under his roof are fortunate to have two people so engaged with the club.

“If you love football you’ve got to enjoy it,” says Arthur. “Ann is the rock, like. It’s 24/7 isn’t it? But it’s lovely when they make it, like Dom (Iorfa) and Kortney (Hause).

“We hope that somewhere along the line we have been able to help them get on.”

“I love it when they make it,” Ann interrupts. “I don’t think there’s any one of my boys that I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve failed on that one’. There’s no-one more than us wants them to make it. When they walk out on to the pitch you could cry, it’s so lovely.”

“Unfortunately, for every one that makes it there are a thousand that don’t,” Arthur adds. “Football is cut throat and when the time comes around to letting boys go it’s terrible. If it was left to us they would all make it, but we’d bankrupt the club pretty quickly!”

Arthur enjoys sitting down at home in front of a football match on the television, and listening to the comments that the youngsters make when watching a game.

“Well they’re the professionals aren’t they?” he explains.

“So you try to hear what their comments are, and see what they are seeing that you don’t see. That’s their job. I’d love to have been a footballer but I wasn’t good enough, but these lads could be. It is their job at the end of the day so you can learn from them. You never stop learning do you?”

Apart from Hause and Iorfa, the other well-established professionals who have shared the couple’s home include Conor Ronan, Wayne Hennessey and Stephen Gleeson. When the time comes for each of them to move on, it is an emotional moment.

“I knew my two oldest ones last year were going to go and yet it broke my heart when both of them went,” Ann recalls.

“I knew they were not going to be kept on but when the final day came, I’d never felt like that. With Dom and Kourtney I was really happy for them because they were nearby and I could still keep in touch. But when they go further away to places like Scotland, it’s heart-breaking.”

There is no price that can be put on the love and support that people like Ann and Arthur provide. The role of the host family may be unsung, but it is a hugely important one.