It really does look as though Wolves, who come to Ashton Gate on Saturday, are on the way back.

For years, their weekly frustrations and Molineux misery have been galling to their fans and paymasters. They have had too many nondescript managers, too much muddled thinking in the boardroom.

Sir Jack Hayward, born just down the road from the ground, bought the club and, in the misguided spirit of football owners, kept putting his hand into his well lined pocket. But that catalogue of native loyalty and philanthropy seemed in vain.

He once said: "I will go on throwing money at the club until the men in white coats come and take me away."

He was, of course, renowned for his generosity, buying Lundy Island to make sure it never became a haven for the Scientology cult, and going on to finance the return of the SS Great Britain to Bristol city docks

His patriotism caused him to be known as "Union Jack" The sentimental regard he had for the rusty old steamship brought him a number of times to Bristol. There were even wild and inaccurate reports that he might put some of his considerable wealth City's way.

Wolves are regenerated this season and look like they are heading for the top division.

Their really glamorous days, however, belong to the past when those old-gold shirts were a metaphor for assured success.

They carried off the Football League title three times in the 1950s. They had players of imperishable skill like Billy Wright, who skippered both his club and his country.

Yet Wolves' popularity was never quite guaranteed – it was the way they played. They stuck, at the command of the legendary Stan Cullis, to the direct long-ball tactics.

The club has now become much more flexible with fewer of those long, probing crosses from the wingers. They have been studiously watched and tactically monitored in the run-up to tomorrow's match by Gary Johnson's brother and team of scouts.

Molineux supporters, who had watched in horror as Wanderers slipped from the first to the fourth division, are less restive.

In the midst of Midlands and Black Country soccer congestion, the growing expectation is that at last Premiership status is close to being achieved.

All that money poured optimistically into a wavering, declining budget hasn't perhaps been wasted after all.

Their visit to Ashton Gate provides City with their most onerous league test of the season. City, too, know all about the ritual of annual frustration. Like Wolves, their patience has been almost exhausted.

Tomorrow's game can offer an overdue fillip and a lesson for what has too often been, temperamentally, an easy-going West Country club with self-effacing ambitions.

A las, we haven't yet heard the last of the differences within the England cricket team. There could be more departures, more wounding and divisive words.

We still don't know the moles who made public the antipathy between the captain and the coach. We still don't know where Flintoff and his mate Harmison fit into the varying politics.

Just how many factions were there in the England dressing room?

Has it really been considered, as suggested, that Duncan Fletcher might return, even temporarily?

And, most relevant of all, how easily will the strong-willed Kevin Pietersen re-establish himself as one of the boys?