A regular in the Wolves side of the late 80s and early 90s, before he returned to the club as a youth coach near the start of the Millennium, Downing is set to become the 18th inductee when he appears on the club's podcast this evening.
The 53-year-old will discuss his six-year spell at Molineux which coincided with the club’s rise from the Fourth Division into the First Division when he joins regular hosts Mikey Burrows and Chris Iwelumo during a half hour Facebook and YouTube video, before an extended podcast is released on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other podcast apps.
As the latest inductee into Old Gold Club, sponsored by Wolverhampton Building Supplies, Downing will talk about joining Wolves when the club was in the depths of the football league pyramid and fighting for financial survival.
During 228 appearances for Wolves, in which he scored 12 goals, Downing won promotion twice at Molineux, becoming Division Four champions in his first season with the club; also playing in the 1988 Sherpa Van Trophy final victory over Burnley at Wembley that same season.
Another promotion followed during the 1988/89 season as Wolves sealed the Third Division title by an eight-point margin, as Downing went on to play almost every game for the club throughout his six seasons in gold and black.
After hanging up his boots as a player in 1999, he returned to Wolves as a youth team coach before linking up with former colleague John Ward as his assistant manager at Cheltenham Town in 2004.
Downing was appointed as head coach of the England under-20 team in July 2015 and changed to his current role of under-19’s boss in August 2016, leading the team to victory in the 2017 UEFA European Under-19 Championships with a 2-1 victory over Portugal.
The latest Old Gold Club will be broadcast on Facebook and YouTube from 6pm this evening, while the full podcast will be available on all the regular channels afterwards.
The first 17 episodes of the podcast with Carl Ikeme, Kenny Hibbitt, Tony Daley, Terry Connor, Scott Golbourne, Karl Henry, David Kelly, Ally Robertson, Jack Price, Matt Jarvis, Matt Murray, Don Goodman, John Richards, George Elokobi, Seyi Olofinjana, Lee Naylor and Steve Daley are also available to listen back to by clicking here.
