Charlie Daw | 1959-2026

Holding the current record for the most consecutive Wolves matches attended (outside of games where spectators were not allowed to attend because of the Covid ban in 2020 to 2021), the North Bank season ticket holder racked up 1,986 consecutive games since 1985.

His first game watching Wolves came back in 1967, as Wolves beat Bury 4-1 in Division 2, before he became a home and away regular from 1975 on leaving school and starting work at Hobsons (which became Lucas Aerospace).

From August 1975 to August 1985, Charlie missed only seven Wolves fixtures, and all but one of those were so that he could attend the World Speedway finals. The last game he missed prior to being admitted to hospital the night after Wolves’ recent draw away at Everton was in August 1985 against York City in Division 3.

In all, Charlie attended an incredible 2,576 Wolves matches (as well as some friendlies and cup games not included in those figures), watching the team play at 111 different clubs and at 143 different grounds, so it was perhaps fitting that his last Wolves away game was at Everton’s brand-new ground – the Hill Dickinson Stadium.  

He attended every play-off game home and away, and saw Wolves sadly lose five FA Cup semi-finals.

To achieve his attendance record, Charlie went to great lengths. After trouble flared at Scarborough on the opening day of the 1987 season, Wolves fans were subsequently banned from eight away games, but Charlie managed to get tickets to all these games through various means. In 2002/03, six clubs – including Wolves – received bans from Millwall’s New Den after trouble had flared at fixtures the previous season, and to ensure he was at the game against the Lions in December 2002, Charlie became a Millwall member. It must be pointed out that Charlie was never involved in any trouble throughout his time supporting the Old Gold.

Charlie once flew out on the same plane as the players to attend the Anglo Italian Cup tie against Lecce in 1994 and went by car all the way to Venezia in the same competition. He also attended all of Wolves’ away games in the 2019/20 Europa League journey, going to Crusaders, Pyunik – where he was one of just 48 Wolves fans to travel to Yerevan – Torino, Besiktas, Bratislava, Braga and Espanyol, having previously seen Wolves at Eindhoven in 1980.  

Through nine promotions and eight relegations, Charlie always remained loyal to Wolves. He was there during the club’s darkest days, including the home game with Bury in 1986 when Molineux recorded its lowest ever league attendance of 2,205, as well as the Freight Rover game that same season when Wolves saw its lowest ever home attendance of just 1,618. He was also there in some of the happier times, witnessing Steve Bull’s first ever goal for Wolves in the Freight Rover Trophy at Cardiff, Bully’s first league goal at Hartlepool and the four goals the club’s top goalscorer netted at Newcastle on New Years Day in 1990. Although Wolves’ away following in the mid-80s was often only a couple of hundred, Charlie was always there.

Well known by many who travelled to away games, Charlie was a face that many would recognise even if they didn’t know him personally. Since news of his passing, his friends and family have even received messages of condolences from fans of Everton, Manchester City, Norwich City, Huddersfield Town, Chelsea, West Ham United, Swindon Town and Shrewsbury Town.

The words that follow from an Everton fan sum up the type of person Charlie was: “Your news imparted today was incredibly sad, and you and your fellow Wolves supporters must be devastated at Charlie’s death. I found him to be exactly as you’d predicted: ‘fair’. Football is tribal, too tribal at times, and that can cloud opinions and perspectives, but I remember Charlie talking with great sense and objectivity whilst still being clearly passionate about the boys in Old Gold.

“Football losing supporters like him makes football a much poorer place and I hope I and others who have met him, or knew him, can learn from him and take his style of perspective forward to enrich the game, not just blindly support one’s team.

“Nothing will ever stop me from being a staunch Evertonian, but Charlie and his spirit can hopefully make me objective and give credit where credit is due to opposition teams, and indeed to our own players who unfairly get maligned. Please pass on my best wishes to your Wolves mates and to Charlie’s friends and family.”

Wolves historian Pete Crump also shares memories of his friend: “Charlie was a mate of mine from my estate and I have travelled to and from away games with him on many occasions. I used to chat to Charlie about the 1970s and 1980s and he was a great help bringing eras to life that I don’t remember.

“He was also a big speedway fan, like myself, and I loved talking to Charlie. But most importantly of all, he was a modest man. He didn’t ever shout about his run of games, it was his mates and the rest of us that did that.

“He was a thoroughly decent and humble man and he is huge loss to the Wolves supporter base, to my group of friends, and many more. We are going to miss him greatly.

“There are many that knew Charlie a lot better than me, however, his passing is of great sadness and the trip to Manchester City last week was not the same for many of us.”

Fellow Wolves fan Eddie Baker (below centre) knew Charlie longer than any of his other Old Gold supporting pals. They first met at a QPR away game on 31st December 1977 before attending more than 1,500 matches together. 

Eddie said: “Charlie was an unbelievable friend. He was so generous and would do anything to help anyone. No one ever saw him angry, and he usually wore that mischievous grin.

“He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of pubs at away games, always knew where it was safe to go in the bad old days of the 70s and 80s. Charlie would sometimes be caught ‘resting’ his eyes during matches, but had total recall afterwards.

“He was so modest about his record and never boasted about it. However, we were all aware and marvelled at his loyal longevity. Indeed, we sometimes remarked that it was incredible he was never ill enough to miss a game, so it is really sad that on going into hospital less than two weeks ago that he passed away so suddenly.”

As well as being a loyal sports follower, Charlie was devoted to his family. He was married to Jo for – in his own words – ‘16 seasons’, and were together for 21. His two children, Joanne and Robert, were introduced to Wolves at an early age and he took on Jo’s four children Liz, Thomas, Harry and Lucy and loved them as his own.

Charlie and Jo also have five grandchildren, Ryan, Ellie, Jacob, Zachary and Georgie, who have all been introduced to the Wolves pack, while more recently another granddaughter Millie came along with a sister, Olivia, on the way in April this year.

Eddie added: “Charlie was always a glass half full man and still had faith Wolves would stay up this season. While another one of Charlie’s hobbies was darts. He was captain of the Moreton and in charge of the Wednesday night league.

“He was enthusiastic about everything he did. He loved ‘investing’ in the horses with Desert Orchid being his favourite, and Charlie was genuinely the Best Mate – horse racing pun! – we could all have.”

“To use another Charlie phrase “without a doubt” he will be very fondly remembered by all who knew him.”

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Eddie has shared some of his favourite footballing memories of Charlie.

Missing a ‘special’ goal at Meadow Lane

On Saturday 23rd March 1985, Wolves travelled to Meadow Lane to face Notts County in Division 2. Wolves were deep in trouble in the second of what would become three successive relegations. Wolves were goal shy that season, and between 17th November 1984 and 13th April 1985, failed to score a league goal at Molineux – 1,002 minutes in total. From 2nd February to 16th March 1985 Wolves failed to score in seven league games in a row. It was then time for the trip to Meadow Lane.

Charlie’s plan for the day was to take in the Wolves game in Nottingham and then head up to the Shay as Halifax Dukes were racing against Wolverhampton Wolves in speedway. The weather that day was poor and rain was falling. It was way before the days of mobile phones, and Charlie – being slightly concerned that the Speedway may be called off and not wanting to travel to Halifax for a non-event – decided to make a phone call.

In about the 83rd minute of the game, Charlie had remembered seeing a telephone box nearby as he had made his way into the stadium earlier in the afternoon. He nipped down to the concourse and asked the steward if he would let him out the stadium to make the call and let him back in for the last few minutes of the game. The steward agreed and Charlie made his way to the phone box to call Halifax who informed him that the speedway was off. Charlie made his way swifty back into Meadow Lane. On his approach to the back of the away end he heard the Wolves fans cheer, something he had not heard for quite some time.

Yes, you guessed it, poor Charlie only went and missed Ray Hankin’s goal for Wolves in the 85th minute of the game. He did make it back to see the final goal of the game, but sadly for Charlie, it was Notts County’s fourth, scored by Justin Fashanu. Charlie did at least get a lift back to Wolverhampton and a totally wasted journey to Halifax was averted.

Huddersfield, Millwall and Newcastle

One year, Charlie had a wedding he ‘had’ to attend. He attended the wedding in the morning, travelled to Huddersfield in his suit and then travelled back to the wedding for the reception/disco in the evening.

The Millwall away match when Wolves fans were banned was another fun one. Charlie had got a Millwall membership at the start of the season to allow him to get into the game. The only part of the day Charlie was worried about was at the turnstile. On getting to the New Den he tried swiping his card, however, it did not work. Charlie froze, knowing his accent would give him away. The lady operator said “giv it ere luv”, cleaned it on her top and swiped, and hey presto, Charlie was in the ground sat with the Millwall supporters.

Wolves took the lead in the first half and Charlie knew he could not celebrate, so sat on his hands. Millwall then equalised in the second half and after a few seconds Charlie realised he was the only person not stood up so he had to get to his feet to blend in with the Millwall supporters.

Those that knew Charlie know he liked a beer before matches and his ability to find/sort pubs was second to none. We flew to Newcastle on New Years Day in 1990 and on arrival at the airport there were coaches lined up by the police to get the Wolves fans to the ground. We knew there was no chance of our customary pre-match drink if we got on the coaches, so Charlie said to walk up to the front of the coaches and leg it to the taxis who were at the airport, so that’s what we did. We got in a taxi which got away from the police coach escort and we were dropped off at a working men’s club. The day was rounded off with us seeing Bully score four and Wolves winning 4-1.

European Matches

PSV Eindhoven | UEFA Cup, 1980/81

Charlie travelled by coach to the UEFA Cup match in Eindhoven. The club were very nervous about Wolves fans misbehaving, as then virtually every English club had trouble on European trips. The 1,000 or so fans that went from Wolverhampton behaved impeccably, but Charlie and those of us who travelled with him chuckled about the letter we had from the club before the trip which told us: ‘drinking would be supervised’. We agreed if what we experienced was supervised drinking, we would hate to see unsupervised drinking!

Lecce, Venezia | Anglo Italian Cup, 1994/95

Charlie admitted he was struggling to go to Lecce but at the last minute managed to secure a flight out to Italy with the players for an Anglo Italian cup tie. His ‘cost’ of so doing was to also buy his wife a new washing machine.

The other away Anglo Italian tie was at Venezia – Charlie travelled by car to the fixture with Russ Evers, Jess McAleece, Darren Rush and Ade Breakwell.

Crusaders/Pyunik/Torino | Europa League qualification, 2019/20

After the match at Crusaders, Charlie and five of us decided not to wait for the buses that were laid on, but to walk the two miles back into Belfast city centre. We were stopped by Northern Irish police after about 10 minutes and on telling them where we were going, we were advised to take a detour, as the route we had chosen would have seen us a bit too close to some people who were rioting with petrol bombs!

Despite only being seven days after the game in Belfast, Charlie was able to make arrangements to be part of the ‘Pyunik 48’ who flew to Amenia.

Two weeks later Charlie was in Turin for what he said was the best atmosphere of any of our European matches as Wolves won 3-2.

Besiktas, Bratislava, Braga, Espanyol | Europa League, 2019/20

We were a bit nervous about going to Istanbul to see Wolves play Besiktas given trouble there for other English clubs. But we need not have worried. The day of the game we found a back street pub where we were able to have a quiet drink and made our way down in plenty of time to join the Wolves fans queueing to get into the ground.

Charlie was one of the 200 Wolves fans allowed to go to the game which UEFA had ordered to be played behind closed doors. The match was fact was played in front of 20,000 fans as Bratislavans got around a loophole in the UEFA restrictions which allowed home fans to go into the ground as long as they were accompanied by a minor. Charlie’s memory of the trip, though, is more reflective of what his and my wife remember when we got home! We went for a lunchtime meal before our flight home – let’s just say it was a bit garlicky. Our better halves unknowingly were both victims of our garlic when we got home.

Charlie and his wife Jo both went to Braga – and both sadly were victims of the indiscriminately rough treatment handed out by the Braga police for no reason as they got to the ground. Charlie developed stomach trouble after the game, so much so that for the following Saturday in the Great Western, Charlie had to drink water as that was all he could keep down. No one can ever remember Charlie drinking water before a game before or since!

Our last trip in Europe we were allowed to go to was in Barcelona to see Espanyol. There were about a dozen of us friends of Charlie at the game, but we were not to know this was to be our (and Charlie’s) last European trip.  

Watford, Middlesbrough and Burnley

As alluded to above, Charlie enjoyed a pre match drink. For one evening game at Watford there was a Happy Hour on Guiness.  Charlie thought this was marvellous and uttered a phrase we never forgot: “the more you drink, the more you save”.

Charlie always used to say Ayresome Park was the coldest ground, but I was at fault for us missing the kick off despite us arriving in the town over three hours before the kick off. Charlie was always able to calculate how long we would need to get from the pub to the ground and on this particular visit, this involved a ‘short cut’ through a cemetery. Charlie was able to climb over a fence at the far side but two of us could not so he waited whilst we went back and round the cemetery and we all missed the kick off. Middlesbrough was the ground Charlie had been to more times than any other without seeing Wolves win, but he finally saw Wolves win there on his final visit there in 2018.

Charlie wanted to go to Burnley for a night game in 1979 but could not get time off work so told his boss he needed to have the afternoon off for a funeral. His boss ‘knew’ what Charlie was going to do and asked him if he could drop an invoice off at his works other location (in Burnley!) whilst he was at the funeral.

Tranmere, Leeds and QPR

Wolves played a Saturday morning kick off at Tranmere with the match starting at 11.15am. This meant we could not go for our usual pre-match drink in the Sportsman pub, but with the game finishing just after 1pm, four of us went for a post-match drink. At about 1.45pm, a father and son wearing Wolves colours arrived at the pub for what they thought was a pre-match drink. By 2.30pm, they thought we were very unhurried and so they came across and asked Charlie what time he was going to the match. Charlie had to tell them the match had already been played!

One evening game at Leeds we were with Mike Inman who was the MD at Ossett Brewery. We went to go in the Peacock pub (we were not wearing colours) but were told by the bouncer it was open to home fans only. Mike was able to tell them his company owned the pub so Charlie got his post-match drink.

Charlie met Eddie Baker outside the ground at QPR on New Years Eve in 1977. Aged six days apart, the pair stayed friends ever since then and travelled to over 1,500 matches together.

Tottenham and Everton

Going to Spurs in the late 70s and early 80s was very different to what it is like now. It was not a friendly place to go to with little segregation. In 1980, about 20 of us, including Charlie, refused to leave ground and face the inevitable ‘lynching’ outside. In the end, the police conceded and we were escorted across pitch and let out at far end. Wolves never seemed to win at Spurs so it’s funny that in recent times, Wolves have won at Spurs so often.

One game at Everton saw Wolves fans escorted back to their coaches. Charlie was always very ‘aware’ and was able to spot our ‘escort’ had been infiltrated by Scousers who we could identify by their haircuts. Sadly, our coaches had been bricked, so it was a cold journey home. Everton this January was to sadly be Charlie’s last ever game. It should be noted the stewards and police were very helpful to us with Charlie before and after the game.

Port Vale, Blackpool and Northampton

Charlie was part of a group of us that dressed as the Blues Brothers at the Port Vale game in May 2000.

Those who have only met Charlie in recent years cannot remember Charlie with hair.  He shaved his head for the first time in 1989 and the rain at Blackpool was horizontal for those of us stood out on the open terrace. The rain was so hard and it looked like an optical illusion that the rain went through Charlie’s ears on one side and out the other side of his head. The good news that night was that Wolves adapted to the weather and won.

We were at Northampton in 1986 and there was trouble outside the pub we were in. The police came in and got all the Wolves fans out of the pub – Charlie and I remained calm and continued drinking and chatting with some locals who were playing dominoes.

Wycombe, Carlisle and Doncaster

Charlie and his pals were drinking right near the Wycombe ground. About 90 minutes before the game there was an announcement that Wolves fans had to leave. Charlie and his pals were Ok to stay as when asked if they were going to the game they answered: “what match”. They had seen a sign advertising a forthcoming car boot sale and earlier had said they were in the club as they were car boot enthusiasts.

harlie bought train tickets for him and his wife Jo to go to Carlisle away, however, the game was postponed. Whilst they were able to use the match tickets when the game was replayed, they were not going to get the money for the train tickets back, so Charlie ‘treated’ his wife Jo to a trip to Carlisle and then onto Hexham for horse racing.

As well as being a member of the 92 club, Charlie went to all 59 racecourses in the UK. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Charlie travelled on one of the few coaches going to away matches.  It was run by Doreen and May. Charlie was able to convince them we needed an early start to get to Doncaster – we got to the pub by 11.40am!

Newport, Halifax and Mansfield

We were at Newport in December 1985 and the weather was awful so we ended up in the main stand on the side. Eight of us sat down and cheered Wolves on in the first half from our seats.  We popped out at half time but on getting back to our seats for the second half we were politely asked to move as we had inadvertently sat in the Directors box for first half of the game.

One time at Halifax we went there and won 4-3 on a Tuesday evening. The view from the away section was awful, but Charlie got me to use my ‘posh’ accent so that we could move to a part of the ground where we could actually see the pitch!

Mansfield was where Charlie completed the 92, in April 1989.

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Charlie will be fondly remembered by all who knew him and will always be part of the pack.

Tributes to Charlie will be paid during the half-time interval of Wolves' Premier League match with AFC Bournemouth at Molineux on Saturday afternoon.

Everyone at Wolves would like to pass on their condolences to Charlie’s wife, Jo, and all his family and friends.