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Your support makes all the difference.Derby County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0
Wolverhampton Wanderers. . . . . . . . . . .4
STEVE BULL yesterday bought more time for the embattled Wolves manager, Graham Turner, when his hat-trick before a disbelieving Baseball Ground audience destroyed Derby's 100 per cent home record and their hopes of taking over the leadership.
It was vintage Bully, his relentless running and ruthless finishing repeatedly exposing the Derby defence. The former England striker - if that is what we must now call him - also set up the fourth goal for Kevin Keen, one of several expensive Turner signings who had previously performed only spasmodically at their best.
However, even a four-goal demolition of Derby - a side assembled for nearly three times as much as the pounds 4.8m Wolves' multi-millionaire owner has put up for recruitment - failed to sway some of Turner's terrace critics. The familiar cry of 'Turner Out' for once went unheard, but the Molineux mantra conspicuously hailed 'Jack Hayward's Barmy Army'.
Sir Jack's recent appeal to Wolves' fans to wait until the team were back at full strength was taken by many as a veiled threat to Turner, who was then criticised by Barry Fry, the Southend manager, for his team's 'fear-filled' football. On this occasion, though, the five-man defensive strategy served as the springboard for devastating counter-attacks: frightening rather than frightened.
Bull, playing only his third match after returning from injury and suspension, took the game by the horns in the 19th minute. Racing on to Paul Birch's measured through-pass, he lobbed Martin Taylor with unexpected subtlety.
Derby's better moments - a Paul Kitson volley and a John Harkes header - both stemmed from long throws by Mark Pembridge, which said much for their poverty of imagination. It was no surprise, therefore, when Bull hooked the ball fiercely beyond Taylor on the hour after David Kelly had headed Paul Edwards's cross into his path.
Edwards also made the third eight minutes later, though Taylor's hesitant advance from his line entitled him to an unwanted assist. Bull exploited the uncertainty to head his ninth goal in as many appearances this season, before sending both Turner and his tormentors home in even happier mood by crossing for Keen to drill the fourth two minutes from time.
Turner boarded the team bus without sharing his views with the media, though the sign on the windscreen announcing 'Happy Days Travel' seemed an adequate summary.
Derby County (4-4-2): Taylor; Charles, Short, Kavanagh, Forsyth; Harkes, Kuhl (Williams, h/t), Pembridge, Simpson; Johnson, Kitson. Substitutes not used: Coleman, Sutton (gk).
Wolverhampton Wanderers (5-3-2): Stowell; Thompson, Shirtliff, Mountfield, Venus, Edwards; Birch, Cook (Rankine, 73), Keen; D Kelly, Bull. Substitutes not used: Regis, Jones (gk).
Referee: J Rushton (Stoke-on-Trent).
Two goals by Grimsby Town's Clive Mendonca, including a last-minute penalty, pushed Viv Anderson's Barnsley side into the First Division relegation zone after a 2-1 home defeat. Mendonca's winner, after Gary Childs was brought down, was his 12th goal this season.
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