WOLVES legend Steve Bull has revealed how Doug Ellis left him in limbo over a possible Villa move.
Bull notched 250 league goals in 474 games to become hot property in the 1990s.
He played four times during Italia 90 and it was there Ellis made an informal approach.
“Maybe they just might have tempted me. It would have meant staying in the Midlands,” Bull reflects.
“I’d have been there within half-an-hour from where I lived but I never heard anything.
‘‘Wolves must have done something to put them off, I don’t know.
‘‘I met Doug Ellis when he was at the World Cup in 1990. He said to me ‘Steve we are going to come in for you one day’. I said ‘okay, you have only got to come in mate’ but he never did. I could never understand why.
‘‘Villa were only up the road and they might have been the team that actually prised me away from Wolves. The four teams I know came in for me were Torino after the World Cup, Newcastle, Coventry and Celtic.”
Ron Atkinson almost took Bull to Coventry with a £1.5 million move agreed in 1995.
“I was very close to going. I’d sorted everything out with Ron,” said Bull. “But I was happy where I was. I’d just bought a new house, had a baby boy and thought ‘I don’t need to move’.
“I think Ron’s a top man. He’s a good friend of mine now. He did his job as a manager very, very well.”
Bull, who turns 45 soon, is relishing Saturday’s derby at Villa Park.
“Had we lost at Burnley, we would have been worried where the next three points were coming from,’’ he said.
‘‘Now I think we can go there and they can take the game to us. The way Mick McCarthy sets us out, 4-5-1, we are stifling teams. If we can do that against Villa we will come away with at least a point.”
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