In the fourth edition of the club’s new Old Gold Club podcast, Roberts discusses his day in the sun while playing for Wolves, when he bagged three in a 4-2 victory over West Bromwich Albion back in 1996.
Roberts sat down with Mikey Burrows for the latest My Golden Game podcast, which is live on Spotify now.
On the West Brom build-up
“Bully carried the team goals-wise for the first seven or eight games. We got off to a great start, but I hadn’t scored which, as a centre forward, isn’t great. You want to hit the ground running and show your fans why the club had gone out and paid all the money they did for me, but it just didn’t happen.
“It took me eight games – Oxford away for my first goal and that was a massive sigh of relief. It was a Tuesday night game, leading up to the Sunday. It was great to get my first goal before that West Brom game.”
On that famous Hawthorns win
“It was the Birmingham Road end where the West Brom fans were [the first goal], then you’ve got to make a 50-yard dash towards the halfway line to try and celebrate with the Wolves fans. It was surreal at the beginning because I’d got one in eight, but to get one so early in such an important game.
“As a centre forward, there’s no better feeling. You go out there, you manage to get on the scoresheet, it’s as if all the pressure is lifted off your shoulders. After that first goal, I just went out and relaxed, and enjoyed the game.
“To get a second, which was a carbon copy of the first in that end, was a dream come true. Bully got one in between – we were cruising and deserved to be 3-0 up. I was chuffed to bits. To get the third in front of 6,000 Wolves fans, jam packed to the right of the tunnel, I don’t think you could have written a better script. It was unbelievable scenes.”
On his West Brom past
“For some reason West Brom were a club that I’d done well against. I don’t know why, but centre forwards do get lucky clubs they always seem to score against and West Brom was one of mine. I’d score twice there for Leicester, twice for Huddersfield, so having got off the mark, I was confident I could nick one, but never in the month of Sundays did I think I’d get a hat-trick.”
.@iwanwroberts sealing a Black Country derby hat-trick!@Coindealcom #GoalOfTheDay
— Wolves (@Wolves) May 31, 2020
⚽️⏪ pic.twitter.com/RjUUBnbS3Q
On playing for Wolves
“While I was there, I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a great set of lads and should have gone up. We should have won the league, but our home form really let us down. The pressure and expectation when playing at Molineux, maybe that got to us a little bit.
“I still get Wolves fans on Twitter, years and years down the line, saying they were there and would never forget it. It didn’t matter what I did after that in gold and black shirt, because what I did on that Sunday afternoon wrote me into Wolverhampton history.”
