Published10th Apr 2026, 08:00 BST
A new podcast, Woody and Horlock, which is telling a host of different stories about sport and about life, has also seen him reunited with some of Wolves’ former players. Paul Berry finds out more.
Mike Wood was asked by best mate and then Republic of Ireland captain Mick McCarthy to chaperone his wife Fiona at the 1990 World Cup.
Unfortunately, as a self-confessed ‘multi addict’, with drugs and alcohol as just two of the pastimes in which he over-indulged on the football and showbiz scene, those duties didn’t quite go according to plan.
“I had a nervous breakdown,” Wood admits.
At the time, due to his promiscuity, he believed he was HIV positive. His paranoia and anxiety, coupled with heavy and incessant drinking, led to ten days mixed with incredible delight at being in and around the Republic of Ireland team at a World Cup, to complete chaos and memory loss as to how his mind was completely unravelling. At one point, he contemplated jumping from his hotel room on the sixth floor.
By the end of the group stages, Wood was on his way home, ironically with the arrangements all sorted by Fiona McCarthy, whom he was supposed to be chaperoning. A journey which soon took him into the psychiatric ward at hospital. One of many life experiences which don’t bring him pride, but neither does he hide from them. It remains part of him, but has led to where he is now.
Throughout Wood’s journey, which has taken him through many of aspects of recovery to giving back and helping others, McCarthy has been a constant source of support.
It’s not difficult to see why the two of them get on so well.
Both honest, straight-talking, uncompromising, and fiercely loyal. And also, both extremely caring, with an interest in people, and bringing out the best in people.
So, before getting on to how the two first met, linked up at Wolves and then conspired to set up Wood’s new podcast, he has something to get off his chest.
One of Wood's podcastplaceholder image
One of Wood's podcast | One of Wood's podcast
Saipan, the movie. The retrospective look back at the conspiracy which gripped the globe ahead of the 2002 World Cup, by which time McCarthy was Ireland’s manager. This time it wasn’t Wood who was on his way home early, but the team’s captain and star turn Roy Keane, after delivering various blasts about a so-called unprofessionalism and his distaste for the training facilities at their initial training base prior to heading to the tournament.
Wood – or Woody as he is universally known to those who know him – has watched it. And he wasn’t impressed.
“I don’t want to have a nag at Roy Keane and I’d prefer to flip it around and talk about Mick,” he begins.
“What I will say is that Mick McCarthy will have bent over backwards to keep Roy Keane at that World Cup, but at the end of the day, you can only compromise your integrity to a certain level.
“Once someone has overstepped that boundary then you have no choice.
“I heard an interview from (goalkeeping coach) Packie Bonner who said that Roy Keane was looking for an excuse to get home, and that is what I truly believe.
“Because in my opinion, the only reason why anyone would behave so poorly is to give themselves an excuse to get out of a situation.
“And then try and point the finger at anything – it’s what we call chronic fault finding.
“He found fault in the manager, he found fault in his team-mates, he found fault in the facilities.
“I was out at that World Cup, and the facilities the Ireland squad had on the mainland after Saipan were absolutely amazing.
“So yes, the film’s not for me. Even from the part of having 5ft 8in Steve Coogan playing Mick who is 6ft 2in!”
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Alongside Mick McCarthy | Mike Wood
For McCarthy, the Keane saga is very much old news, but becomes difficult to ignore when a feature film aims to bring it all back to life almost 25 years on. And Wood, completely justifiably, doesn’t like seeing his mate wrongly portrayed.
And it’s worth mentioning. For anyone who has played for, or worked with McCarthy, any suggestion of either a weakness of personality or acting in a way that meant his country’s best player decided to travel home, would be absolutely miles off the mark.
He will undoubtedly have given Keane every chance to make his points in a fair and constructive manner. And every chance to try and iron out the issues that would have made him so enraged. But that would always be tempered by a sense of fairness to everyone else within that squad, and what was best for the team, and country, as a whole. McCarthy’s strength of character and consistency with treatment of his players would never have allowed Keane to trample all over what the group was trying to achieve. However much of an incredible player that he was.
And to bring it back to Wolves, when Keane and Sunderland were the visitors to Molineux in the November of 2006, and the media were – understandably – building it up into unbridled frenzy, it was McCarthy who arranged to go and meet his counterpart in advance and ensure all went smoothly on the night and the only story was Jemal Johnson’s spectacular goal and the 1-1 draw which followed. He was one step ahead.
To continue with Wolves, it was McCarthy who brought Wood to the club along with another mutual friend of theirs, Jeff Whitley, himself going through recovery, and also psychologist Bill Stevens, all three delivering off-field counselling support across various squads at a time when the standards of player care were not at the forefront as they are today.
Wolves boasted excellent backroom staff at both first team and academy levels, but what the three additions were able to offer was added and very diverse expertise and listening ears which were completely separate to the footballing operations. In essence, it was ahead of its time.
Wood and Whitley also accompanied the Express & Star’s then Wolves reporter Tim Nash on a fundraising half marathon down the disused railway track behind the Compton training ground.
“What myself and Jeff did was absolutely nothing to do with football,” Wood, now 66, explains.
Indeed, McCarthy had spotted a gap in certain areas, one of which was support across gambling, helping players who may feel they had a problem but also more so looking at prevention rather than cure.
On top of that there were discussions around mental health, teamwork and playing a positive role within the local community. It was a very broad spectrum.
“You find me another club where they effectively did a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in a football club – I can’t see it,” says Wood.
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Alongside former boss McCarthy | Mike Wood
“But there was so much more to what we did at that time.
“I remember the first team used to do visits to hospitals and hospices – well, we worked with the academy staff to take the young players to Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
“It was so important for their development, and they ended up giving away some of their international shirts to children who were really poorly.
“We would work with the staff like Nike Loftus, a lovely guy, and meet maybe 30 academy players each week.
“Cameras on mobile phones had just come out, and each week we would set the lads a challenge, based on little bits of information we had picked up – players love grassing each other up!
“I remember the one week there was a young player who was saying his sister was getting on his nerves, but that on the Sunday she was taking part in a gymkhana, the event with horses.
“We set him the challenge of taking his sister to the gymkhana, driving her there and back, and staying with her and watching.
“He wasn’t particularly keen, but we told him to give it a go!
“The next week he came back in and told us how his sister was dead chuffed with what he had done, and how they had enjoyed spending time together, and everyone else gave him a huge round of applause.
“It was a bit of a double edged sword, as sometimes the players would reveal things that were far more serious, but that then gave us the opportunity to work with them on a one-to-one basis to see how we could help.”
After McCarthy left Wolves, ultimately so did Wood and Whitley, who remain closely connected with Whitley now also working within player welfare for the PFA.
What is also strongly connected is that relationship with McCarthy, over 40 years on, from when they first met.
At a beauty contest!
McCarthy, then a Manchester City player, was at the event with Fiona and Wood, a lifelong City fan, was attending with his partner and later his wife Sally.
Mike Woodplaceholder image
Mike Wood | Mike Wood
The couples got talking and carried on the ‘Yesterday’s’ nightclub where Wood, already a close pal of Manchester United stars Jesper Olsen and Norman Whiteside, hit it off with McCarthy.
The City and Ireland defender would later invite Wood to the players’ Christmas party, allowing him to mix with all his heroes, and for a time, issues around low self-esteem which were to prove so damaging, became more of a distant memory.
All those decades of friendship followed, as well as the link-up at Wolves, and it was then a year or so ago that Wood had an idea around how McCarthy could transfer his footballing knowledge to the chat show arena!
“Mick phoned me the one day to say he was going on a radio show but that it wasn’t about football and might be worth a listen,” Wood explains.
“It was all about the favourite songs of his life, and, given I had experienced about 40 years of it, I might find it interesting!
“I’m a single Dad now, so I had a listen while doing my housework, and it was so good.
“I realised when Mick wasn’t being interviewed about football or being a manager, he was far less defensive, and when talking about his family or his home life he was so much more relaxed.
“So, I thought, wouldn’t it be great for him to have a chat show, maybe in Ireland, a bit like Parkinson!
“I phoned him to suggest it, and his immediate reply was, ‘**** off Woody’.
“A week later I tried him again, and I told him he’d be fantastic.
“With Jack Charlton no longer with us, Mick is in the elite group of one as the only man to have led Ireland to a World Cup Finals.
“And he was also the second most successful manager in the country’s history, behind Jack.
“I told him he could get famous Irish people as guests – and lots more besides – and he told me to **** off again.
“Well, my daughter Aimee Lou, who is a top actress and also Mick’s goddaughter, told me to tell him he’d be brilliant, and so did Karen Henshaw, another actress from Eastenders who’s a mate of mine, who said the same.
“So, Mick started to relent, and told me that if I could organise it, then he’d consider giving it a go!”
Unfortunately, as events transpired, Wood was unable to find a company willing to take the risk on the deal, mainly due to making the finances work.
But by the time he reported back with that news, the seeds had already been sewn on ‘The Managers’ podcast now featuring McCarthy and Tony Pulis.
And now the tables were turned. McCarthy told Wood that he had led an ‘insanely interesting life’, and that he should actually do a podcast, and he’d be happy to be the first guest.
So, Wood and Henshaw recorded the first podcast with McCarthy, since when former Manchester City midfielder Kevin Horlock has come on board.
That was a moment of destiny as Horlock phoned Wood by mistake and, when he called back, he asked him to appear as a guest. He was so powerful in sharing his own story of drug and alcohol addiction, and the role that Whitley played in helping him to address his demons, that co-hosting duties have swiftly followed.
In essence, ‘Woody and Horlock’ is something of a ‘recovery channel’, but all stories are welcome, particularly around different experiences of life.
“This is what our channel is about, people having adversities and overcoming them,” says Wood.
“It’s not really about football.
“We’re not talking about who’s going to win a game – which may crop up – but that’s not the main motive.
“We are diving into the real stories, the highs, the setbacks and the moments which shape careers and lives beyond the pitch.”
There have been many different guests from the world and football and outside since McCarthy appeared on the ‘premiere’.
These have included former promotion-winning Wolves wingers Mark Kennedy and Matt Jarvis, and Johnny Gorman, a young professional at Molineux who made his international debut for Northern Ireland before even appearing for his club.
Wood and Gorman have remained close since, with the latter now having completed a Master’s degree in psychology and well down the path towards a doctorate.
For Wood himself, there has been so much healing over so many years, and, as ever, he is putting everything he has into the podcast, as he does any project in which he is involved.
Alongside podcast and counselling duties, he would love to be even more involved within football, particularly with what he perceives is a gap in support given to players after they come out of clinics such as Sporting Chance, which do such a great job.
He also strongly believes that gay rights within football is an issue which needs to be more readily addressed, so that players can feel more comfortable and supported to be able to declare their sexuality.
For now, it’s full steam ahead with the podcast, and also continuing to catch up with McCarthy, whom he took to watch Malden & Tiptree, in the Isthmian League, on Good Friday.
Life is now very different to how it once was, and very much for the better.
“I don’t have low self-esteem anymore, but I’ve still got a little bit of devil in me now and again,” Wood admits.
“Andy Morrison, another former City player who is poorly at the moment, is 27 years sober and he says that 27 years of sobriety gives him 2.7 seconds of thinking time before he reacts.
“So, if a bloke pulls up behind me and hoots their horn, my initial reaction would be to get out and confront them, even though I’m too old for all that now!
“But no, now, in two seconds, I have said a prayer for him, because they are obviously an angry man.
“It’s a change of attitude which has been beautiful and really enabling.
“And to still be mates with Mick, and catching up with some other names from the Wolves days, has been great.
“So many of them say he is the best manager they ever worked with, and from my point of view he’s been amazing with me over the years – and I don’t think I can ever fully pay him back.
“What I really love now is that I might meet a famous professional footballer who wants my help, and I will help them, but also a heroin attack who is living on the street and I will help them.
“Anything I am able to do to help people is what takes my energy now.”
Check out Woody and Horlock episodes, including with Mick McCarthy, Matt Jarvis and Mark Kennedy, by clicking here - http://www.youtube.com/@woodyandhorlock
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