Pete Cashmore: Wolves and West Brom's billionaire owners

This being a moderately amusing column in the Black Country's toppermost newspaper, it seems silly to be talking about anything else, what with all the change and upheaval in our local teams. In my occasional role as A Grown-Up Serious Journalist (it happens every now and then) I did a fair amount of research on the new owners at Wolves and West Brom. It was fascinating to read about the insane amounts of money that the people taking over our local clubs, and indeed people mooted to be taking them over but not actually doing so, have.

In summary, Wolves are now preposterously rich, West Brom are not as rich but still insanely rich, and Aston Villa are slightly less rich than West Brom. In fact, Aston Villa are so poor their owner needs to add another £10 million to his personal fortune to qualify as a billionaire. He only has £990m. Chicken feed!

I'm not a billionaire, but the owners of Wolves and West Brom very definitely are, which changes the game for both clubs in a way that I would imagine their fans – and I am one of the former club – find most agreeable. All of a sudden they, and in particular Wolves, are technically among the richest teams in the world.

It's often a mixed emotions situation when international moneybag owners who have no real connection to the club take over your team, but Jeff Shi has made a good fist of winning over the doubters. He certainly won over our own sports journalist Tim Spiers who, when he introduced himself to the new owner, was met with a response of 'I know who you are, I read all your stuff'. He's been banging on about it ever since. I like to think that Jeff is also an avid reader of Peter's Pieces. I mean, there must be one SOMEWHERE.

Staying on the subject of money, spare a thought for Spencer Pugh, estranged son of one Sonia Davies, who won the small matter of £61m on the EuroMillions lottery, which means that she could have bought Wolves if she'd wanted. She called up her progeny to tell him of the jackpot win, but neglected to tell him if he'd see any of it, the general consensus being that he won't. This strikes me as being a tad mean – it's one thing to keep the money if familial relationships aren't great but to ring up and jauntily inform your boy of the win without seeing if he might like a million or two to tide him over seems a bit harsh.

The fact that Spencer has now gone to the papers looking suitably miffed makes it even more unlikely that he'll benefit from his mother's good fortune – accent on the 'fortune' – and reminds us all that there are times when you should hold your tongue. However, if Sonia is looking for a surrogate son figure to whom she could act as a benefactor, well, my email address is there at the bottom.

pete.cashmore@expressandstar.co.uk