The team were founded as St. Luke's in 1877 by John Baynton and John Brodie, after a group of pupils at St Luke's school in Blakenhall had been presented with a football by their headmaster Harry Barcroft. Two years later, they merged with local cricket and football club The Wanderers, to form Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The club were initially given the use of two fields — John Harper's Field and Windmill Field — both off Lower Villiers Street in Blakenhall. From there, they moved to a site on the Dudley Road opposite the Fighting Cocks Inn in 1881. The club then became one of the twelve founders of the English Football League in 1888 and finished the inaugural season in a creditable third place, as well as reaching their first ever FA Cup Final, losing 3-0 to the first "Double" winners, Preston North End.
[edit] Early cup triumphs & inter-war adventures
The Wolves team that won the FA Cup in 1893
Wolves remained as members of the Football League First Division from 1888 until relegation in 1906, winning the FA Cup for the first time in 1893 when they beat Everton 1-0 at Fallowfield Stadium in Manchester. Two years after relegation the team enjoyed another FA Cup win, as a Second Division club, surprisingly beating Newcastle United 3-1 in the 1908 final. After struggling for many years to regain their place in the top division, Wolves suffered relegation again in 1923, dropping into the Third Division (North). Wolves' first promotion was won just a year later, narrowly claiming the Third Division North title at the first attempt ahead of Rochdale.
Following eight more years back in the Second Division, Wolves finally achieved a return to top division football in 1932, claiming the Second Division title and another promotion. In the years leading up to the Second World War, the team became established as one of the leading club sides in England. In 1938, Wolves needed only to win the last game of the season to be champions for the first time, but were beaten 1-0 at Sunderland and Arsenal claimed the title. They again finished as runners-up in 1939, this time behind Everton, and endured more frustration with defeat in the last pre-War FA Cup Final, losing 4-1 to underdogs Portsmouth.
[edit] The Stan Cullis era & the birth of European football
"Many say Manchester United would have won the championship in 1958 if not for the Munich air crash in February 1958. They were a great side, but even if the crash had never happened, they could not have caught us. Even after the disaster we didn’t drop enough points for that to happen."
Malcolm Finlayson,
Wolves goalkeeper and Title winner, 1958 & 1959[2]
When league football resumed in 1946, Wolves suffered yet another heartbreaking failure in the First Division. Just as in 1938, victory in their last match of the season against Liverpool would have won the title but a 2-1 win gave the 1947 championship to the Merseyside club instead. That game had been the last in a Wolves shirt for Stan Cullis, and a year later he became manager of the club. In Cullis' first season in charge he led Wolves to a first major honour in 41 years as they beat Leicester City 3-1 in the FA Cup Final, and a year later, only the goal average prevented the First Division title being won. The 1950s were by far the most successful period in the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Captained by Billy Wright, Wolves finally claimed the league championship for the first time in 1954, overhauling fierce rivals West Bromwich Albion[3] late in the season. Two further titles were later won in successive years, as Wolves cemented their position as the premier team in English football.
In this period, football played under floodlights was still a novelty, and the summer of 1953 saw the first set of lights installed at Molineux, which were first tested in a friendly game against a South African XI. Over the next months, Wolves played a series of famous "floodlit friendlies" against foreign opposition, and the "sheer theatre" of the football enthused many, such as the young Wolves fan George Best.[4] Beginning with Racing Club of Argentina, they also played Spartak Moscow of the USSR, before meeting Honvéd of Hungary in a landmark game for English football, televised live on the BBC. Faith in the English national team was at an all time low, and Wolves faced a Honvéd team that including many of the "Magical Magyars" team who had recently so humbled England twice, and had been 1954 World Cup finalists. In front of the watching nation, Wolves came from two goals down at half time to beat the Hungarian side 3-2, which coupled with their previous European exploits, lead the national media to proclaim Wolves "Champions of the World". This was the final spur[5] for Gabriel Hanot, the editor of L'Équipe, who had long campaigned for a Europe wide club tournament to be played under floodlights.
“ Before we declare that Wolverhampton Wanderers are invincible, let them go to Moscow and Budapest. And there are other internationally renowned clubs: A.C. Milan and Real Madrid to name but two. A club world championship, or at least a European one — larger, more meaningful and more prestigious than the Mitropa Cup and more original than a competition for national teams — should be launched. — Gabriel Hanot, editor of L'Équipe[6] ”
The UEFA congress of March 1955 saw the proposal raised, with approval given in April of that year, and the kick-off of the first European Cup the following season. The 1959 title win saw Wolves play in the European Cup for the first time, being only the second English club after Manchester United to enter. Later, Spartak Moscow, Dynamo Moscow and Real Madrid all came to Molineux and were beaten, as Wolves saw mixed successes in the European Cup against teams such as Red Star Belgrade, Schalke 04 and Barcelona, during Real Madrid's period of domination. Wolves were also League Champions in 1958 (Though Malcolm Finlayson's assertion that Wolves did not drop sufficient point after February 8th, to have lost the league to their rivals is not the case. At the time of the Munich air disaster Wolves had a 6 point lead over Manchester United. Wolves subsequently dropped 6 points and beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. on the 21st April (a reverse result would have made a difference of 8 points.) Manchester United could, in fact, have won the league but it would have been a monumental effort, almost impossible. Equally Wolves had, at the time of Munich, a much better goal average and, further, lost their final game to the bottom team in the league, Sheffield Wednesday, when the league championship had already been won.)[1]
and 1959, and in 1960 became the first team to pass the 100-goal mark for three seasons in succession. Coming agonisingly close to a hat-trick of titles and the first double of the twentieth century[7], Wolves finished just one point behind Burnley and had to make do with a fourth FA Cup win, beating Blackburn Rovers 3-0 in the final.
[edit] Cullis sacked, Wolves American champions
The early 1960s saw Wolves begin to decline, and Cullis was sacked in September 1964 at the start of a dreadful season during which the club was never out of the relegation zone. The club's first spell outside the top division in more than thirty years would last just two seasons, as an eight game winning run in the spring of 1967 led the way to promotion.
During the summer of 1967, Wolves played a season in North America as part of a fledgling league called the United Soccer Association. This league imported twelve entire clubs from Europe and South America to play in American and Canadian cities, with each club bearing a local name. Wolverhampton Wanderers, playing as the "Los Angeles Wolves", won the Western Division and then went on to earn the League Title by defeating the Eastern Division champions Washington Whips (Aberdeen of Scotland) in the championship match. (This FIFA-sanctioned league merged the following season with the non-sanctioned National Professional Soccer League, which had also begun in 1967, to form the North American Soccer League).
[edit] The Seventies resurgence
The club's return to the English top flight heralded another period of relative success, with a squad that included stars Derek Dougan, Kenny Hibbitt and Frank Munro finishing the 1970–71 season in fourth place, qualifying them for the newly created UEFA Cup. En route to the 1972 UEFA Cup Final, they beat Académica 7-1 on aggregate, ADO Den Haag 7-1 on aggregate, FC Carl Zeiss Jena 4-0 on aggregate, Juventus 3-2 on aggregate in the quarter-final and Ferencvaros 4-3 in the semi-final. Wolves lost the home leg of the two-legged final against Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 (goal from Jim McCalliog) and drew at White Hart Lane 1-1 with a goal from David Wagstaffe).
Two years later in 1974 they went on to beat Manchester City in the 1974 League Cup Final, taking the trophy for the first time. Despite relegation again in 1976, Wolves were to bounce back at the first attempt as Second Division champions, and three years later in 1980, Andy Gray scored to defeat the reigning European Champions and League Cup holders Nottingham Forest to again bring League Cup glory to Molineux.
[edit] Sharp decline & revival
Wolves went through a bad spell in the 1980s, triggered by serious financial difficulties that almost resulted in the club's extinction. The club's infamous owners, the Bhatti brothers, had sucked Wolves dry, and three consecutive relegations in 1984, 1985 and 1986 saw a bankrupt Wolves slide into the Fourth Division for the first time in the club's history, the club hanging by a thread and with two sides of the decaying stadium condemned. The nadir finally came with a 3-0 FA Cup 1st Round exit at the hands of non-league Chorley in 1986.
By 1987, having been saved by the local council, Wolves began the climb away from rock bottom, with ownership of the club changed, and Graham Turner appointed manager in October 1986, shortly after the drop into Division Four. By 1989, Wolves were back in the Second Division following two successive promotions. This period included one further visit to Wembley, for the Sherpa Van Trophy final in May 1988. Wolves' 2-0 victory over Burnley drew a record attendance of 80,841, with more than 50,000 supporting Wolves.
The key player behind the club's resurgence was undoubtedly Steve Bull, who had been signed along with Andy Thompson for a combined fee of £64,000 from neighbours West Bromwich Albion. His feat of scoring 50+ goals in all competitions during back-to-back promotion-winning seasons subsequently saw him capped by England and take part in the 1990 World Cup Finals. His record of 306 goals for Wolves (250 of them in league matches) before retiring at the end of the 1998–99 season still stands as the club's record goalscorer. He is the only player to have played for England while contracted to Wolves in the last quarter of a century.
[edit] The Hayward years
In May 1990 Wolves were bought by lifelong supporter Jack Hayward. His money saw the club's aging and decrepit ground comprehensively rebuilt to meet new government regulations in the early 1990s, with the Stan Cullis Stand erected on the site of the North Bank in 1992, and the Billy Wright Stand replacing the Waterloo Road Stand in August 1993. In December of that year the renovated stadium was officially opened, after the Jack Harris Stand replaced the South Bank and the John Ireland Stand (renamed as the Steve Bull Stand in the summer of 2003) underwent a complete refurbishment.
With the stadium completed, Hayward gave the club its first substantial investment into its playing side since the late 1970s. While stadium work was prioritised in the early 1990s, the club under manager Graham Turner had consolidated in midtable but failed to make any inroads toward promotion to the top flight (now the newly-formed Premier League). The summer of 1993 saw the first recruits in a heavily-funded bid for promotion that would characterise much of Hayward's reign.
By March 1994 though, their play-off chances were fading and Turner quit, making way for former England manager Graham Taylor. Taylor ultimately served only one full season, where he took the club to their best finish in the Football League structure in over a decade, but they were denied promotion after losing 2-3 to Bolton Wanderers on aggregate in the play-off semi finals.
Taylor was soon ousted under fan pressure in November 1995 after Wolves, now bearing the burden of being promotion favourites, made a slow start to the 1995–96 season. His successor Mark McGhee inspired a brief turnaround in fortunes and as late as March they were just outside the play-off zone, but poor form returned and by the end of the season they had finished 20th — just two places above the drop zone and their lowest league finish since they slipped into Fourth Division a decade earlier. The 1996-97 season was far stronger, but they were pipped to the second automatic promotion place by Barnsley and lost to Crystal Palace in the play-off semi-finals.
Although reaching the FA Cup semi-finals a year later, McGhee was dismissed in November 1998 as Wolves were slipping out of contention for the play-off places. His assistant Colin Lee took over but the club just missed out on the play-offs. With a far more limited budget than his two predecessors enjoyed, Lee could only guide the club to a second successive 7th place finish in 1999–2000. He was dismissed in December 2000 after a poor run of form left Wolves just a few places above the drop zone.
Former Southampton manager Dave Jones was named as Lee's successor in January 2001, and Wolves improved during the second half of the 2000–01 season, but their dismal early season form counted against them and they were unable to achieve anything more than a midtable finish. The close season saw heavy investment into the team, which helped them spend much of the 2001-02 season in the top two places. However, an end of season slump saw them pipped to automatic promotion by deadly rivals West Bromwich Albion. Defeat at the hands of Norwich City in the play-off semi-finals finally put paid to their promotion hopes.
Wolves experienced sporadic form during the early part of 2002–03, and thus were never in contention for the automatic promotion places. The team turned the corner with a thrilling 3-2 FA Cup win over Newcastle United, going on to lose just two of their 20 league games after this, securing them 5th place and a play-off semi-final clash against newly-promoted Reading. Victory in both legs earned Wolves a place in the Play-off Final against Sheffield United, their first play-off final at their fourth attempt. In the Millennium Stadium-staged final, three first half goals from Mark Kennedy, Nathan Blake and Kenny Miller, respectively, were enough to earn Wolves a long awaited place in the Premiership, after 19 years in the lower echelons of English football.
Their debut season in the Premiership was tough, with key players Matt Murray and Joleon Lescott out for the entire season, and several others injured from the start. Their spending power to strengthen the team was relatively low as Hayward instead put the club up for sale. Despite these setbacks, Wolves overcame their seven game winless start, to eventually achieve some commendable results, in particular a 1-0 win over Manchester United. However, failing to win a single away game meant that their relegation battle was ultimately lost, and they finished bottom of the table on goal difference, bracketed together on 33 points with the two other relegated teams.
Despite hopes for an immediate return to the top flight, their 2004–05 Championship campaign began dismally, and at one point the side sunk as low as 19th place. Following a 0-1 defeat at Gillingham, a side Wolves had beaten 6-0 just eighteen months previous, Jones was sacked at the beginning of November.
Another former England coach was hired the following month, as Glenn Hoddle was appointed on a rolling one-year contract. Under Hoddle, Wolves lost only one of their final 25 league games, but drew 15 to finish ninth in the final table — not enough to qualify for the play-offs. Wolves then finished a disappointing seventh in 2005–06 as fan discontent grew, disenchanted with the lack of passion and pride from the team, including from Hoddle himself who had not moved to the area. Though the board expressed no displeasure with Hoddle publicly, with Jez Moxey affirming his faith in the under fire manager, the season had been frowned on by both local media and the fan base. However, few had anticipated Hoddle's sudden resignation mere moments before England's World Cup quarter-final clash with Portugal.
[edit] A new regime, a new start
Following the exit of Hoddle in pre-season in 2006, Wolves staged a complete clearout, stripping the squad and wage bill down and appointing former Republic of Ireland and Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy. Wolves therefore commenced the 2006–07 season with only the bare bones of a first team squad and with the lowest expectations around the club in years.
McCarthy acknowledged the challenge, stating to local media "The initials MM on my top stand for Mick McCarthy, not Merlin the Magician",[8] and quickly scraped together a squad, largely from the club's youth ranks, out of contract players and loanees. After an inconsistent first half to the season, an impressive run of form followed and the club eventually made the play-offs, despite earlier expectations. They were paired with local rivals West Bromwich Albion in the semi-finals, where they lost out over two legs.
There was further change when businessman Steve Morgan took control of the club for a nominal £10 fee in return for a £30million investment into the club, resulting in the departure of Sir Jack Hayward (who remains as Life President) after 17 years as chairman.[9] The protracted takeover was finally completed on 9 August 2007, upon which the club set out their future ethos:
“ It is intended that the new capital, over a period of time, will be used to help re-establish Wolves as a Premiership club. Although this is a significant amount of money there will not be an ’open cheque book’ approach to signing players; instead the club will build on the current strategy of steadily and progressively developing a team of young, hungry and talented players. — Club Statement[10] ”
Despite Morgan's arrival, the 2007–08 season ultimately brought more disappointment as the club failed to match the previous campaign's playoff finish. Poor form around Christmas saw them slump to midtable and only a late rally, aided by the goal power of new signing Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, put them back in the promotion hunt. They finished just outside the final play-off spot on goal difference, one goal short of Watford.
Wolves Football League Championship trophy presentation at Molineux on 3 May 2009
The 2008–09 season saw the club's strongest start since 1949–50, as an opening day draw preceded a run of seven consecutive wins. Fired by the goals of Ebanks-Blake and new signing Chris Iwelumo, the club hit the top of the table for the first time in years by the end of August and never left the automatic promotion spots after. A second run of seven consecutive wins tightened their grip on the lead by Christmas.
Despite a dismal start to 2009, the equally faltering form of their rivals allowed Wolves to retain the top spot. March saw a return to form with 13 points from a possible 15, strengthening their position at the top of the table that they had led since October. Promotion to the Premier League was finally confirmed on 18 April 2009 with a 1-0 win over Queens Park Rangers. The following week, Wolves clinched their first divisional title since the 1988–89 season.
[edit] Premier League 2009–10
Further information: Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. season 2009–10
Following their promotion from the Football League Championship as Champions, Wolves immediately set about recruiting for the upcoming season. Veteran American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, Sunderland utility man Greg Halford and Southampton midfielder Andrew Surman, most of whom had suffered disappointment with their previous clubs, were the first recruits.
The most high profile summer signing was the club record transfer of Irish international striker Kevin Doyle.[11] The ranks were bolstered with Serbian international playmaker Nenad Milijaš from Red Star Belgrade,[12] along with Marseille defender Ronald Zubar[13] and the season-long loan of Michael Mancienne who had played for the club in their promotion campaign. Deadline day saw the giant Austrian striker Stefan Maierhofer move permanently from Rapid Vienna and the loan capture of Ecuadorian midfielder Segundo Castillo.
After a pre-season spent partly in Australia, the season proper began with a 0–2 loss to West Ham in the club's first Premier League fixture in five years. Wolves immediately bounced back by winning on the road at Wigan despite a long injury list. A further victory against Fulham put them 12th after six games, but this was their last victory for almost two months and despite credible draws against the likes of Everton and Aston Villa, the team fell into the relegation zone, with a defence unable to keep clean sheets.
December brought three wins in four games, including a surprise away success at Tottenham, to help propel the club out of the mire. After slipping back in the relegation zone another surprise 1-0 victory over Tottenham in February lifted Wolves to 15th and brought their first top flight double since 1981, and Wolves added a second double over Burnley on 13 March 2010, this was followed by a draw at Aston Villa and then a 3-1 victory at fellow strugglers West Ham having not won there in 30 years, and not to mention recording there biggest top flight victory to date since 1981. Wolves had a three away game series where Wolves took 7 points from a possible 9, giving their chances of avoiding relegation a strong boost.
The club are now assured of their safety in the Premier League for next season.
[edit] Colours & badge
City Crest.
Contemporary colours
Original colours
The first badge to be worn on Wolves shirts was the city crest of Wolverhampton, usually worn on special occasions such as cup finals. In the late 1960s, Wolves introduced their own club badge consisting of a single leaping wolf, which later became three leaping wolves in the 1970s. In 1979, Wolves changed to the now famous wolf-head badge. Its simple and stylised design made it one of the most recognisable club badges in British football and, despite a brief return to the Wolverhampton city crest in the mid 1990s, it is still in use to the present day.
The club's traditional colours allude to the city's motto "out of darkness cometh light" with the gold and black representing light and darkness respectively.[14] In the club's early days the team sported various versions of these colours including old gold and black stripes and old gold and black diagonal halves. It remains one of the most famous and recognisable strips in British football today. The traditional away colour of Wolves is all white and will be so during the 2009-10 season.[15]
[edit] Stadium
Main article: Molineux Stadium
[edit] History
Molineux Stadium, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers have played at Molineux, Whitmore Reans, since 1889. Their previous home was in the Blakenhall area, and although no signs of the ground remain, a nearby road is called Wanderers Avenue. The Molineux name originates from Benjamin Molineux, a local merchant who built his home on the grounds. Northampton Brewery, who later owned the site, rented its use to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1889, who had previously lacked a permanent home. After renovating the site, the first ever league game was staged on 7 September 1889 in a 2-0 victory over Notts County before a crowd of 4,000.
In 1953, the stadium became one of the first to install floodlights, at an estimated cost of £10,000. The first ever floodlit game was held on 30 September 1953, as Wolves won 3-1 against South Africa. The addition of the floodlights opened the door for Molineux to host a series of midweek friendlies against teams from across the globe. In the days prior to the formation of the European Cup and international club competitions, these games were highly prestigious and gained huge crowds and interest, the BBC often televising such events.
The old South Bank at Molineux is also historically the second largest of all Kop ends closely followed by Aston Villa's Holte End, both of which regularly held crowds in excess of 30,000.
[edit] Fluctuating attendances
When Wolves were at their height of success during the 1950s (three League Championships and two FA Cups) Molineux regularly held over 50,000 mostly standing spectators. By the time of their sharp decline during the 1980s, only the newly built 9,500-seat John Ireland Stand (now the Steve Bull Stand) and the much reduced South Bank (15,500) were in use. This reduction in capacity was due to the fact that the other two stands were wood-built and declared unsafe following the Bradford City disaster, in which a wood-built stand caught fire and killed 56 people in 1985. In the days before the Taylor Report, which required British football stadia to provide seating for all those attending, the ground had a capacity of over 60,000; the record attendance for a match at the ground is 61,315 for a game against Liverpool in the First Division on 11 February 1939.
[edit] Redevelopment
Between 1991 and 1993, Molineux was comprehensively redeveloped. The Waterloo Road stand was replaced by the all-seat Billy Wright Stand, the North Bank terrace was replaced by the Stan Cullis Stand, and the South Bank terrace was replaced by the Jack Harris Stand. By the 1993–94 season the Molineux had a 28,525 all-seated capacity making Molineux the twenty-sixth largest in English football. But by the time of the 2003 promotion, Molineux was the fifteenth largest Premiership stadium. In the previous decade, many of the smaller stadiums had either been expanded or replaced to hold a capacity of between 30,000 and 67,000 seated spectators. For the 2003–04 to 2005–06 seasons, the corner between the Billy Wright and Jack Harris Stands was filled in with temporary seating to create a further 900 seats named the Graham Hughes stand (the Clubs Official Historian), bringing the ground's capacity to 29,400. These temporary seats were removed during the 2006 close season.
Millionaire owner Steve Morgan is keen to "transform the city centre ground into a venue fit for Premiership football"[16], although the scale and speed of the expansion plans will depend on Wolves stabilisation in the Premier League. As a result of Wolves' promotion to the Premier League, Wolves reinstated the 'Graham Hughes' temporary seating stand in the southwest corner of the stadium, taking capacity up to 29,303.
[edit] Training ground
The Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground, opened in 2005, is a £4.6m, state-of-the-art development located in Compton, Wolverhampton. The modern two-storey building stands approximately one mile to the west of the stadium, and features five high-quality training pitches, eleven changing rooms, a fully-equipped gymnasium, and a hydrotherapy pool - one of only a handful of English clubs to own such equipment.
The training ground also boasts world-class quality medical and physiotherapy facilities, being the first (and so far only) British sports club to establish a fully-accredited professional sports laboratory, based on AC Milan's Milanello model [17]. This facility features pioneering sports equipment such as VO2 max testing facilities, an Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill, dynamic tension isokintics, cryotherapy, dynamic ultrasound and postural sway analysis systems[18], all of which provide top-class support from players from development level right through to the first team.
The club were initially given the use of two fields — John Harper's Field and Windmill Field — both off Lower Villiers Street in Blakenhall. From there, they moved to a site on the Dudley Road opposite the Fighting Cocks Inn in 1881. The club then became one of the twelve founders of the English Football League in 1888 and finished the inaugural season in a creditable third place, as well as reaching their first ever FA Cup Final, losing 3-0 to the first "Double" winners, Preston North End.
[edit] Early cup triumphs & inter-war adventures
The Wolves team that won the FA Cup in 1893
Wolves remained as members of the Football League First Division from 1888 until relegation in 1906, winning the FA Cup for the first time in 1893 when they beat Everton 1-0 at Fallowfield Stadium in Manchester. Two years after relegation the team enjoyed another FA Cup win, as a Second Division club, surprisingly beating Newcastle United 3-1 in the 1908 final. After struggling for many years to regain their place in the top division, Wolves suffered relegation again in 1923, dropping into the Third Division (North). Wolves' first promotion was won just a year later, narrowly claiming the Third Division North title at the first attempt ahead of Rochdale.
Following eight more years back in the Second Division, Wolves finally achieved a return to top division football in 1932, claiming the Second Division title and another promotion. In the years leading up to the Second World War, the team became established as one of the leading club sides in England. In 1938, Wolves needed only to win the last game of the season to be champions for the first time, but were beaten 1-0 at Sunderland and Arsenal claimed the title. They again finished as runners-up in 1939, this time behind Everton, and endured more frustration with defeat in the last pre-War FA Cup Final, losing 4-1 to underdogs Portsmouth.
[edit] The Stan Cullis era & the birth of European football
"Many say Manchester United would have won the championship in 1958 if not for the Munich air crash in February 1958. They were a great side, but even if the crash had never happened, they could not have caught us. Even after the disaster we didn’t drop enough points for that to happen."
Malcolm Finlayson,
Wolves goalkeeper and Title winner, 1958 & 1959[2]
When league football resumed in 1946, Wolves suffered yet another heartbreaking failure in the First Division. Just as in 1938, victory in their last match of the season against Liverpool would have won the title but a 2-1 win gave the 1947 championship to the Merseyside club instead. That game had been the last in a Wolves shirt for Stan Cullis, and a year later he became manager of the club. In Cullis' first season in charge he led Wolves to a first major honour in 41 years as they beat Leicester City 3-1 in the FA Cup Final, and a year later, only the goal average prevented the First Division title being won. The 1950s were by far the most successful period in the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Captained by Billy Wright, Wolves finally claimed the league championship for the first time in 1954, overhauling fierce rivals West Bromwich Albion[3] late in the season. Two further titles were later won in successive years, as Wolves cemented their position as the premier team in English football.
In this period, football played under floodlights was still a novelty, and the summer of 1953 saw the first set of lights installed at Molineux, which were first tested in a friendly game against a South African XI. Over the next months, Wolves played a series of famous "floodlit friendlies" against foreign opposition, and the "sheer theatre" of the football enthused many, such as the young Wolves fan George Best.[4] Beginning with Racing Club of Argentina, they also played Spartak Moscow of the USSR, before meeting Honvéd of Hungary in a landmark game for English football, televised live on the BBC. Faith in the English national team was at an all time low, and Wolves faced a Honvéd team that including many of the "Magical Magyars" team who had recently so humbled England twice, and had been 1954 World Cup finalists. In front of the watching nation, Wolves came from two goals down at half time to beat the Hungarian side 3-2, which coupled with their previous European exploits, lead the national media to proclaim Wolves "Champions of the World". This was the final spur[5] for Gabriel Hanot, the editor of L'Équipe, who had long campaigned for a Europe wide club tournament to be played under floodlights.
“ Before we declare that Wolverhampton Wanderers are invincible, let them go to Moscow and Budapest. And there are other internationally renowned clubs: A.C. Milan and Real Madrid to name but two. A club world championship, or at least a European one — larger, more meaningful and more prestigious than the Mitropa Cup and more original than a competition for national teams — should be launched. — Gabriel Hanot, editor of L'Équipe[6] ”
The UEFA congress of March 1955 saw the proposal raised, with approval given in April of that year, and the kick-off of the first European Cup the following season. The 1959 title win saw Wolves play in the European Cup for the first time, being only the second English club after Manchester United to enter. Later, Spartak Moscow, Dynamo Moscow and Real Madrid all came to Molineux and were beaten, as Wolves saw mixed successes in the European Cup against teams such as Red Star Belgrade, Schalke 04 and Barcelona, during Real Madrid's period of domination. Wolves were also League Champions in 1958 (Though Malcolm Finlayson's assertion that Wolves did not drop sufficient point after February 8th, to have lost the league to their rivals is not the case. At the time of the Munich air disaster Wolves had a 6 point lead over Manchester United. Wolves subsequently dropped 6 points and beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. on the 21st April (a reverse result would have made a difference of 8 points.) Manchester United could, in fact, have won the league but it would have been a monumental effort, almost impossible. Equally Wolves had, at the time of Munich, a much better goal average and, further, lost their final game to the bottom team in the league, Sheffield Wednesday, when the league championship had already been won.)[1]
and 1959, and in 1960 became the first team to pass the 100-goal mark for three seasons in succession. Coming agonisingly close to a hat-trick of titles and the first double of the twentieth century[7], Wolves finished just one point behind Burnley and had to make do with a fourth FA Cup win, beating Blackburn Rovers 3-0 in the final.
[edit] Cullis sacked, Wolves American champions
The early 1960s saw Wolves begin to decline, and Cullis was sacked in September 1964 at the start of a dreadful season during which the club was never out of the relegation zone. The club's first spell outside the top division in more than thirty years would last just two seasons, as an eight game winning run in the spring of 1967 led the way to promotion.
During the summer of 1967, Wolves played a season in North America as part of a fledgling league called the United Soccer Association. This league imported twelve entire clubs from Europe and South America to play in American and Canadian cities, with each club bearing a local name. Wolverhampton Wanderers, playing as the "Los Angeles Wolves", won the Western Division and then went on to earn the League Title by defeating the Eastern Division champions Washington Whips (Aberdeen of Scotland) in the championship match. (This FIFA-sanctioned league merged the following season with the non-sanctioned National Professional Soccer League, which had also begun in 1967, to form the North American Soccer League).
[edit] The Seventies resurgence
The club's return to the English top flight heralded another period of relative success, with a squad that included stars Derek Dougan, Kenny Hibbitt and Frank Munro finishing the 1970–71 season in fourth place, qualifying them for the newly created UEFA Cup. En route to the 1972 UEFA Cup Final, they beat Académica 7-1 on aggregate, ADO Den Haag 7-1 on aggregate, FC Carl Zeiss Jena 4-0 on aggregate, Juventus 3-2 on aggregate in the quarter-final and Ferencvaros 4-3 in the semi-final. Wolves lost the home leg of the two-legged final against Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 (goal from Jim McCalliog) and drew at White Hart Lane 1-1 with a goal from David Wagstaffe).
Two years later in 1974 they went on to beat Manchester City in the 1974 League Cup Final, taking the trophy for the first time. Despite relegation again in 1976, Wolves were to bounce back at the first attempt as Second Division champions, and three years later in 1980, Andy Gray scored to defeat the reigning European Champions and League Cup holders Nottingham Forest to again bring League Cup glory to Molineux.
[edit] Sharp decline & revival
Wolves went through a bad spell in the 1980s, triggered by serious financial difficulties that almost resulted in the club's extinction. The club's infamous owners, the Bhatti brothers, had sucked Wolves dry, and three consecutive relegations in 1984, 1985 and 1986 saw a bankrupt Wolves slide into the Fourth Division for the first time in the club's history, the club hanging by a thread and with two sides of the decaying stadium condemned. The nadir finally came with a 3-0 FA Cup 1st Round exit at the hands of non-league Chorley in 1986.
By 1987, having been saved by the local council, Wolves began the climb away from rock bottom, with ownership of the club changed, and Graham Turner appointed manager in October 1986, shortly after the drop into Division Four. By 1989, Wolves were back in the Second Division following two successive promotions. This period included one further visit to Wembley, for the Sherpa Van Trophy final in May 1988. Wolves' 2-0 victory over Burnley drew a record attendance of 80,841, with more than 50,000 supporting Wolves.
The key player behind the club's resurgence was undoubtedly Steve Bull, who had been signed along with Andy Thompson for a combined fee of £64,000 from neighbours West Bromwich Albion. His feat of scoring 50+ goals in all competitions during back-to-back promotion-winning seasons subsequently saw him capped by England and take part in the 1990 World Cup Finals. His record of 306 goals for Wolves (250 of them in league matches) before retiring at the end of the 1998–99 season still stands as the club's record goalscorer. He is the only player to have played for England while contracted to Wolves in the last quarter of a century.
[edit] The Hayward years
In May 1990 Wolves were bought by lifelong supporter Jack Hayward. His money saw the club's aging and decrepit ground comprehensively rebuilt to meet new government regulations in the early 1990s, with the Stan Cullis Stand erected on the site of the North Bank in 1992, and the Billy Wright Stand replacing the Waterloo Road Stand in August 1993. In December of that year the renovated stadium was officially opened, after the Jack Harris Stand replaced the South Bank and the John Ireland Stand (renamed as the Steve Bull Stand in the summer of 2003) underwent a complete refurbishment.
With the stadium completed, Hayward gave the club its first substantial investment into its playing side since the late 1970s. While stadium work was prioritised in the early 1990s, the club under manager Graham Turner had consolidated in midtable but failed to make any inroads toward promotion to the top flight (now the newly-formed Premier League). The summer of 1993 saw the first recruits in a heavily-funded bid for promotion that would characterise much of Hayward's reign.
By March 1994 though, their play-off chances were fading and Turner quit, making way for former England manager Graham Taylor. Taylor ultimately served only one full season, where he took the club to their best finish in the Football League structure in over a decade, but they were denied promotion after losing 2-3 to Bolton Wanderers on aggregate in the play-off semi finals.
Taylor was soon ousted under fan pressure in November 1995 after Wolves, now bearing the burden of being promotion favourites, made a slow start to the 1995–96 season. His successor Mark McGhee inspired a brief turnaround in fortunes and as late as March they were just outside the play-off zone, but poor form returned and by the end of the season they had finished 20th — just two places above the drop zone and their lowest league finish since they slipped into Fourth Division a decade earlier. The 1996-97 season was far stronger, but they were pipped to the second automatic promotion place by Barnsley and lost to Crystal Palace in the play-off semi-finals.
Although reaching the FA Cup semi-finals a year later, McGhee was dismissed in November 1998 as Wolves were slipping out of contention for the play-off places. His assistant Colin Lee took over but the club just missed out on the play-offs. With a far more limited budget than his two predecessors enjoyed, Lee could only guide the club to a second successive 7th place finish in 1999–2000. He was dismissed in December 2000 after a poor run of form left Wolves just a few places above the drop zone.
Former Southampton manager Dave Jones was named as Lee's successor in January 2001, and Wolves improved during the second half of the 2000–01 season, but their dismal early season form counted against them and they were unable to achieve anything more than a midtable finish. The close season saw heavy investment into the team, which helped them spend much of the 2001-02 season in the top two places. However, an end of season slump saw them pipped to automatic promotion by deadly rivals West Bromwich Albion. Defeat at the hands of Norwich City in the play-off semi-finals finally put paid to their promotion hopes.
Wolves experienced sporadic form during the early part of 2002–03, and thus were never in contention for the automatic promotion places. The team turned the corner with a thrilling 3-2 FA Cup win over Newcastle United, going on to lose just two of their 20 league games after this, securing them 5th place and a play-off semi-final clash against newly-promoted Reading. Victory in both legs earned Wolves a place in the Play-off Final against Sheffield United, their first play-off final at their fourth attempt. In the Millennium Stadium-staged final, three first half goals from Mark Kennedy, Nathan Blake and Kenny Miller, respectively, were enough to earn Wolves a long awaited place in the Premiership, after 19 years in the lower echelons of English football.
Their debut season in the Premiership was tough, with key players Matt Murray and Joleon Lescott out for the entire season, and several others injured from the start. Their spending power to strengthen the team was relatively low as Hayward instead put the club up for sale. Despite these setbacks, Wolves overcame their seven game winless start, to eventually achieve some commendable results, in particular a 1-0 win over Manchester United. However, failing to win a single away game meant that their relegation battle was ultimately lost, and they finished bottom of the table on goal difference, bracketed together on 33 points with the two other relegated teams.
Despite hopes for an immediate return to the top flight, their 2004–05 Championship campaign began dismally, and at one point the side sunk as low as 19th place. Following a 0-1 defeat at Gillingham, a side Wolves had beaten 6-0 just eighteen months previous, Jones was sacked at the beginning of November.
Another former England coach was hired the following month, as Glenn Hoddle was appointed on a rolling one-year contract. Under Hoddle, Wolves lost only one of their final 25 league games, but drew 15 to finish ninth in the final table — not enough to qualify for the play-offs. Wolves then finished a disappointing seventh in 2005–06 as fan discontent grew, disenchanted with the lack of passion and pride from the team, including from Hoddle himself who had not moved to the area. Though the board expressed no displeasure with Hoddle publicly, with Jez Moxey affirming his faith in the under fire manager, the season had been frowned on by both local media and the fan base. However, few had anticipated Hoddle's sudden resignation mere moments before England's World Cup quarter-final clash with Portugal.
[edit] A new regime, a new start
Following the exit of Hoddle in pre-season in 2006, Wolves staged a complete clearout, stripping the squad and wage bill down and appointing former Republic of Ireland and Sunderland manager Mick McCarthy. Wolves therefore commenced the 2006–07 season with only the bare bones of a first team squad and with the lowest expectations around the club in years.
McCarthy acknowledged the challenge, stating to local media "The initials MM on my top stand for Mick McCarthy, not Merlin the Magician",[8] and quickly scraped together a squad, largely from the club's youth ranks, out of contract players and loanees. After an inconsistent first half to the season, an impressive run of form followed and the club eventually made the play-offs, despite earlier expectations. They were paired with local rivals West Bromwich Albion in the semi-finals, where they lost out over two legs.
There was further change when businessman Steve Morgan took control of the club for a nominal £10 fee in return for a £30million investment into the club, resulting in the departure of Sir Jack Hayward (who remains as Life President) after 17 years as chairman.[9] The protracted takeover was finally completed on 9 August 2007, upon which the club set out their future ethos:
“ It is intended that the new capital, over a period of time, will be used to help re-establish Wolves as a Premiership club. Although this is a significant amount of money there will not be an ’open cheque book’ approach to signing players; instead the club will build on the current strategy of steadily and progressively developing a team of young, hungry and talented players. — Club Statement[10] ”
Despite Morgan's arrival, the 2007–08 season ultimately brought more disappointment as the club failed to match the previous campaign's playoff finish. Poor form around Christmas saw them slump to midtable and only a late rally, aided by the goal power of new signing Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, put them back in the promotion hunt. They finished just outside the final play-off spot on goal difference, one goal short of Watford.
Wolves Football League Championship trophy presentation at Molineux on 3 May 2009
The 2008–09 season saw the club's strongest start since 1949–50, as an opening day draw preceded a run of seven consecutive wins. Fired by the goals of Ebanks-Blake and new signing Chris Iwelumo, the club hit the top of the table for the first time in years by the end of August and never left the automatic promotion spots after. A second run of seven consecutive wins tightened their grip on the lead by Christmas.
Despite a dismal start to 2009, the equally faltering form of their rivals allowed Wolves to retain the top spot. March saw a return to form with 13 points from a possible 15, strengthening their position at the top of the table that they had led since October. Promotion to the Premier League was finally confirmed on 18 April 2009 with a 1-0 win over Queens Park Rangers. The following week, Wolves clinched their first divisional title since the 1988–89 season.
[edit] Premier League 2009–10
Further information: Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. season 2009–10
Following their promotion from the Football League Championship as Champions, Wolves immediately set about recruiting for the upcoming season. Veteran American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, Sunderland utility man Greg Halford and Southampton midfielder Andrew Surman, most of whom had suffered disappointment with their previous clubs, were the first recruits.
The most high profile summer signing was the club record transfer of Irish international striker Kevin Doyle.[11] The ranks were bolstered with Serbian international playmaker Nenad Milijaš from Red Star Belgrade,[12] along with Marseille defender Ronald Zubar[13] and the season-long loan of Michael Mancienne who had played for the club in their promotion campaign. Deadline day saw the giant Austrian striker Stefan Maierhofer move permanently from Rapid Vienna and the loan capture of Ecuadorian midfielder Segundo Castillo.
After a pre-season spent partly in Australia, the season proper began with a 0–2 loss to West Ham in the club's first Premier League fixture in five years. Wolves immediately bounced back by winning on the road at Wigan despite a long injury list. A further victory against Fulham put them 12th after six games, but this was their last victory for almost two months and despite credible draws against the likes of Everton and Aston Villa, the team fell into the relegation zone, with a defence unable to keep clean sheets.
December brought three wins in four games, including a surprise away success at Tottenham, to help propel the club out of the mire. After slipping back in the relegation zone another surprise 1-0 victory over Tottenham in February lifted Wolves to 15th and brought their first top flight double since 1981, and Wolves added a second double over Burnley on 13 March 2010, this was followed by a draw at Aston Villa and then a 3-1 victory at fellow strugglers West Ham having not won there in 30 years, and not to mention recording there biggest top flight victory to date since 1981. Wolves had a three away game series where Wolves took 7 points from a possible 9, giving their chances of avoiding relegation a strong boost.
The club are now assured of their safety in the Premier League for next season.
[edit] Colours & badge
City Crest.
Contemporary colours
Original colours
The first badge to be worn on Wolves shirts was the city crest of Wolverhampton, usually worn on special occasions such as cup finals. In the late 1960s, Wolves introduced their own club badge consisting of a single leaping wolf, which later became three leaping wolves in the 1970s. In 1979, Wolves changed to the now famous wolf-head badge. Its simple and stylised design made it one of the most recognisable club badges in British football and, despite a brief return to the Wolverhampton city crest in the mid 1990s, it is still in use to the present day.
The club's traditional colours allude to the city's motto "out of darkness cometh light" with the gold and black representing light and darkness respectively.[14] In the club's early days the team sported various versions of these colours including old gold and black stripes and old gold and black diagonal halves. It remains one of the most famous and recognisable strips in British football today. The traditional away colour of Wolves is all white and will be so during the 2009-10 season.[15]
[edit] Stadium
Main article: Molineux Stadium
[edit] History
Molineux Stadium, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers have played at Molineux, Whitmore Reans, since 1889. Their previous home was in the Blakenhall area, and although no signs of the ground remain, a nearby road is called Wanderers Avenue. The Molineux name originates from Benjamin Molineux, a local merchant who built his home on the grounds. Northampton Brewery, who later owned the site, rented its use to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1889, who had previously lacked a permanent home. After renovating the site, the first ever league game was staged on 7 September 1889 in a 2-0 victory over Notts County before a crowd of 4,000.
In 1953, the stadium became one of the first to install floodlights, at an estimated cost of £10,000. The first ever floodlit game was held on 30 September 1953, as Wolves won 3-1 against South Africa. The addition of the floodlights opened the door for Molineux to host a series of midweek friendlies against teams from across the globe. In the days prior to the formation of the European Cup and international club competitions, these games were highly prestigious and gained huge crowds and interest, the BBC often televising such events.
The old South Bank at Molineux is also historically the second largest of all Kop ends closely followed by Aston Villa's Holte End, both of which regularly held crowds in excess of 30,000.
[edit] Fluctuating attendances
When Wolves were at their height of success during the 1950s (three League Championships and two FA Cups) Molineux regularly held over 50,000 mostly standing spectators. By the time of their sharp decline during the 1980s, only the newly built 9,500-seat John Ireland Stand (now the Steve Bull Stand) and the much reduced South Bank (15,500) were in use. This reduction in capacity was due to the fact that the other two stands were wood-built and declared unsafe following the Bradford City disaster, in which a wood-built stand caught fire and killed 56 people in 1985. In the days before the Taylor Report, which required British football stadia to provide seating for all those attending, the ground had a capacity of over 60,000; the record attendance for a match at the ground is 61,315 for a game against Liverpool in the First Division on 11 February 1939.
[edit] Redevelopment
Between 1991 and 1993, Molineux was comprehensively redeveloped. The Waterloo Road stand was replaced by the all-seat Billy Wright Stand, the North Bank terrace was replaced by the Stan Cullis Stand, and the South Bank terrace was replaced by the Jack Harris Stand. By the 1993–94 season the Molineux had a 28,525 all-seated capacity making Molineux the twenty-sixth largest in English football. But by the time of the 2003 promotion, Molineux was the fifteenth largest Premiership stadium. In the previous decade, many of the smaller stadiums had either been expanded or replaced to hold a capacity of between 30,000 and 67,000 seated spectators. For the 2003–04 to 2005–06 seasons, the corner between the Billy Wright and Jack Harris Stands was filled in with temporary seating to create a further 900 seats named the Graham Hughes stand (the Clubs Official Historian), bringing the ground's capacity to 29,400. These temporary seats were removed during the 2006 close season.
Millionaire owner Steve Morgan is keen to "transform the city centre ground into a venue fit for Premiership football"[16], although the scale and speed of the expansion plans will depend on Wolves stabilisation in the Premier League. As a result of Wolves' promotion to the Premier League, Wolves reinstated the 'Graham Hughes' temporary seating stand in the southwest corner of the stadium, taking capacity up to 29,303.
[edit] Training ground
The Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground, opened in 2005, is a £4.6m, state-of-the-art development located in Compton, Wolverhampton. The modern two-storey building stands approximately one mile to the west of the stadium, and features five high-quality training pitches, eleven changing rooms, a fully-equipped gymnasium, and a hydrotherapy pool - one of only a handful of English clubs to own such equipment.
The training ground also boasts world-class quality medical and physiotherapy facilities, being the first (and so far only) British sports club to establish a fully-accredited professional sports laboratory, based on AC Milan's Milanello model [17]. This facility features pioneering sports equipment such as VO2 max testing facilities, an Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill, dynamic tension isokintics, cryotherapy, dynamic ultrasound and postural sway analysis systems[18], all of which provide top-class support from players from development level right through to the first team.
Comments
0 comments to "Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. History"
Đăng nhận xét