Welcome to the Soccer Tavern, where we’re discussing the history, culture, and philosophy of the beautiful game. My name is Dave and in this video, we’re talking about the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club. Pull up a seat and let’s start the discussion.
Wolverhampton Wanderers FC is located in the central part of the city of Wolverhampton. Wolverhampton is located in the central part of England in the United Kingdom. The club currently play in the Premier League and its home ground is called the Molineux Stadium. The Molineux opened in 1889 and currently holds about 32,000 people.
Origin
Wolverhampton began as a school team in 1877 at the St. Luke’s school in Blakenhall, which is a southern neighborhood in the city of Wolverhampton. The team was founded after the school’s headmaster, Harry Barcroft, awarded the best performing students a soccer ball as a prize for their efforts during the school year.
Two students named Jack Brodie and John Baynton are credited with convincing the other students to form a team with their new ball. The team played for 2 years before it merged with another club called The Blakenhall Wanderers. It became Wolverhampton Wanderers after the merger.
The club played in a variety of colors in its early years before first playing in their now famous gold and black kits in the 1891-1892 season. The gold color came from the borough’s coat of arms and the black was a reference to the local area being called the “Black Country”. Additionally, the colors are rumored to also represent the city’s motto of “Out of darkness cometh light”. Black allegedly represents darkness and gold represents light.
Nickname
The club is nicknamed Wolves. Unsurprisingly, it comes from the City’s name where the club is based. Wolverhampton was founded in 985 AD by King Edgar’s sister Wulfrun, which is where the city gets its name.
Crest
Wolverhampton has one of the most unique and distinguishable crests in English soccer.
The current crest has been used since 2002 and most closely resembles the crest first used in 1979.
It is a menacing looking wolf with sharp edges in the design. The colors of black and gold come from the club’s main kit colors.
A wolf first appeared on a Wolverhampton crest in the early 1970s and has been included in every crest since. The only exception to this was a 3 year period in the 1990s when the club used the Wolverhampton coat of arms for 3 years between 1993 and 1996. Thankfully, the club went back to a wolf head crest design, which was similar to the current crest used today before updating the design to the current crest in 2002.
Important Events
Wolverhampton was one of the founding members of the Football League on April 17th, 1888 at the Royal Hotel in Manchester. This league laid the foundations for what eventually became the English football pyramid and over 100 years later, the Premier League.
The next event I’d like to mention happened in 1954. In the Spring of 1954, Wolves clinched their first ever league championship over rivals West Bromwich Albion. This was monumental in the club’s history, but Wolves had an even bigger event happen later in 1954. On December 13, 1954, the English champion Wolves, hosted Hungarian champions Honved under the floodlights at the Molineux stadium. The Honved side included 6 Hungarians who had recently embarrassed the English national team in two matches at the international level. The second half of the match was broadcast live on the BBC, which was incredibly rare at that time. Honved led 2-0 within 14 minutes of the match starting, but Wolves manager Stan Cullis ordered the grounds crew to heavily water the pitch at halftime to slow Honved down. Wolves then scored 3 second half goals to win the match 3-2 and the British press crowned them “Champions of the World”. The popularity and media attention from this match was the catalyst for the creation of the European Cup, now known as the Champion’s League.
The next event I’d like to discuss is from 1990. Lifelong Wolves fan, Sir Jack Hayward bought the club for £2M that year. Over the next 17 years, Hayward would reportedly invest more than £70M of his personal money into the club. The investment went mainly into redeveloping the Molineux stadium to bring it in line with increasing stadium infrastructure requirements. Sir Jack also helped to stabilize the club financially. He was a great servant to the club and there is a statue outside of the Molineux stadium commemorating Sir Jack Hayward and the next event I’d like to highlight.
On May 26, 2003 Wolves beat Sheffield United 3-0 in the second flight play-off final to qualify for the top division for the first time in 19 years. Mark Kennedy, Nathan Blake, and Kenny Miller were the scorers on the day and the following season was the 1 and only season in the top flight for Wolves under Sir Jack’s ownership. On the day of the victory, Sir Jack gave the Wolves supporters a double thumbs up, which is the pose captured in his statue outside of the Molineux.
And the last event I want to mention is the purchase of Wolves by the owners of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International Group in July of 2016. Fosun has pumped a ton of resources and money into the club to get it back to the Premier League. Additionally, recent reports have the ownership group worth more than £60B. This ownership group and its vast amount of wealth may be instrumental in Wolves remaining in the Premier League and pushing for European places for years to come.
Supporters
In addition to Wolves winning the league and playing Honved in 1954, this year was also significant for another reason. It corresponded with Laskar Singh and Lachhman Singh attending a Wolves match with their work colleagues. This is significant because these men would create a supporters group that would eventually be named the Punjabi Wolves. The Punjabi Wolves are one of the largest ethnic supporters’ groups in all of England. The group is open to people of any background but the majority of its members have ties to the Punjab region of India.
These supporters are most distinctively known for their dhol drum that is played before home matches and is allowed to be played throughout many away matches in the supporters section.
Wolves has many supporters from a diverse background but I wanted to highlight this unique and trailblazing subset of supporters in this section.
Noteworthy Players
Billy Wright is widely considered the greatest ever player in Wolverhampton’s history. Wright spent his entire career at Wolves, beginning in 1938 and ending in 1959. He captained the club during its greatest ever period, won an FA Cup, 3 First Division titles, and was named Football Writers’ Association Footballer of The Year in 1952. Wright was a standout centerback and incredible leader on the backline. In addition to being a fixture for Wolves, he was the first English player to earn 100 caps for his country and he captained the national side a record 90 times. There is a stand at the Molineux named after him and a statue outside the ground commemorating this legendary player.
Bert Williams was a goalkeeper at Wolverhampton from 1945-1959. He was a teammate of Billy Wright during the club’s most successful period and is the greatest goalkeeper in Wolves’ history. Williams was only 5’9″ tall but he had incredible reactions, which earned him the nickname of “The Cat”. Williams made 420 appearances for Wolves and had 30 England caps during his career.
Bill Slater joined Wolves in 1952 and was a teammate of Wright and Williams. He is generally considered one of the best players in the club’s history as he was an integral member of the teams that won 3 league titles. In 1960, after Wright and Williams retired, Slater captained Wolves to the FA Cup, which also earned him the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year award. Slater and Wright are the only 2 players in the clubs history to have won the FWA Footballer of the Year award.
And Steve Bull in the last player I want to highlight here. He was the greatest goalscorer in the club’s history. Bull joined Wolves from local rivals West Bromwich Albion in 1986 while the club was struggling in the 4th Division. With Bull pumping in goals, Wolves climbed to the second flight in his 13 years with the club. Though Bull didn’t play in the top division with Wolves, his quality was enough that he still received 13 calls up to the English National team. He is Wolves’ all-time record goalscorer by more than 100 goals, after he scored more than 300 goals for the club in his career.
Noteworthy Managers
I wanted to briefly mention Jack Addenbrooke, who was the 2nd manager in the club’s history. Addenbrooke led Wolves from 1885 to 1922 and is the longest serving manager in the history of the club both from a timeline and matches managed perspective. He won an FA Cup in 1908, which was the first major trophy in the club’s history.
The next manager I want to discuss is Stan Cullis. Cullis is by far Wolves’ greatest ever manager as he managed during the most successful period in the club’s history. Cullis was in charge from 1948-1964 when the club won 3 First Division titles and 2 FA Cups. That was the last time the club won a Top Flight title. Stan Cullis managed almost 750 matches for the club and there is rightfully a statue outside of the Molineux Stadium in his honor.
Bill McGarry led Wolves from 1968 to 1976. Under McGarry’s leadership, Wolverhampton won its first ever League Cup in the 1973-1974 season and the club made the final of the UEFA Cup, which is now known as the Europa League. During McGarry’s management, the club remained in the First Division, until his final season when the club suffered relegation and McGarry was fired. Even though his tenure did not end on a positive note, he is one of the greatest managers in club history.
Lastly, I wanted to quickly mention current manager Nuno Espírito Santo. He is only 44 years old and is thought of as one of the best up and coming managers in European soccer. If the club is able to retain his services and continue building, Nuno could become one of the best managers in club history.
Rivals
Wolverhampton’s 3 rivals are Stoke City, Aston Villa, and West Bromwich Albion.
Stoke City are a nearby rival to Wolves. There’s not much detail behind the rivalry beyond the two clubs are located in the same geographic area and have played many times over the years.
Aston Villa is listed as a rival for Wolverhampton, but there truly isn’t much to this rivalry. The clubs are located less than 20 miles apart. This proximity hasn’t really led to a rivalry though as both sets of supporters don’t seem to have much animosity towards each other. Additionally, the clubs have had numerous players and managers over the years move between the two teams. There was a bit of bubbling to this rivalry in the 2017-2018 championship season as both clubs chased promotion, but beyond that, there isn’t too much to note here.
And lastly, Wolverhampton’s main rival is West Bromwich Albion. Matches between Wolves and West Brom are called the Black Country Derby. The two clubs are about 13 miles apart and officially first met in 1886. Matches have always been intense, but the rivalry really escalated in the 1950s when both clubs were competing at the top of the first division. The two sides have played more than 150 times and this is one of the oldest rivalries in the world in terms of league soccer. Black Country Derby matches are actually one of the most intense in all of English soccer with violence among fans sometimes still an issue.
Stats & Records
The stats and records we’re about to discuss are as of August 2018, which is when we are recording this video.
Wolves have played 64 seasons in the top flight in its history.
The club has 9 major titles including:
- 3 First Division championships
- 4 FA Cups
- 2 League Cups
Wolverhampton’s record first team appearance holder is Derek Parkin with 609 appearances.
Wolves’ record goal scorer is Steve Bull with 306 goals.
The club’s record transfer purchase is Adama Traore from Middlesbrough FC on August 8, 2018 for ~£18M.
And the club’s record transfer sale was Steven Fletcher to Sunderland AFC on August 24, 2012 for about £12M initially plus ~£2M in add-ons.
I want to leave you with 3 interesting facts about the club:
1 – Wolves were awarded and scored the first ever penalty kick in the Football League’s history. That happened on September 14, 1891.
2 – Wolverhampton were the first and so far only English club to score 100 or more goals in league play in 4 consecutive seasons. This happened between 1957 and 1961.
3 – And third, Wolves were the first team to win all 4 fully professional division titles in England. The club’s record clinching title came in 1988 when it won the 4th division that season.
So there you have it… a bit of history on Fulham Football Club. Let’s continue the discussion in the comments section below this video.
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