50 Fun Facts About Wolverhampton Wanderers

Wolves' founders, two pupils at St Luke's Church School, were given their first football by whom?

Their headmaster, Harry Barcroft, handed it over in Blakenhall; two years later the school side merged with the footballers of a local cricket club, the Wanderers, which gave Wolves the rest of their name.

Which English composer was a Wolves fan who cycled more than 40 miles from Malvern to watch them play?

Edward Elgar also wrote the club a song in the 1890s, 'He Banged the Leather for Goal', in honour of Wolves half-back Billy Malpass; Wolves call it the first football anthem.

Wolves' gold and black shirts allude to which motto of Wolverhampton's city council?

Out of darkness cometh light: black for the dark, gold for the light. The club says it swapped the deeper 'old gold' for a brighter shade in 1954 so the shirts would stand out under its new floodlights.

Which West Midlands rivals did Wolves face in their first Football League match, in September 1888?

Aston Villa drew 1-1 at Dudley Road on the League's opening day; the competition existed because Villa director William McGregor had written to leading clubs that spring proposing regular fixtures.

Wolves' record win, 14-0 in an 1886 FA Cup tie, came against a team representing what?

A brewery: Crosswell's Brewery was a works team from nearby Oldbury, and Jack Brodie, one of the schoolboys who had founded Wolves nine years earlier, scored a hat-trick against it.

When Wolves moved to Molineux in 1889, the site was what?

A pleasure park: the Molineux Grounds had been laid out for the public around an 18th-century merchant's house, and in 1889 they were closed, leased to the club and rebuilt as a football ground.

Which rock singer, a fan since boyhood, was made a vice-president of Wolves in 2009?

Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's singer, says he was hooked at five when his dad first took him to Molineux; the club presented the honour on the pitch before its opening game of 2009-10.

Wolves' first FA Cup win, in 1893, was a 1-0 victory over which club?

Everton lost to a long lob from Wolves captain Harry Allen at Fallowfield in Manchester, where an estimated 60,000 squeezed in and the crowd kept spilling onto the pitch.

Major Frank Buckley's 1930s Wolves players had injections that the press said contained what?

Monkey gland extract was the story that reached Parliament, though what the syringes really held is disputed; the Football League did not ban the jabs.

Wolves lost their last game of 1937-38 at Sunderland to finish one point behind which champions?

Arsenal took their fifth title of the 1930s by a point; Wolves needed only to win at Roker Park to be champions for the first time, lost 1-0, and had to wait until 1954.

Which club did Wolves beat in the 1949 FA Cup final, their first major honour in 41 years?

Leicester City were at Wembley for the first time and still fighting relegation from the Second Division, which they escaped a week later; Jesse Pye scored twice in a 3-1 win, and Princess Elizabeth handed over the cup.

Wolves' first league title, in 1953-54, came after they overhauled which local rivals in the run-in?

West Bromwich Albion finished four points behind and consoled themselves by winning the FA Cup, so the two Black Country neighbours shared English football's two biggest prizes that spring.

Which Wolves captain was the first footballer in the world to win 100 international caps?

Billy Wright reached the landmark against Scotland at Wembley in 1959, a year after marrying Joy Beverley of the singing Beverley Sisters, and retired with 105 England caps, 90 of them as captain.

In September 1891 a Wolves player scored the Football League's first goal from which newly introduced set piece?

A penalty kick: lawmakers had approved an Irish goalkeeper's idea only that June, and Wolves forward Heath converted the League's first in a 5-0 home win over Accrington.

After a famous floodlit win at Molineux in December 1954, English newspapers proclaimed Wolves what?

Champions of the World was the boast after Wolves came from two goals down at half-time to win 3-2, live on BBC television, against a visiting side built around the great Ferenc Puskás.

L'Équipe editor Gabriel Hanot answered English boasts about Wolves in 1954 by proposing which competition?

The European Cup was Hanot's retort: before anyone called Wolves invincible, he wrote, let them go and win abroad, and within months UEFA had approved his tournament.

Which club pipped FA Cup winners Wolves to the 1959-60 title by a point, denying the first 20th-century double?

Burnley had not been top of the table all season until they won their final match, played after Wolves had finished; days later Wolves beat Blackburn 3-0 at Wembley, one point short of the double.

In the summer of 1967 Wolves won the United Soccer Association title in America, representing which city?

Los Angeles Wolves beat the Washington Whips, really Aberdeen in disguise, 6-5 in sudden-death extra time; the new league had imported twelve whole clubs to play under North American city names.

Wolves lost the first ever UEFA Cup final in 1972, 3-2 on aggregate, to which club?

Tottenham Hotspur won the first leg 2-1 at Molineux, Martin Chivers settling it late with a shot from 25 yards, and a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane left Wolves a goal short.

Wolves' first League Cup, in 1974, was won 2-1 in the final against which club?

Manchester City equalised through Colin Bell, but John Richards scored the winner with five minutes left, and goalkeeper Gary Pierce made a string of key saves.

Which record signing scored the only goal as Wolves beat Nottingham Forest in the 1980 League Cup final?

Andy Gray had cost a British record fee of almost £1.5 million six months earlier; at Wembley he walked the ball into an empty net after Forest's Peter Shilton and David Needham collided.

Rebuilding which stand in 1979 was the catalyst for Wolves' near-ruin in the 1980s?

Molineux Street's old stand had failed new safety rules, and the loans for its replacement came due just as recession emptied the terraces; in July 1982 the club went bust owing more than £2.5 million.

Which former player fronted the 1982 rescue of Wolves from liquidation, financed by the Bhatti brothers?

Derek Dougan said his group had entered the race only six days before the receiver's deadline, and its backers stayed hidden until journalists tracked them down.

Which former Manchester United manager took Wolves down to the Third Division in 1985?

Tommy Docherty arrived just after Wolves had dropped out of the First Division in 1984 and was gone a year later; his one season was the middle of three straight relegations that ended in the Fourth Division.

What did a developer get permission to build next to Molineux in 1986 in return for paying off Wolves' debts?

An Asda superstore was the price of survival: the council bought the stadium and the land around it, and the builders Gallagher cleared the club's debts once planning permission came through.

Wolves lost the very first Football League play-off final, in 1987, to which club?

Aldershot had finished sixth, nine points behind fourth-placed Wolves, yet won both legs of the final for a 3-0 aggregate; Wolves went up as champions a year later instead.

Which striker, signed in 1986, scored a club-record 306 goals for Wolves?

Steve Bull scored 50 or more in two successive seasons and was picked for England while still a Third Division player, scoring on his debut against Scotland at Hampden Park.

Which full-back, signed in 1968, holds Wolves' appearance record with 609 first-team games?

Derek Parkin cost £80,000, then a record for a full-back, and stayed 14 years; a heart scare kept him out for more than half of 1972-73, or the total would be higher still.

Sir Jack Hayward bought Wolves in 1990 and immediately funded what?

Rebuilding Molineux as an all-seater stadium was urgent: two sides of the ground had been shut as unsafe since the mid-1980s. Three new stands had gone up by December 1993.

Which club, beaten in a famous 1950s floodlit friendly, returned to open the rebuilt Molineux in 1993?

Honvéd came back 39 years after the 1954 classic, and on a night honouring a floodlit friendly the floodlights failed.

Wolves finally reached the Premier League in 2003 by beating which club 3-0 in the play-off final?

Sheffield United were three down by half-time in Cardiff, their manager Neil Warnock was sent off at the interval, and goalkeeper Matt Murray then saved a penalty to seal Wolves' return after 19 years away.

Which manager won Wolves the 2008-09 Championship and was sacked in 2011-12?

Mick McCarthy was sacked in February 2012 after a 5-1 home defeat in the Black Country derby; with no replacement lined up his assistant stepped in, and Wolves finished bottom of the table.

Wolves' first overseas manager, appointed in 2012, was which Norwegian?

Ståle Solbakken, whose playing career had been ended by a heart attack in training, lasted half a season; he was sacked in January 2013 after an FA Cup exit at non-league Luton.

Which head coach won Wolves the 2013-14 League One title with a then-record 103 points?

Kenny Jackett inherited a club that had just been relegated two seasons running and won 31 of its 46 league games, taking Wolves straight back to the Championship.

Which Chinese conglomerate bought Wolves from Steve Morgan in July 2016?

Fosun International parted with three head coaches in its first ten months, yet within two years of the takeover Wolves were Championship winners and back in the Premier League.

Which ex-Porto manager won Wolves the 2017-18 Championship and then took them to seventh in the Premier League?

Nuno Espírito Santo inherited a side that had just finished 15th in the Championship; a year later it won the title with 99 points, and a year after that it qualified for Europe.

Wolves' 2019-20 Europa League run ended in a one-leg quarter-final against which eventual winners?

Sevilla won 1-0 in Duisburg with a Lucas Ocampos header two minutes from time, after Wolves had a 13th-minute penalty saved; it ended a season that had lasted 383 days.

Which Wolves striker fractured his skull in November 2020, derailing the club's season?

Raúl Jiménez clashed heads with David Luiz in a game in London and had surgery that night; without their leading scorer Wolves struggled for goals for the rest of the season and finished 13th.

Which Spanish coach lifted Wolves from bottom to 13th in 2022-23, then left days before the next season?

Julen Lopetegui had first turned the job down to stay near his elderly father; he kept Wolves up, then left three days before the new season after a dispute over transfer funds.

Which midfielder, Wolves' record signing in 2022, left for £53 million in September 2023?

Matheus Nunes stayed away from training to force the move after Wolves rejected an earlier bid; he had cost a club-record £38 million from Sporting a year before.

Which former Wolves defender was head coach for the 2026 relegation?

Rob Edwards left Middlesbrough to take over a side that had been bottom since the third week of the season; relegation was confirmed on 20 April 2026, ending eight years in the Premier League.

Retired manager Peter Davies told a 2019 court that he had drawn Wolves' 1979 wolf-head badge as what?

A schoolboy in the early 1960s, he said, sketching it after a maths lesson on Pascal and entering it in a competition; the judge found for the club, leaving him facing costs of about £450,000.

Before the wolf's head arrived in 1979, what did Wolves' shirt badge of the mid-1970s show?

Three leaping wolves ran down the centre of the shirt, grown from a single wolf adopted around 1970; before that Wolves wore a badge only on big occasions such as cup finals, and then it was the town's arms.

Which former Liverpool captain lifted the 1980 League Cup as Wolves skipper, completing his set of major domestic medals?

Emlyn Hughes had won everything at Anfield except the League Cup, losing the 1978 final; sold to Wolves for £90,000 in 1979, he was lifting it at Wembley seven months later.

Wolves' 1979 stand, renamed in 2003 after a record goalscorer, was first named after whom?

John Ireland was club president when it opened in August 1979; it had been built behind the old stand, which was then knocked down, leaving the new seats stranded about 100 feet from the touchline.

Which continental giants did Wolves beat 3-2 in a floodlit friendly at Molineux in October 1957?

Real Madrid, champions of Spain as well as Europe, lost in front of 55,000 and could only draw 2-2 in the return at the Bernabéu that December, so Wolves took the unofficial tie 5-4.

Wolves' 1953 floodlights were first used in a 3-1 win against which touring side?

South Africa's national team lost 3-1 on 30 September 1953 under lights that had cost almost £10,000; the BBC was soon televising Molineux's midweek friendlies against leading foreign clubs.

Which manager led Wolves to three league championships in the 1950s?

Stan Cullis had captained Wolves at 20 and was managing them at 31; he added two FA Cups to the three titles, then was sacked in September 1964, and Wolves were relegated that same season.

Whom did Wolves beat 3-1 in the 1908 FA Cup final while playing as a Second Division club?

Newcastle United, league champions a year earlier, were hot favourites at Crystal Palace; Wolves had finished only ninth in the Second Division, the lowest placing of any Football League club to win the Cup.

Which Wolves half-back captained the 1960 FA Cup winners and was Footballer of the Year?

Bill Slater had played in the 1951 FA Cup final as an amateur for Blackpool and at the 1952 Olympics; nine years on he climbed the Wembley steps as Wolves captain, a part-time professional to the end.