Now that the dust has settled on last season’s results, it’s time to take a look at the results we managed. 40 points were reached with a game to spare, but where exactly did those points come from?
Title Challengers
Team
Home Result
Away Result
Points
Man Utd
2-1
0-2
9 pts
1.125 pts/game
Chelsea
1-0
0-2
Man City
2-1
3-4
Arsenal
0-2
0-2
Ave Result
1-1
1-3
Total
9 pts
0 pts
Average
2.25 pts/game
0 pts/game
Against the title challengers, surely there are very few expectations? But we managed to turn Molineux into a fortress, gaining nine points from the four home games. Away from home, it was as to be expected, failing to score in three of matches. However, any team averaging over a point against these teams will be happy.
Pushing For Europe
Team
Home Result
Away Result
Points
Tottenham
3-3
1-3
5 pts
0.83 pts/game
Liverpool
0-3
1-0
Everton
0-3
1-1
Ave Result
1-3
1-1
Total
1 pts
4 pts
Average
0.33 pts/game
1.33 pts/game
Conversely, our home record against the teams just below was abysmal. Each of these home games were live on Sky, but whereas the two Saturday lunchtime games against Merseyside teams were disappointing, the emotional match against Tottenham was the best 90 minutes I saw all season. The concession of three goals in each home match is a worry. The four points gained away from home is a good return, with Liverpool being the highest ranked team we won away points against.
Mid-Table Mediocrity
Team
Home Result
Away Result
Points
Fulham
1-1
1-2
18 pts
1.29 pts/game
Aston Villa
1-2
1-0
Sunderland
3-2
3-1
WBA
3-1
1-1
Newcastle
1-1
1-4
Stoke City
2-1
0-3
Bolton
2-3
0-1
Ave Result
1-1
1-3
Total
11 pts
7 pts
Average
1.57 pts/game
1 pt/game
Those teams in the mid-table were our biggest friends in terms of winning points, seeing our highest point/game ratio. Our home form was particularly good, losing only two of the seven matches, while Sunderland, West Brom and Stoke were all dispatched. Away from home, wins at Aston Villa and Sunderland were vital towards the end of the season, but these were offset by poor performances and results at Newcastle, Stoke and Bolton.
Relegation Dog Fight
Team
Home Result
Away Result
Points
Blackburn
2-3
0-3
8 pts
0.8 pts/game
Wigan
1-2
0-2
Birmingham
1-0
1-1
Blackpool
4-0
1-2
West Ham
1-1
0-2
Ave Result
2-1
0-2
Total
7 pts
1 pt
Average
1.4 pts/game
0.2 pts/game
Rather like last season, this is the main area for concern. In our ten matches against the teams around us, we mustered eight points, with just one coming away from home. Perhaps most worrying is the nature of defeats at Blackburn, Wigan and West Ham; each of them was a deserved defeat that could have cost us. This is definitely an area to be improved on next season; we can't be being beaten two and three-nil by the teams at the bottom of the league. Our home form was slightly better, but again, defeats to Wigan and Blackburn should be cast as disappointments, while only Blackpool was beaten comfortably.
It is clear that our away form was very poor, winning just 12 away points all season. This, coupled with our unique inability to beat the teams around us made survival a lot tougher than it should have been. We needed elements of luck to beat Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City at home, something that we cannot rely on next season. Maybe we sucker punched them, but the chances of us doing that again are low.
If I was to ask which British team have had the greatest impact on the formative years of European competition, who would you say? Hibernian, the first British team to play in a continental tournament? Tottenham, the first British winners of a European trophy? Perhaps Celtic, who’s Lisbon Lions of ’67 defeated Helenio Herrera’s Internazionale?
All of those clubs have strong claims, but just how much impact did they have on the tournament itself? To find the answer we need to travel back to the 1953/54 season in the English Division One, for it was in 1953 that Wolverhampton Wanderers first installed floodlights at Molineux.
A seemingly innocuous move, it could be argued that those very lights set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to Real Madrid being crowned FIFA’s Club of the Century and George Best becoming one of the greatest of all time.
Wolves were crowned English Division One Champions for the first time in their history in 1954, arch-rivals West Bromwich Albion being beaten into second place. A team including the likes of Dennis Wilshaw, Bert Williams, Ron Flowers, Johnny Hancocks and England captain Billy Wright were very much the best team in the country.
However, this was the pre-European Cup era and so Wolves had to find other ways to test themselves against Europe’s elite. Thanks to the newly installed floodlights, midweek games were now an option, and so a series of ‘floodlit friendlies’ were set up against Moscow Dynamo, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Honvéd.
Following a 3-1 victory over a South African XI in September 1953 to celebrate the new floodlights, Racing Club de Avellaneda, Argentinian champions in three of the previous five seasons were beaten 3-1, Maccabi Tel Aviv being summarily dispatched 10-0. Wolves followed this up with a 4-0 defeat of reigning Soviet champions Spartak Moscow.
These games were among the first to be shown live on the BBC and helped captivate a new generation of football fans including a young George Best watching in Northern Ireland:
“Mr Harrison only had a small black and white set and TV crews then probably only used one camera, as opposed to the hundred or so they have today. But when Wolves played sides like Moscow Spartak and Moscow Dynamo, it was as though they were playing against aliens. As far as we were concerned, the Russians were bogeymen, they could have come from another planet. And yet here they were playing against Wolves on television.”
Then, on a cold and wet day in December 1954 came the visit of Hungarian side Honvéd, a team which included five of the Hungarian team to have humiliated England 6-3 at Wembley and 7-1 in Budapest, the Mighty Magyars.
One of these was a certain Ferenc Puskás, one of the greatest players ever to pull on a pair of football boots. Wolves captain Billy Wright had also captained England on those fateful nights, and this was certainly seen by the English media as a chance for English football to prove (however tenuously) that it was still the world’s global power.
This was a special match – Wolves wore satin shirts to show up in the floodlights and, in front of an attendance of 54,998, Honvéd quickly raced into a two goal lead; Kocsis and Machos with the goals as the Hungarians dominated the early stages.
Wolves fought to get back into it but couldn’t get near the great Hungarians, surely the Barcelona of their day. 2-0 down and outplayed at halftime, Wolves manager Stan Cullis needed a moment of inspiration and ordered his players to play long balls behind the Honvéd fullbacks.
With torrential rain having fallen in the days leading up to the game, and Cullis having the pitch watered pre kick-off, it wasn’t long before the conditions started to deteriorate. A controversial early second half penalty saw Johnny Hancocks halve the deficit, and it was game on.
With Honvéd’s passing game not doing them any favours in the mud, Wolves started to dominate. After Hancocks had hit the bar Wolves finally got their deserved equaliser; Ray Swinborne heading home a Dennis Wilshaw cross in the 76th minute. At this stage there was only going to be one winner, and minutes later Swinborne provided the winning goal to rapturous applause.
It may have been a famous Wolves victory, but its significance was overplayed in the English press the following day. ‘Hail Wolves, Champions of the World’ ran the Daily Mail headline. This did not go unnoticed in France. Gabriel Hanot, editor of L’Équipe and a long-time campaigner for an organised European competition responded:
“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.”
Despite FIFA’s initial hesitance, Hanot was not to be denied, proposing for L’Équipe to organise the tournament if FIFA did not organise it. In March the following year, the newly formed UEFA were given control of the ‘European Champions Clubs Cup’ using the rules proposed by L’Équipe.
The first match took place later that year, Partizan Belgrade holding Sporting Lisbon to a 3-3 draw with Real Madrid going on to defeat Stade de Reims in the final to become the first European Champions, a title they would hold for five years, the start of the Real Madrid legend.
The FA were mistrusting of this new competition and refused Chelsea entry, leaving Scottish side Hibernian (who had previously finished fourth in the Scottish League) to become Britain’s first ever representatives in Europe. The following year though, Manchester United’s Busby Babes entered, losing in the semi-finals to Real Madrid as a long history of British success in the competition began.
It would take Wolves until 1958 to first taste competitive European football, losing 4-3 on aggregate to German Champions Schalke 04. However, in October 1957 Wolves again faced one of the leading lights of Europe in a midweek floodlight friendly; European Champions Real Madrid visiting the Football League Champions elect.
Madrid, featuring a line-up including such greats as Alfredo Di Stefano, Raymond Kopa and Jose Santamaria were firm favourites to beat a Wolves side missing the inspirational Billy Wright and duly took an early lead through Ramon Marsal. Wolves equalised just before halftime through Jimmy Murray who then secured a second half lead.
Madrid pushed hard for an equaliser, eventually getting it with Marsal grabbing his second, but it was Wolves who were victorious when Dennis Wilshaw scored a late winner. This match inspired Wolves to win their second Division One title, and repeated the success the following season.
Unfortunately, European glory would always elude Wolves whose came closest to a continental title in their 1973 UEFA Cup Final defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. What cannot be denied, however, is the impact that Wolves, and the Daily Mail, had on European club football.
Although there had been plenty of unofficial tournaments over the past 50 years, it was the defeat of Honvéd and the subsequent reaction and persistence of Gabriel Hanot that sparked UEFA in to life and has led to so many of those great European nights that we’ve enjoyed over the years.
This is originally featured on the excellent The Equaliser
For me, Football Manager, and its Championship Manager predecessor is not a game, it’s more of a way of life. Wolves are always an interesting team on it, full of good players yet underperform when managed by the computer. Here is a rundown of my all-time Wolves CM/FM XI. I’ve gone for my favoured formation on CM, 4-3-1-2. Note, all players are players who started with the club, not signings I’ve made:
GK Matt Murray; FM2006
Goalkeepers have always been a little poor for Wolves, and it says a lot that the best of the lot was never a regular for my Wolves team, having to sit on the bench behind the Uruguyan Hector Carini. However, eventually he became England’s first choice, and never failed me when called upon. Sadly, towards the end of his career he decided that the grass was greener elsewhere, and departed in search of first-team football.
DR Serge Romano; CM96/97
A player signed in the summer of 1996, who went on to play a massive five games in real life (two starts). On CM96/97, Wolves were well blessed with rightbacks, and Romano had to fight off a young Jamie Smith for his starting spot, experience winning through. However, age eventually told, and he lost his place to a young whippersnapper by the name of Cafu, who went on to lead the Premier League goalscoring charts from rightback. For a couple of seasons, Romano was dependency personified before the years took their toll.
DC Dean Richards; CM98/99
It was writing my tribute to Deano that inspired me think about my greatest CM/FM team. Richards was a rock for Wolves, specialising in the centre of a back-3. However, he was more than capable of playing in a back-4. The only problem with him was his contract expired at the end of the season, and if you did not manage to get it renewed, Europe’s big boys all came sniffing around. Aged 24, he had ten years at the top level left him, and always went on to win numerous England caps.
DC Joleon Lescott; CM00/01
The only question about Jo was whether to include the CM00/01 version or the FM2006 one. Both were excellent, capable to making the step up to a higher level. I plumped the former version due to his age, just 19 meaning he had a number of years left in front of him. I pretty much signed him for whoever I was managing, and he never once let me down.
DL Lee Naylor; CM98/99
Just as the last six years have been characterised by a lack of a left back, so has Wolves’ CM/FM history. Lee Naylor, a Wolves supporter made over 300 Wolves appearances in real life, and stood out as a young 18 year old on CM98/99. Equally happy at fullback, or being played further forward as a wingback, he was never a player to go on to great things, but was a steady player who was capable of scoring goals.
CM Paul Cook; CM93/94
I was just 10 years old when I last played this version, so my memories are a little hazy, but I clearly remember Paul Cook’s gorgeous left peg. The short of player who would dominate games, I remember him getting numerous Man of the Match awards, who would also chip in with goals.
CM Fernando Gomez; CM98/99
Another player who many fans will have forgotten ever played for Wolves (20 starts + 2 sub appearances), but on CM98/99 he was a wonderful midfielder, guaranteed to get 20+ assists a season with 5 or 6 goals. Aged 33 when he arrived, longevity wasn’t on his side and as such his physical stats declined rapidly, but who needed pace when you had his vision. One of the best passers in the history of Wolves CM/FM history, I couldn’t see him and Cook ever giving the ball away.
CM Colin Cameron; CM01/02
This is probably a personal choice, as Cameron is one of my all-time favourite Wolves players, but he was excellent on CM01/02. Play him as a central midfielder with license to get forward, he would run all day and grab his fair share of goals. If you desired, it was generally possible to get £7-8 million at the end of the season, but why would you want to do that?
AMC Robbie Keane; CM98/99
I would put him forward as the greatest Wolves player ever on CM/FM, Aged just 18, he was a magician when played behind a front-two. A picture can tell a thousand words, this screenshot describes everything I want to say about him. Legend
SC Steven Fletcher; FM2011
The most recent player in the team, in his one and only season so far for Wolves. Links up beautifully with Kevin Doyle (how I wish this was real life), when played as a deep lying forward, he would drop in behind the lines and cause defenders and midfielders untold problems. Never a player to moan when not starting, his work ethic and effort (basically, he would put in a shift) were vital to a team with few stars.
SC Dean Sturridge; CM03/04
I didn’t play this version for long as I only got a computer that it would work on a month or so before Football Manager 2005 came out (I was still playing CM00/01 and 01/02 until then), but in the one season I remember, Sturridge got 27 Premier League goals. Given a free-role, he would play off the likes of Steffen Iversen and score goals. His all-round play wasn’t the best, but he was a goalscorer, and a godsend to a team with precious little in the rest of the team.
