Wolverhampton Wanderers

Commonly referred to by their nickname Wolves, the club was founded in 1877 and since 1889 have played at Molineux. Historically, Wolves have been highly influential, most notably as founder members of the Football League, as well as having played an instrumental role in the establishment of the European Cup, later known as the UEFA Champions League.

Having won the FA Cup twice before the outbreak of the First World War, Wolves consolidated their reputation as a top side under the legendary management of ex-player Stan Cullis after the Second World War, going on to win the League three times and the FA Cup twice between 1949 and 1960. It was at this time that the European Cup competition was established, after the English press declared Wolves "Champions of the World" following their victories against such top European and World sides as South Africa, Racing, Spartak Moscow, and Honvéd in some of football's first live televised games.

Wolves have yet to match the successes of the Stan Cullis era, although they did contest the first UEFA Cup final in 1972 against Tottenham Hotspur, and won the League Cup in 1974 under Bill McGarry and again in 1980 under John Barnwell. However, a decline set in and they found themselves in the Fourth Division by 1986, before a revival and back-to-back promotions under manager Graham Turner and record goalscorer Steve Bull saw them finish the decade in the Second Division, winning the Football League Trophy along the way. Their 19-year exile from the top flight ended when manager Dave Jones guided the club to promotion to the Premier League for a solitary season, whose departure following relegation lead to a brief spell under Glenn Hoddle. However a new approach under former Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy saw a three year plan which duly delivered promotion to the Premier League in 2009, this time as Football League Championship Champions.

HISTORY

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.

Colours & badge

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.  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.

STADIUM

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.
 

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.

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 stabilising themselves in the Premier League. As a result of Wolves' promotion to the Premier League, the temporary seating will return for the 2009-2010 campaign, taking capacity up to 29,303. Morgan has stated that they want to increase the capacity to over 40,000, but work depends on the Club staying in the Premier League.
[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  . 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.