Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers

Only Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal have amassed more points in total since the league's establishment in 1888. As of the conclusion of the 2018–19 season, Wolves were fourth in the all-time rankings in terms of points accumulated in all divisions.

Wolves were the first team in English professional football to win all four divisions, and they have won every competition presently being played in the country, one of the facts in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Wolverhampton Wanderers have a large worldwide fan base, with supporters clubs in Australia, the United States, Sweden, Spain, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, Iceland, and Norway, among others. Due to the area's television coverage of Midlands football in the 1970s, when the club was a regular top-flight team, they have a sizable Scandinavian fanbase;

another one of the interesting things in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers is that they played in the first-ever English match shown live in both Sweden and Norway (Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 Sunderland 0, Football League First Division, Saturday 29 November 1969).

The club has been recognized by dozens of great players over the years, most remarkably Billy Wright, who captained England, a record 90 times and was the first player to win a century of international caps, as well as earning the Footballer of the Year Award (in 1952), an honor also won by Wolves half-back Bill Slater in 1960.

Wolves have had 36 players earn full England caps throughout their time with the club, including current captain Conor Coady and club record goalscorer Steve Bull, who was the club's last England international to compete in a major tournament.

Andy Gray, Emlyn Hughes, Paul Ince, and Denis Irwin have all won League Championship medals for Wolves in the past. Joleon Lescott went on to play 26 times for England, scoring one goal. With 68 goals in 146 games, Robbie Keane became Ireland's all-time leading goalscorer.

Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers

Below you will find the most notable information about the club in its 144 years of play.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Overview

Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, also known as Wolves, is an English professional association football club based in Wolverhampton, West Midlands.

The team, which was founded in 1877 as St. Luke's F.C., has played at Molineux Stadium since 1889 and has competed in the 

, England's highest tier, since winning promotion in 2018.

The 2021–22 season will be the club's 67th overall at the top level, and the eighth since the Premier League's formation in 1992.

In 1888, the club was one of the first members of the Football League, one of the facts we included in

Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Between 1932 and 1965, the club won the English League three times (in 1953–54, 1957–58, and 1958–59), all under the leadership of Stan Cullis.

Between 1937–38 and 1959–60, Wolves finished second in the English league five times.

 have won the FA Cup four times, the most recent in 1960, and has finished second four times. In 1974 and 1980, the team won the League Cup and finished first in all four divisions of the English professional game.

Wolves arranged televised "floodlit friendlies" against famous international club sides between 1953 and 1956, which were essential in the formation of the European Cup (now known as the UEFA Champions League) in 1955 after becoming one of the first British clubs to install floodlights.

Wolves advanced to the competition's quarter-finals in 1959–60, as well as the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1960–61 and the inaugural UEFA Cup Final in 1972.

In 2020, they reached the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals after a 39-year absence from European competition, another one of the facts in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Wolves' classic uniform comprises black shorts and old gold shirts and stockings. The outfit has also included the club's "wolf's head" logo since 1979.

Long-standing rivalries exist with other West Midlands clubs, the most notable of which is the Black Country derby with

.

The two clubs met for the first time since 2011–12 during the 2020–21 season, with the Premier League match on January 16, 2021, nearly nine years after the previous encounter on February 12, 2012.

The Creation of the Club (1879–1893)

The history section on the Wolves page in the 2000 edition of "The Rough Guide to English Football" opens, "The very name Wolves thunders from the pages of English football history."

Wolves, like a number of other teams, including

, had humble beginnings influenced by the twin influences of cricket and the church.

St. Luke's F.C. was founded in 1877 by two pupils from St Luke's Church School in Blakenhall, John Baynton, and John Brodie, who had been given a football by their headmaster Harry Barcroft.

On 13 January 1877, the team played its debut game against a reserve side from Stafford Road, and in August 1879, it merged with the football section of a nearby cricket club called Blakenhall Wanderers to establish Wolverhampton Wanderers.

They moved to a more significant site on Dudley Road in 1881 after first playing on two strips of land in the town, before winning their first trophy in 1884 when they won the Wrekin Cup during a season in which they played their first-ever FA Cup encounter.

After turning professional, the club was nominated to be one of the twelve founding members of the Football League in 1888, and on September 8, 1888, they faced Aston Villa in the first round of Football League fixtures ever held. 

They finished third in their first season and reached their first FA Cup Final, losing 0–3 to Preston North End, the first "Double" winners.

The club moved for the final time at the end of the season, to Molineux, which was then a pleasure park known as the Molineux Grounds.

After fighting to reclaim their place in the top tier in the years leading up to the First World War (a period highlighted by another FA Cup Final appearance in 1921), the club was relegated again in 1923, this time to the Third Division (North), which they won at the first attempt.

When league football resumed after WWII, Wolves were eliminated from the First Division again on the final day, one of the details in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Victory in their final match would have clinched the title, just as it did in 1938, but a 2–1 loss to title rivals

meant Liverpool were named champions instead.

Stan Cullis' last game in a Wolves shirt was this one, and a year later he became the club's manager. Cullis led Wolves to their first major trophy in 41 years when they won the FA Cup against Leicester City in his first season in charge, and a year later, only goal average kept Wolves from winning the league title.

Under the Guidance of Stan Cullis (1950–1960)

By far the most prosperous era in the club's history was the 1950s. Wolves, captained by Billy Wright, won the league title for the first time in 1953–54, defeating local rivals West Bromwich Albion late in the season.

Wolves went on to win two more titles in the following years (1957–58 and 1958–59), competing with

for the title of the best team in English football at the time.

Wolves were known for their domestic success as well as their high-profile "floodlit friendlies" with other great club sides from across the world. In 1953, Wolves were one of the first clubs in the UK to invest in floodlighting, at a cost of £10,000 (£281,308.64 in today's value).

The most famous of these friendlies saw Wolves overcome an Honved side that included many members of

, which had just humiliated England twice, prompting the national media to crown Wolves "World Champions," another interesting fact included in

Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The editor of L'Equipe, Gabriel Hanot, saw this as the final push to propose the foundation of the European Cup (later rebranded as the UEFA Champions League).

Wolves were one of the first clubs from the United Kingdom to take part. Wolves overcame Real Madrid 5–4 in home and away friendly during the 1957–58 season (3–2 in Wolverhampton and 2–2 in Madrid).

Hayward Years (1990–2007)

Jack Hayward, a lifelong fan, bought the club in 1990 and quickly began transforming the old Molineux into a new all-seater stadium.

Hayward switched his investment to the playing side when the restoration was completed in 1993, with the hopes of winning promotion to the newly formed Premier League, one of the noteworthy facts in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Despite significant spending, neither Graham Taylor nor Mark McGhee was able to achieve this, with both managers taking the team to semi-final play-off defeats in 1995 and 1997.

Wolves were not promoted to the Premier League until 2003, when they defeated

3–0 in the play-off final under Dave Jones, ending a 19-year absence.

Their stay was brief, as they were relegated to the newly renamed EFL Championship shortly after.

Return to Glory (2016-present)

On July 21, 2016, it was announced that Fosun International, a Chinese investment firm, had purchased the club's parent company, W.W. (1990) Ltd, from Steve Morgan and his Bridgemere Group for an unknown sum, with Jez Moxey stepping down as CEO (replaced by managing director Laurie Dalrymple).

A few days later, the new regime announced that Kenny Jackett's contract with the club had been terminated and that Walter Zenga, a former Italian international, had been named head coach.

Zenga was fired after just 14 league games, and Paul Lambert was named as his replacement in November 2016, but Lambert was fired as well at the end of the season, with

replacing him.

Nuno led Wolves to the 2017–18 Championship title, allowing them to return to the Premier League after a six-year absence.

Wolverhampton Wanderers' first season back in the Premier League culminated in a seventh-place finish, their highest in the top flight since finishing sixth in 1979–80, one of the things we thought you would like to be aware of in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

They also qualified for the Europa League, marking their first European campaign since 1980–81. In August 2019, they defeated Torino 5–3 on aggregate in the play-off round, advancing to the Group Stage, where they faced Slovan Bratislava, Braga, and Besiktas at home and away between September and December 2019.

Wolves beat Olympiacos of Greece in the Round of 16 over two legs (12 March and 6 August 2020), advancing to the quarter-final stage after finishing second in the group stage and defeating Espanyol in the Round of 32 (6–3 aggregate).

Wolves were defeated 0–1 by Sevilla in the quarter-finals, which were played as a single tie in a neutral venue in Germany on August 11, 2020.

They repeated their seventh-place position in the Premier League in 2018–19 but with two more points that season than the previous season and just missing out on sixth place on goal difference.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wolves had a terrible season in 2020–21, with the season being played almost entirely without crowds.

On November 29, 2020, the club's magical striker

suffered a season-ending injury (a fractured skull) in a game against

, and the team struggled for goals for the rest of the season, another one of the facts of our article titled

Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

With 45 points, the Wolves finished the season in 13th position. On May 21, 2021, the club revealed that head coach Nuno Espirito Santo would quit "by mutual consent" after the season's last game against Manchester United on May 23, 2021. 

Wolves confirmed the selection of Bruno Lage, a former Benfica head coach, as Espirito Santo's replacement on June 9, 2021.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Logo & Colors

The club's conventional colors of gold and black imply the city council's motto "out of darkness cometh light" with the two colors demonstrating light and darkness respectively, one of the facts included for you to read in Everything to Know about Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Although the team's original colors upon creation were red and white, adopted from the school colors of St Lukes, for much of their history their home colors have been their particular old gold shirts with black shorts.

In the early decades of the club, a range of shirt designs using these colors were produced, including stripes and diagonal halves, until the frequent usage of a plain shirt design since the 1930s.

Before the 1960s a darker shade of gold was used, known as "old gold", which is still often cited in the media as the club's color.

Similar to the majority of English teams, their initial shirts typically only included a badge on exclusive occasions such as cup finals.

The first such badge to be worn on Wolves shirts was the coat of arms of Wolverhampton City Council.

In the late 1960s, Wolves presented their own club badge that showed up on their shirts consisting of a lone leaping wolf, which later became three leaping wolves in the mid-1970s.

Since 1979 the badge has consisted of a single "wolf head" figure; the present badge was last redesigned in 2002.

In May 2019, the club won a legal challenge by Peter Davies, a 71-year-old retired building industry manager, who claimed he drew the wolf head shape as a schoolboy in the 1960s and entered it in an art competition.

Mr. Davies said he came up with the angular design after a teacher asked him to display an understanding of Blaise Pascal's Hexagrammum Mysticum Theorem, and entered it in an art competition publicized in the Express and Star newspaper.

Mr. Davies had made a copyright claim and required compensation. Mr. Davies lost his copyright infringement claim and now faces legal fees and costs estimated to be about £450,000.

Wolves' traditional away colors have been all-white, but recent decades have seen a mixture of colors used, including black, blue, teal, purple, and maroon.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Fan Culture

During the club's pinnacle in the 1950s, the home crowd's signature song was "The Happy Wanderer", which was a chart hit in the U.K. in 1954 when Wolves first won the league title. In more recent times, "Hi Ho Silver Lining", a 1967 rock song by Jeff Beck with its chorus altered to "Hi Ho Wolverhampton!" has turned into a staple feature of home games.

"The Liquidator" instrumental by the Harry J. Allstars was also widely used in the stadium until a request from the West Midlands Police to cease due to concerns that the obscene lyrics used by some fans during the chorus could provoke trouble.

As with all large city football teams the club pulled in a number of hooligans in the 1960s. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a hooligan firm named "The Subway Army" would often ambush fans in the subway nearby the ground.

The group was gradually broken up and virtually ceased to exist due to a great number of arrests, many as part of the police's nationwide "Operation Growth" (or "Get Rid of Wolverhampton's Troublesome Hooligans") in the late 1980s.

The club welcomes communication with its supporters and has a Fans' Assembly, at which independently chosen candidates meet with club authorities and discuss issues relating to the club.

An independent fanzine named "A Load of Bull" (ALOB), in part a reference to leading goalscorer Steve Bull, published supporters' views between 1989 and 2012.

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