Under the lights, everything looked different – the pitch, the stands, and the crowd
Tim Gibbons takes a look back at some of the historic floodlit games at Molineux down the decades
AFTER reading the excellent recently-published Wolves book titled ‘Golden Glow’, by Clive Corbett and Steve Gordos, it has inspired me to write about some of the early floodlit friendly games hosted at Molineux.
Several of the games that I will write about are covered in their book, as supporters of an older generation relive memories of their childhood. The focus on my articles will be on the foreign teams that were welcomed to the Black Country at a time before European football was formally introduced into cup competitions in England. The first in the series covers the first floodlit game played at Molineux under floodlights against South Africa in 1953.
Impressive
Following a hugely successful tour of South Africa in 1951, which saw Wolves play for the first time outside Europe, the tour saw them travel across South Africa playing 12 games in a period from 19th May to 30th June.
Wolves won all 12 games, scoring an impressive 60 goals during their travels, and only conceding five. Even the manager Stan Cullis got in on the act against South West Districts in Mossel Bay, where he scored his only senior goal for the club in their 11-0 victory.
The programme notes from the game to be held at Molineux welcomed a South African touring side to England for the first of what was to prove to be many successful games under the lights of Molineux, and noted how the success of the 1951 tour had helped develop South African football.
The game saw South African-born Wolves player Eddie Stuart make his Wolves comeback following an illness, and to his surprise and delight he was made captain for the evening’s game. Manager Cullis, not renowned for being a man for sentiment, had surprisingly given Eddie Stuart the honour of leading out Wolves after making him captain for the game, a role to which he would later be formally appointed.
The wolvesheroes.com website provides some great quotes from Stuart about the game against his home country:
“I was incredibly proud just to play against the national team from my home country, but to captain Wolves for the first time made it even better, the evening will stay with me forever.
“Playing under lights in those days was an incredible sensation. Everything looked different – the pitch, the stands, the crowd. It was a very colourful scene.”
Stuart would later be appointed as permanent captain at Wolves, after Stan Cullis appointed him as Billy Wright’s successor.
With the hosts playing in their luminous bright gold shirts and the Springboks in their bright green, it would have been a sight to behold under the newly-installed Molineux lights. Wolves started the game well and soon had control, creating several chances, and just before the half hour mark they took the lead. Following an exchange of passes between Johnny Hancocks and Roy Swinbourne, it was Jimmy Mullen who hit the ball home left-footed, in off the base of the goal post. Six minutes later Wolves doubled their lead through a brilliant goal from Peter Broadbent. He outwitted the right-back Ben Machanik, before shooting home fiercely from an acute angle on the lefthand side; Rudham in goal for the visitors could barely move as the ball flashed past him. Wolves went into the half time break leading 2-0 and in control, but three minutes after the interval the skilful inside-right for South Africa, Walter Warren, got a goal back for the Springboks with a diving header from a cross provided by inside-left Brian Gibson.
Deflected
Wolves had to wait until three minutes before full-time to seal the victory, when Swinbourne deflected Hancocks’s cross into the goal to give the hosts a 3-1 lead that they held on to, and saw the tourists lose under the lights of Molineux.
As a memento of their visit, the South African players and team officials received a leather wallet (made in Walsall) and a cut-glass bowl (made in Brierley Hill).
The popularity of the occasion was acknowledged by the Wolves board, who planned four or five floodlit games a year.
The South African game was to be the first of many famous games played under the famous Molineux Glow.