A stellar display against the Red Stars of Roumania
Part 10 of our look back at the famous floodlit friendlies that lit up Molineux in the 1950s
October 29, 1956 Wolves 5-0 Roumania CCA
We are not frightened of anyone after this Wolves manager Stan Cullis
Friendly Attendance: 47,284
THE ever-growing popularity of the mid-week floodlit friendly games meant that the fixtures needed to be all-ticket matches.
Wolves had beaten Cardiff City at home in a Division 1 fixture two days prior with 34,935 supporters witnessing a 3-1 Wolves victory, with goals from Harry Hooper, Ron Flowers and Jimmy Murray. For the visit of Roumania CCA the Red Star (military team) from Roumania (which became predominantly spelt as Romania from around 1975) had the Molineux crowd eager to witness more foreign opposition.
There would be 47,284 packed into Molineux to see if their heroes could keep up their fine form and high goal-scoring games that the supporters had become used to at the floodlit friendly games.
Similar to several of the previous floodlit games Molineux’s visitors came to Wolves in good form. They had drawn with Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday and had beaten Luton Town after being 3-0 down, to run out 4-3 winners. Yet like the other teams they went away from Molineux disappointed, with Wolves scoring five goals for the second consecutive time in floodlit friendly games!
Wolves started the game quickly and were a goal up after only two minutes as Jimmy Murray gave the hosts an early lead, the Wolves inside left ran on to a through ball from Billy Wright to place a low shot past Roumania’s goalkeeper Toma.
The visitors came back into the game as they displayed some great possession football, of a kind that had been successful in their other games against English opposition. Gradually, however, it was Wolves who took control of the game, and when Harry Hooper went clean through on goal, he was taken down by Apolzan to give Wolves a penalty and the chance to double their lead.
Hooper calmly dispatched the penalty to give the home team a twogoal advantage, which they maintained to the end of the first-half. They returned after the break having been forced into a substitution – the injured was replaced by
The Wolves substitute soon got in on the goal-scoring action – in the 61st minute, as Jimmy Murray’s defence-splitting ball found Broadbent, he put it away to claim Wolves’ third goal of the night.
Further goals came from Colin
Dennis Wilshaw Peter Broadbent.
Booth, whose goal was again assisted by Murray, and it was fitting that the final and fifth goal of the night was scored by Murray himself, who crowned a fine individual performance with a goal of his own.
Roumania’s chief coach was interviewed through an interpreter postgame, and was full of praise for the Wolves team:
“We appreciate playing at Wolverhampton and we love to play football but we have never met such hard fighting and barbaric tackling for the ball,” he opined.
“Wolves’ technique is very good and we congratulate them on being the better side.”
Wolves manager Stan Cullis was full of confidence after the result and was quoted:
“We are not frightened of anyone after this.’
Next up at Molineux would be the visit of Red Banner of Budapest, with proceeds of the game going towards the Hungarian Relief Fund to help support the country’s refugee crisis.