Three deaths and one near riot – Wolves’ darkest year?
VAR is a big feature in today’s football but on one afternoon late in the 19th Century for a few Wolves fans it stood for something else – Vigorously Attack Referee!
It led to Molineux being closed by the FA for two weeks, though it proved a hollow punishment.
The trouble came at the end of the game on Sep- tember 28, 1895, when visitors Everton won 3-2. Harry Wood had the ball in the net for Wolves with the score 2-2 but referee Tom Armitt blew for offside despite Wolves claims that inside-left Wood had been played on-side as the ball came to him via a visiting defender.
Then, to further anger the crowd, Everton snatched a late winner through Abe Hartley.
Invasion
The full-time whistle brought a pitch invasion from a large group of angry home fans among the 6,000 crowd and the ref, who was from Leek, had to run for his life. Fortunately the Wolves officials and several policemen were able to prevent the crowd getting at him.
“At the close of the proceedings a most disgraceful scene took place,” the Liverpool Mercury reported. “Several times during the game Mr Armitt’s decisions were not accepted in a true sportsmanlike spirit. Immediately after the whistle blew a surging crowd bore down on Mr Armitt and but for the prompt assistance of police and officials serious results must have happened.”
Eventually the referee took refuge in the hut that served as a press box, but it was not until some considerable time had elapsed that the crowd was cleared from the ground.
When the ref was eventually taken in a cab – still horse-drawn in those days – the cab driver’s coat was torn but eventually the mob were kept at bay.
Wood and Billy Beats scored in the first half for Wolves but Alf Milward and Tom Mcinnes levelled for Everton in the second. The winner came after goalkeeper Billy Rose had saved a long shot from England international Edgar Chadwick, only for Hartley to head home the rebound.
By that stage Wolves were down to ten men, David Wykes, their rightwinger, having left the field, feeling unwell. Little could anyone know, but that illness would prove fatal. More of that tragedy later.
Howling
Athletic News, a top sports paper of the time, gave the fans short shrift: “A lot of people showed conduct which one might charitably wish could be attributed to the heat having affected their brains. They howled at him (the referee), hissed and hooted him.”
Similar criticism came from the Birmingham Post: “It is regrettable that a crowd of disappointed people should so far forget themselves as to offer such indignity to the official and the deepest regret was shown by the loyal followers of the Wanderers that such an unfortunate incident should have occurred.”
Giving evidence to the subsequent FA inquiry, referee Armitt stated that during the game he was loudly hooted and at the finish the spectators rushed on to the field and surrounded him. It was with the greatest difficulty that he got to the press box where he had to stay for twenty minutes. After this, with the help of the police, the committee, directors and friends, they fought their way to a cab which took him to a hotel. He said the officials did everything in their power to protect him.
Wolves chairman, Councillor Arthur Hollingsworth, said that the disturbance was quite unexpected but the committee and others did their best to protect the referee. They had thirteen policemen in uniform on the ground. Pleading for leniency, he said the club had had of late a big struggle to exist and to suspend their ground at present would entail a serious loss.
In reply to a question from one of the FA members, Armitt said he was not hit and that only a little turf was thrown at him. Asked as to whether steps were taken to find out the offenders, Hollingsworth said that he failed to catch or recognise any of them.
Closed
Armitt stated that the offenders were “overgrown boys of about eighteen years of age”.
The FA verdict was to close Molineux for two weeks from Monday October 21 and that during that period the club should not play within six miles of the ground. As luck would have it, during that time Wolves had two away games so they escaped serious consequences. If the FA had been aware of Wolves’ fixture list, they may well have altered the starting date of the ban.
The FA punishment, such as it was, was soon the last thing on the mind of players and officials as a shadow had been cast over Molineux.
Wykes played in the Everton game and the match against Stoke a week later, even though he was still feeling unwell. Nine days later the Stoke game, the 28-year-old Walsall-born player died at his home, leaving a widow and child. He was said to have contracted pneumonia and typhoid fever.
He was the third Wolves man to die in 1895 at an early age. Harry Allen, who scored the only goal in the FA Cup final victory over Everton at Fallowfield, Manchester, in 1893, had retired through a back injury in October, 1894. However, the following January he died, aged 29, at his Walsall home, suffering from consumption. Wykes was also a member of the Cup-winning side.
The gloom among Wolves fans over Allen’s death deepened in the summer when goalkeeper Joe Hassall, an ever-present during the 1894-5 season, died of peritonitis, leaving a wife and four children. He was just 23.
With three sad losses and a ground closure, Wolves fans must have been glad to see the back of 1895.