Relegation, and an FA Cup win against all the odds
The continuing story of Jack Addenbrooke, one of the founding fathers of the Wolves
THE 1890s, when the club had experienced some real success, were an equally happy time in Jack Addenbrooke’s personal life as he married Beatrice Hibell in March 1891. They had four children together over the next twelve years.
With a keen eye for business opportunity Jack moved his tobacconist shop from Dudley Street to number 7 High Street, just off Queen Square, and in June 1896 approached the directors of Butlers Brewery (who owned the Molineux Hotel) proposing that he become its new landlord after the departure of William Brommage.
For this particular venture he would lean heavily on the experience of his wife, Beatrice, whose father John was still running the King’s Head in Dudley Street. In early July, Jack and Beatrice moved into the living quarters of the Molineux Hotel.
Struggled
So in addition to his £100 annual salary as secretarymanager of Wolves, Jack found himself at this time running a shop and a hotel. But despite cup success, gate receipts at Molineux had dropped by some 30% between 1893 and 1895 alone, with very fractious relationships between board, players and fans as the team struggled in the bottom half of the league table.
In 1895-96 Addenbrooke’s men only avoided relegation to Division 2 by one point.
But the 1896 FA Cup competition was an altogether more positive affair as they overcame Notts County (after a replay), Liverpool and Stoke City to reach a semi-final against Derby County at Perry Barr, Birmingham. The Rams’ line-up included George Kinsey (a member of Wolves’ 1893 cup winning team) and the legendary Steve Bloomer, born in Cradley.
Wolves won 2-1 in front of a crowd of 35,000 through goals from Billy Malpass (another 1893 cup winner) and John Tonks. The Wanderers went on to face The Wednesday in the final at the Crystal Palace on 18 April. Given the fact that Wolves had beaten the Yorkshiremen 4-1 at home and lost 3-1 away in the league, a close contest was expected, and so it proved. Sadly the Sheffieldbased outfit won by the odd goal in three.
Dressing rooms
There was a small consolation for the FA Cup final defeat as Wolves’ share of the gate receipts brought them the princely sum of £4,600. It was used to build new dressing rooms at Molineux and a place for match officials.
A key player in Wolves’ outfit was Billy Beats who scored 73 goals in 218 games for the Wanderers across eight seasons and picked up two full England caps. Beats was recommended by players and the club gave Jack Addenbrooke permission to approach him. Jack came upon Beats mending a chapel roof in Burslem and as he was not terribly keen on signing on, it is reputed that Jack refused to let him down a ladder until he changed his mind.
The decade (from 1896 to 1906) that followed the cup final at the Crystal Palace was a forgettable one in many respects. In the league their mostly below mid-table finishes hardly set the local pulses racing, and in the FA Cup there was a series of early exits.
One of those firstround defeats came in January 1900 when Southern League Queen’s Rangers sensationally dumped Wolves out of the FA Cup after a replay – a real ‘Chorley’ moment if you are old enough to appreciate the 1986 reference. The only successes of this time were in distinctly minor competitions, beating Stoke in the Staffordshire Cup and losing to Walsall in the final of the Birmingham Cup in 1896-97.
Like the mid-1980s this was
Park
also a time of money worries when the playing personnel underwent many changes with the loss of experienced players. There were real concerns as to how to make profitable a club that lost around £200 each year between 1891 and 1901.
Debt
1906 brought relegation after 18 seasons in the top flight
Although a public appeal raised £1,000 that year, Wolves still began the 1901-02 season £1,000 in debt. By 1902 Wolves were operating at a deficit in excess of £1,300 and were in need of bail-outs by club president Sir Alfred Hickman. Changes in the structure of the club were also needed so the selection committee was abandoned with responsibility for recruitment and retention of players and team selection falling upon Addenbrooke. Mounting financial pressures on the club and a personal tragedy had seen Jack and his family move out of the Molineux Hotel in 1900. Jack and Beatrice lost their youngest daughter, Olive, to scarlatina in June of that year. They went first to live above the tobacconist shop in Dudley Street but with the birth of John in 1902 and Marjorie in 1904 the premises became quite cramped. They moved to 45 Waterloo Road and then to Paget Road, and in the latter part of the First World War they settled at