Legacy of Stan Cullis is unbroken

The words of Stan Cullis, the greatest manager in the club’s illustrious history. Due in no small part to having helped orchestrate the main chapter in aforementioned illustrious history.

The only three top-flight titles Wolves have won during their existence were all achieved on Cullis’s watch. In 1953/54, 1957/58 and 1958/59. Three successes in just six seasons, with the others providing finishes of second, third and sixth. In fact, over a nine-year period from 1952 to 1961, that sixth-placed finish was the only campaign when Wolves didn’t finish in the top three.

Then there were the FA Cup triumphs, defeating Leicester as Cullis became the youngest ever manager to win the competition in 1949, and then again, overcoming Blackburn in 1960.

Throw in the memorably magnificent European floodlit friendlies of the era, when Wolves effectively became pioneers of club competitions across the continent, and, without doubt, it was a time when the men in gold and black were among the biggest, and best, teams in the world. Truly halcyon days.

And all this after Cullis had played out his entire playing career with Wolves as well.

This forthcoming anniversary therefore brings up mixed recollections of the dramatic and ultimately seismic day which brought his Wolves connections to an end, and the incredible successes which preceded it. Well-known Wolves author Clive Corbett’s latest book – Golden Years, the new story of the Wolves – comes out in December, and includes a series of cartoon-based illustrations, including one reflecting on Cullis’s departure.

Corbett has carried out his own research on the final weeks of the Cullis reign, recalling the brief Caribbean tour of late May in 1964, and then a poor start to the following season which saw Wolves take just a solitary point from the first seven games.

Before the third game of that sequence, a defeat at Leeds, Cullis had been ordered by his doctor to take a few weeks rest after becoming unwell, returning to his desk just over a fortnight later, on Monday, September 14.

“After a week at the seaside Wolves boss Stan Cullis returned to his Molineux office today to step straight from recuperation into crisis,” wrote legendary Express & Star reporter Phil Morgan.

All, however, was not well.

“Phil Morgan was blissfully unaware that the Wolves boss had been greeted on his return by John Ireland, who had taken over as chairman from Jim Marshall on July 29,” Corbett explains. “Ireland initially sought Cullis’s resignation on health grounds, but a predictable refusal left the chairman with no alternative but to sack the club’s most successful manager ever.

“Keeping the discussion private, the returning boss led Wolves to a pulsating 4-3 win over a West Ham team that contained the eventual World Cup winning threesome of Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst.

“The FA Cup holders had handed out a thrashing at Upton Park just a week earlier and in any other circumstances the stirring match in which Wolves exacted some revenge would have lingered much longer in the memory for the right reasons.”

Victory, however, wasn’t enough to save Cullis, and, the very next day, his departure was made official.

As Corbett recalls, the strength of feeling among fans and around Wolverhampton following the sacking is summed up in the title ‘Betrayal’ that Jim Holden chose for the relevant chapter in his book, The Iron Manager.