Wolverhampton Wanderers: Molineux since 1889
A brief history of Molineux, the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club since 1889.
The first stadium built for use by a Football League club. It was one of the first British grounds to have floodlights installed and hosted some of the earliest European club games in the 1950s.
Wolves moved into Molineux Stadium in 1889, having played at various grounds in the first decade of their existence.
Molineux was the site of the first ever league game played in English history. On 7 September 1889 Wolves beat Notts County 2-0.
In 1923, Wolves were able to buy the ground the stadium stood on, and soon after started building a new main stand, the Waterloo Road Stand, which had been designed by Archibald Leitch.
Development continued in the next decade with the opening of the new Molineux Street Stand in 1932 and the renovations of both end terraces in 1935.
In 1939, Molineux recorded its highest attendance when 61,315 fans saw Wolves play Liverpool in an FA Cup match.
Molineux remained practically unchanged in the following decades, and slowly fell into a state of disrepair. In 1975, the Molineux Street Stand failed to meet safety requirements and a new luxury grandstand was built instead.
This new stand however severely impacted Wolves’ finances and brought the club on the brink of bankruptcy. By the 1980s, only two stands were in use and the club lacked the finances to make improvements to the ground.
Only after Sir Jack Hayward bought the club in 1990, funding became available for the redevelopment of Molineux. Between 1991 and December 1993, the three remaining old stands were demolished and replaced with new ones.
In May 2010, Wolves announced a £40 million redevelopment programme of Molineux. Under the plans, three stands would gradually get rebuilt and linked up, which would lead to a capacity of 38,000 seats.
Works started in 2011 on the Stan Cullis Stand, which was completed in 2012. The next two stages, however, were postponed as the club stated to want to use the limited funds available for the development of the Wolves youth academy.
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Great video, always wanted to see what Molineux looked like when my Grandad used to go in the 50's onwards. He sadly passed away last year.
Fly high
R.I.P your grandad Hope you'll see him again in heaven
Wonderful pictures and memories.A great ground, great people, great city , First came in 1948, and still going when I can. 😂❤
Great ground proper football stadium with plenty of history
I have a coin from the period when it was used for bicycle events. I love in West Wales and my grandad found it in our garden when he was digging the soil over.
Molineux- my home and play area. Mum and Dad ran the 'Fox Inn' pub, North Street/Molineux Street for over 40 years, night games, never needed lighting, the floodlights would do the job!!! Great times, when there was a community with the spirit to go with it.
glad i got the chance to stand on that wonderful south bank in 1988 following Port Vale., unfortunatley we were torn apart by Bull and Mutch that night in a 5-1 defeat
Bully got 4 that night, sherpa van trophy game, you must be a seriously loyal Vale fan to have been there.
Great vid and amazing pics of the old ground. Great to see the old maps too, always liked to pick out streets I grew up in. My dad lived in Dawson Street when he moved over from India with his family in 1967. They then moved across the other side of the North Bank, when housing got demolished, into Drummond Street, where I was born. Was always destined to be a Wolves fan! Lots of great memories trying to get a peak of 4th Division 3rd Division games through the fencing and walls. First ever match at Molineux was vs Oldham opening day August 1991, lost 3-2 but made my day to see Bully score two at the South Bank end. COYW!
What a great, informative video - many thanks indeed. I'm so glad I was 'recommended' this by KZhead as I'd forgotten an awful lot about the construction timeline involved, despite being a long-time Wolves fan and resident. Would be great to see a revised video once WWFC and Fosun get to work building that much-expanded, rebuilt Molineux that many of us are desperate to see.
What did that old home end terrace hold that was huge Jesus christ
you got a wonderful football-stadium there in wolverhampton. h.m.
Brilliant
im not from wolverhampton but ive been following wolves since i was 4 and i really love the look of industrial housing estates
Great video, quite a bit of work to get all those images! My strong memories are 60s and 70s, went to most of those home games.
Good video. Well done.
Amazing transformation and great vid John :)
Born in the sixties and watched wolves all my life 😆 had our ups an downs but what an history wolves have 👍👍 love my wolves 🐺🐺
Great thank you
Nice to see what the golden palace looked like many decades ago as i was born in 1991 only witnessed the the north bank go through transformation thanks for the video well impressed
My Dad would have loved to of seen this video. 😀 xx
really a great video ...now I learned a brief history about wolves stadium.....from Mexico..greatings...Go Wolves..si señor....
great to see the old north and south bank again .happy memorys
The old north bank in the early 70s was a fantastic atmosphere, old wooden terrace bit of a dump but it was so brilliant, you would start at the back sway all towards the front then back to the middle like Liverpools old kop, all seater are not the same & standing up in all seater is more dangerous than terraces imo & I've spent years in both.
Agree, it was great when there was big pressure from Wolves and everyone stamped on the wooden boards! We beat Leeds 2-1 in 1972, they needed a draw to win the league title, Doog finished them off, one of many great memories...were you there that night?
@@ACLocofan Yes I was, we set of from Walsall at 4pm, about a 25 min drive at most back then, it took us 3 hours to get to the ground due to traffic I must have been one of the last people to get in. Frank Munro scored first, the police said that although there was officialy 53,000 inside, it was probably in and around the ground nearer 90,000. There was so many people wanted to see if Leeds could win the double, there were no live league games in those days, you had to go if you wanted to see it. Doubt you'll ever see days like that again. Great memories.
By 2021 it will be a 50,000 seater (according to Jeff shi the CEO)
iRacing Rookie it will
Yeah he even talked about moving the molineux completely but I doubt that will happen but you never know.. Billionaires usually get what they want
Will be more like 2025 when it's complete
2030
Did the whole ground shift over to the one side a few feet when they built the new stand down the one side of the pitch? As the gap between the stand (with red seats) to the pitch looks huge!
I used to sit in the lower tier of the john island stand when I first started going in 1988, I remember the pitch being smack bang in the middle of the south bank and about 50 yards away from the John Island.
It was one of the most bizarre decisions that they built it so far away from the pitch,instead of on the same spot as the characterful Molineux Street stand,with that multi-span roof,that it replaced. That diluted some of the atmosphere by the accounts I've read,and set the tone for some catastrophic mismanagement in the first half of the 80s. The team went through a terrible time in 1984/5/6,tumbling from the top flight to the old Fourth Division in three successive relegations while bankruptcy and ownership battles rumbled on. After the Bradford fire in May 1985,big swathes of grounds were closed up and down the country for safety reasons and Molineux was hit particularly hard in that respect. Two sides of Molineux were condemned and closed off to the public,a sorry situation that persisted even when the goal-happy team of Bull,Mutch and co. was climbing back up the Football League from the depths and winning the Sherpa Van Trophy at Wembley. It wasn't until Sir Jack Hayward arrived that the ground could be rebuilt,and in the early-to-mid 90s brought back to a venue fit to host new glories to go with the old.
The South bank was amazing.
did they move the position of the pitch too
Home of the Wolves (Wolfs Lair) looks a lot better these days.
What's the population of Wolverhampton is it near Birmingham or West Bromwich what's the best stadium in that area
Wolverhampton is part of the West Midlands conurbation. The city centre is roughly 12 miles from Birmingham city centre as the crow flies. The two city centres are separated by the urban sprawl of West Birmingham and the Black Country. West Bromwich lies between the two city centres on the border of Birmingham and the black country. Birmingham has 1.25 million people & Wolverhampton around a quarter of a million. The whole West Midlands conurbation in total has just under 3 million inhabitants.
The South Bank one at 3.30 was against Oxford United, you can just make out Steve Foster in his trademark headband in the background. Remember that game well for two reasons: Psycho hit a 35 yard "screamer" in the top corner and we surrendered a 3-0 lead!
Think the wolves player in that pic was Tom Bennett
Yep I was there un the away end ! Think it was 1989 the score was 3 3 you where 3 nill up
The golden palace❤️
@t least Wolves architects have designed something a little different. Give me the old school stadiums every single time though. Character isn’t part of these new build stadiums.
Custard bowl
Molineux is not a a patch on Hillsborough our Kop is bigger than your south bank was our stadium was used for the world cup and euro 96 what have you been used for Wednesday are a massive club we are older bigger and better than you everyone would say that we are massive.the song hi ho is our song you have stole it.
Massive in the chumpionship at a push. You haven’t been massive since we beat you and loud mouth waddle in the fa cup. Pipe down little Yorkshire team.
And going down to the first division swfc !
How many people died at Wolves. The South Bank was much bigger than the Kop which was only bigger mid 80s when roof was put on. Held 23k South Bank 30.000. Cuts after Hillsborough where the Kop was cut to 19.000 capacity.
Well 12 months on and Sheffield Wednesday are now a first division club with the same under developed Hillsborough !! You are second rate to your biggest rivals in Sheffield utd who have just had two seasons in the Premier league. Even Barnsley are a league above you !! Not much more to be said really about this football giant. Enjoy Cambridge away next season little man 😘 🟠⚫🟠⚫🟠