One Pack Week 2025 began last Sunday by Wolves Women producing a 5-0 hammering of their fiercest Black Country rivals at Molineux – which could not have been more fitting as the side celebrate their 50th anniversary this year.
The team that would become Wolves Women were formed in 1975 as Heathfield Rovers, named as such simply because Heathfield School was just down the road from the parks pitch on which the team played its early matches.
That team was formed by pioneering founder members Jane Hill, Jackie Pickup and Gill Spillsbury. Sat around a pub table poring through pictures and press cuttings from those early days, Hill recalled: “When I was 18, I saw an advert in the Express & Star asking if there were any girls interested in playing football, and I definitely was!
“I couldn’t go to the first session, but when I went to the next one the bloke who was organising it had disappeared. He had left the girls with a strip though, so a few of us including Gill and Jackie started playing together regularly.
“Girls like Jill Shinton and Linda Reynolds, who became important players for us, were also part of that first group but there were only about seven of us to start with, so we used to play three or four-a-side matches between ourselves."
By the start of the 1975/76 season, the team had enough players to enter the Midland Women’s Football League, which consisted mainly of clubs in the eastern half of the area, and with a varying degree of facilities – with players changing in barns, bedrooms and minibuses.
This did not prevent Heathfield from having a fine first season – they won promotion to the league’s top division, won the Vice-President’s Cup, and reached the semi-finals of the Midland Ladies’ Cup.
After changing their name to Wolverhampton & Wednesbury Tube Ladies, it was eventually shortened to Wolverhampton Ladies in 1977, and as the team matured and improved, they enjoyed good FA Cup runs that took them as far as the quarter-finals via long trips to face clubs such as Brighton and Dartford.
Switching to the West Midlands League in the 1988/89 season, Wolverhampton ended their first campaign as Division Two champions. A year later, as Division One runners-up, they were invited to join what was to become the National Women’s League in its inaugural season of 1991/92 – the first nationwide league for women’s football, where stipulations such as stadium facilities and adequate financial resources had to be met by teams wanting to take part.
This led to a watershed moment in the club’s history. “We needed more money than we had to meet all the requirements,” said Hill, “so we contacted Wolves and were offered a meeting with Rachael Heyhoe-Flint and Jonathan Hayward.
“They asked us in that first meeting to come up with a business plan, which we did, and in the next meeting with them we showed them our plans to start under-12s, under-14s and Intermediate teams to encourage young girls in the area to play football and to strengthen us as a club.”
Wolves offered the team £10,000 which meant they could play in the second tier Division One North, while basing themselves at Bilston Town’s ground.
During this time, the team officially became part of the club, taking the name of Wolverhampton Wanderers Women’s FC – or Wolves Women for short. This final name switch was a good omen as the 1993/94 season saw them win the Division One North title and promotion to the FA Women’s Premier League – the top flight of the English women’s game.
But competing at this level proved too mighty a task for Wolves. Facing line-ups packed with international players, a first season finish in the bottom-but-one place was followed with 1995/96’s bottom spot and relegation.
“It was too early for us to go up,” said Pickup. “The second season especially was very, very difficult. But we had some great experiences over those two seasons, like playing against Arsenal at Highbury.
“They smashed us, but after the game [England striker] Marieanne Spacey popped her head round our dressing room door and gave us some complimentary remarks which was nice.”
In 1999, the club was incorporated under the Companies Act with several influential businesspeople joining the board, amongst them BBC presenter Jenny Wilkes – who remains chairman of the club to this day.
The club evolved a strong youth development programme, with several players going on to become senior internationals, such as Rachel Unitt, Jody Handley and Emily Westwood for England, Kerrie Manley for Wales and Amy McCann for Northern Ireland, while Aston Villa’s European Cup winning captain Dennis Mortimer was appointed manager in 2001 and led the team for three years, narrowly missing out on promotion to the top flight.
During the 2008/09 season the women’s section was taken on board by the club as part of Wolves Community Trust. However, fortunes ebbed and flowed, with Wolves promoted and relegated twice, while at junior level, the club was awarded a new FA Girls’ Regional Talent Club license in 2016, supporting the identification and development of players with elite potential as part of the England Talent Pathway.
Dan McNamara took over as first team manager in early 2018, but sadly relegation to the fourth tier was confirmed at the end of the season, as the team missed safety through goal difference. The following season, McNamara’s team finished runners up but it wasn’t enough for promotion.
Misfortune followed again in the 2019/20 season, when the team had all but clinched top place and promotion, but the season was declared null and void due to the Covid-19 pandemic ceasing all football.
The next season was a déjà vu moment, as Wolves were riding high only – on another unbeaten season – to have another pandemic enforced end to the campaign. A deserved promotion was eventually achieved via the FA’s ‘upward movement’ initiative, ending the team’s three-year break from the National League Northern Premier Division – then the third tier of women’s football.
After an incredible 2021/22 season, which saw newly-promoted Wolves top the third tier standings and secure a place in the promotion play-off to the FA Women’s Championship, the side would go on to lose 1–0 to Southern Division winners Southampton.
They were then pipped by Nottingham Forest for the Northern Division title on goal difference the following season.
After more than six years at the helm, McNamara became the club’s first ever full-time manager in August 2024, while two months later, Katie Johnson, Anna Morphet and Tammi George became the first Wolves Women players to sign contracts with the club, further cementing the progression and growth of the women’s set-up.
Progressive moves have seen the women’s team making full use of the Premier League men’s team’s Compton training ground facilities, and with performance coaching and physiotherapy roles also moving to a full-time basis for the first time, the players are now enjoying 24/7 support from the management and backroom team.
The 2024/25 season was the 50th since those pioneering founders started playing on parks pitches, laying the foundations for Wolves Women as the team is today.
Jenna Burke-Martin, head of women’s and girls’ football, said: “The team’s been on a huge journey over the last 50 years. I started 21 years ago, first at Wolves with the junior squads, and even the facilities that we were training at with the youth and the junior sections at that time were local leisure centres – and they aren't always kept as fresh and clean as you would like them to be.
“Even going from that to training at Compton every week with the women’s first-team as we do now, is a huge progression in the club and the facilities the players have access to now is massive.
“I’ve talked to Roy Williams, Claire Hakeman, Laura Nicholls and Jenny Wilkes – all people who have been involved in the club for so many years – on the progression of the team, the club and the setup at Wolves and it’s been a massive change, and I don't think we would have thought 20 odd years ago that the club would look how it does at this moment.”
The landmark 50th season in the club’s history was celebrated at Molineux last Sunday as Wolves Women claimed another victory over West Bromwich Albion – but this time in front of thousands of supporters at Molineux.
But earlier year, work started on a brand new display within the Wolves Museum, to be dedicated to the history of Wolves Women.
An area within the museum was already in use to display items relating to the women’s first-team, but staff and supporters felt there needed to be a new, larger and more expansive area to tell the story of the Wolves Women, so work got underway in late January 2025 to bring this project into reality.
Fitting 50 years of stories into a display was not an easy task, and having to decide which items to show and how to best display all the components to create an eye catching but informative layout proved difficult.
But with the crowning jewels of the original black and white striped Heathfield Rovers shirt belonging to Joyce Pattison, as well as a match-prepared Beth Merrick shirt from the FA Cup fifth round match against Manchester United last month – which saw a record attendance of 5,008 at the SEAH Stadium in Telford – these pieces perfectly show where the team came from and where they are now and display the growth of Wolves Women.
The new display was unveiled during a Black Country Chamber Women in Leadership event on Friday 7th March, the day before International Women’s Day, where an amazing group of people gathered to witness the launch, which also featured live on ITV Central the same evening, where interviews were carried out with Hill, Pickup, Wilkes and current Wolves Women captain Morphet.
Sam Warrington, museum operations manager, said: “At Wolves Museum, we’re so proud of our heritage and where we came from.
“The story of the men’s team has been told countless times, so it was long past time for the women’s team to be highlighted for the pioneering spirit and never say no attitude that has meant the women’s game is thriving at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“I’ve been honoured to lead on this project, and I will continue to champion our women’s team and make sure the legacy of our founders and beyond will be celebrated within the Wolves Museum.”
The new museum display was also the centrepiece of pre-match celebrations before the Molineux clash with West Brom last weekend, where legends of Wolves Women past and present joined with supporters to mark the 50th anniversary.
Players spanning the entire club’s history enjoyed tea and cake in the museum before taking in the new exhibition ahead of kick-off before heading out into the stands to witness another Black Country derby victory for the Old Gold.
“The exhibition is fantastic,” Burke-Martin said. “Jenny, Sam and Kev [Kay, head of ancillary sales] have all worked really hard on pulling that project together, and I know it's been months in the making.
“It's really important to recognise the club's history – from where we first started, not even as Wolves Women, to when we were taken over and brought into the club, and the key moments along the way.
“Previous players from the club were all invited to the event and we received some fantastic feedback from them about reminiscing back to when they played for the club and what that looked like then to what it does now, so it’s fantastic we’ve been able to celebrate everybody that’s come through the Wolves journey and been part of it.”
Half-time in the derby victory also marked milestones for two important people behind the scenes of Wolves Women, as Wilkes’ celebrated 25 years as the club’s chair, while Laura Nicholls also departed the club following more than two decades of service.
Burke-Martin added: “We’ve been able to celebrate this milestone of Wolves Women because of the hard work of so many people behind the scenes during the last 50 years. It’s Jenny Wilkes’ 25th year with Wolves Women and it was so important that we used Sunday to celebrate everything she has brought to the club.
“She played a huge role in the museum exhibition and after she finished with the BBC, she’s given us more time than ever before. While Laura Nicholls worked here for more than 20 years and left recently, but we wanted to give her the send off she deserves at Molineux in front of a crowd of three thousand.
“It was really important to recognise the work Laura has done, mainly behind the scenes in recent years, but also on the grass in her early years as well. I'm sure she also had a small stint as interim manager as well, so it was great we were able to mark the occasion by thanking some of those who have given so much to the team and to the club.”
Wolves Women have gone on an incredible journey during its first 50 years. Countless players have come and gone, each giving themselves to the story of the club, and the spirit of Wolves Women continues to burn bright as the club looks ahead to a new chapter for what the next 50 years will hold.
