After Sunday's fifth straight top flight win since 1970 as Wolves overcame Manchester United at Old Trafford, historian and author Clive Corbett has looked back at the last time the Old Gold secured a league double over the Red Devils.
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Given how poor Manchester United have been this season, I would have been disappointed had we not beaten them on Easter Sunday to secure a first league double over them for 45 years.
If you think me arrogant or complacent then please share my anger at the following statement posted on the BBC Sport website on Sunday afternoon: “Man United are crazy man. How do you go from completing a ‘Remontada’ against Lyon to losing at home to Wolves?” Please forgive my spite but my response - which was not published - read: “Hey Anon, please drop the arrogant entitlement and look at the table and recent form. The referee did add on a huge chunk of non-existent added time for you to get an equaliser, but you just weren’t good enough. UTW. Clive. Kingswinford.”
So how did it happen in the 1979/80 season, incidentally the one that ended with a League Cup win and sixth place in the table?
Back in the autumn of 1979, Wolves’ season had really lifted off at Goodison Park on 15th September, when million pound man Andy Gray made his debut and John Richards was restored to the team after injury. Several thousand Wolves fans travelled to Merseyside but were disappointed when Everton secured a half time advantage, but with Gray, Richards and Mel Eves wearing the number nine, 10 and 11 shirts, the new signing’s speed off the mark tied things up just after the re-start. Peter Daniel then put them ahead from the penalty spot before Richards was teed up by Gray to net what proved to be the decisive goal of the five scored on the day.
Boss John Barnwell appreciated that the pair had made a good first start together: “The signing of Andy Gray has got everybody stirring again and thinking about the Wolves. It has also shown that the club is prepared to reach for the very top. While I am talking of strikers, John Richards made a very welcome return against Everton. He linked up well with Gray and the pair of them scored a goal each as we carved a magnificent away victory. But I would just like to say to our supporters that they must not expect too much from the pair too soon.”
Although neither player was properly fit, the manager was pleased with first impressions; “I told both Gray and Richards before the game to go out and enjoy themselves. In a sense I told them to go to the races and to back a few winners, and that’s exactly what they did.”
In advance of Gray’s home debut a week later, against Dave Sexton’s Manchester United, skipper Emlyn Hughes was buoyant about the way things were going: “To be perfectly honest, I am absolutely over the moon about Wolves. I didn’t think I would enjoy it so much. It was always in the back of my mind that I have had a long career and tremendous success with Liverpool and I didn’t want to move anywhere or do anything which might have soured my thoughts towards the game. Since I have arrived at Molineux everything has been buzzing. I have been very excited with every aspect of the club. I have enjoyed the training. It’s been hard but good. I am not going to fall into the trap of comparing Wolves with Liverpool because that would not be fair. But manager John Barnwell and assistant Richie Barker deserve all the credit for what is and has been happening this season. I am just happy to be involved in it.”
He went on to enthuse about the potential of the Gray-Richards partnership: “Just imagine what they will do to opposing defences when they have had a few more games together and have built up a better understanding, it’s frightening. But I’m not getting carried away even though the side has had such a good start, and I don’t intend making any forecasts because that’s a dangerous business in this game. Let’s just say that I am as happy about Wolves’ start as anyone associated with the club, leave it at that.”
The performance against United did nothing to dampen expectation though, with a 3-1 win over the division’s leaders. Watched by a crowd of 35,954 the visitors took an early lead through Lou Macari, but Kenny Hibbitt soon equalised. After the break Gray scored at close range and then Richards lifted the ball over Gary Bailey to make it 3-1.
Geoff Palmer sums up the excitement of the time: “We were just winning games and it kept us going. We just had a team where we could keep going from one week to the next. We won a game, won another game, then perhaps we’d draw. Barny gave us targets, a bonus (I can’t remember how much, probably about 25 quid) if the back four and goalkeeper kept four clean sheets. We went out and thought by hook or crook, we’d throw our bodies anywhere. Midfielders also had targets for how many goals to score in a season. John Barnwell was relaxed, he could keep a group of fifty blokes amused for two, three, four hours. Richie Barker knew more about the business of how he wanted us to play. He got us fit, he would give us a b******ing. We just got on well together and he got us playing a system that just clicked.”
Willie Carr chips in: “When you’re playing well and you’re successful, everything’s enjoyable. You don’t think about things, you just go and do it, you always feel as if you’re going to win, it’s just confidence really.”
By the time February came around Wolves were in the semi-final of the League Cup, indeed the decisive second leg at Molineux would be played just three days after the visit to Old Trafford. The month began though on the 2nd with a hard-earned goalless draw at home to Everton with Hughes picking up another injury that kept him out for the next game a week later at Manchester United.
John McAlle returned in his place, and in front of an Old Trafford crowd of 51,568 Mel Eves scored the only goal of the game. He sped past Jimmy Nicholl to seize on a Richards through ball to fire past Gary Bailey for his fifth of the season and set up Wolves’ first double over United since the 1960/61 season. To my shame I do not know the time of the goal but I believe that it was in the second-half and at the same end as Sarabia’s clincher.
Eves recalls: “We won 3-2 at Everton, 3-2 at Arsenal, and we beat Man United 1-0 away and I scored there. We won about 11 games away from home. We did very well away because we’d got players who could score from a lot of positions. I was probably third top scorer. If they had had the Pro Zone figures then, I’d loved to have known how far I ran in a game. I was expected to track back every time and if I didn’t I would know about it.”
John McAlle, 30 at the end of the month, was surprisingly omitted from the starting line-up for the next game, the decisive League Cup semi-final match: “Emlyn played against Everton and got injured so I got a game against Man United. All the papers gave me man of the match but on the following Tuesday he dropped me for the League Cup semi-final against Swindon, I was really annoyed and had a go at Barnwell, he wasn’t happy.”
Putting aside McAlle’s understandable disappointment and returning to 2025, the win this year was achieved without a shout out to us needing to play particularly well. But before I stop gloating, a shout out to Pablo Sarabia.
Apparently, he is just the second visiting player to score a winning goal via a direct free-kick against Manchester United in the Premier League at Old Trafford, after Danny Murphy for Liverpool in December 2000. Well done, Pablo - mind you, there have only been about four free-kicks awarded against Manchester United in this period!
The 1979/80 teams
Saturday 22nd September 1979
Wolves 3 (Hibbitt 34, Gray 76, Richards 80) Manchester United 1 (Macari 8)
Wolves XI | Bradshaw; Palmer, Parkin, Daniel, Hughes, Berry, Hibbitt, Carr, Gray, Richards, Eves.
Attendance | 35,954
Saturday 9th February 1980
Manchester United 0 Wolves 1 (Eves)
Wolves XI | Bradshaw; Palmer, Parkin, Daniel, McAlle, Berry, Hibbitt, Carr, Gray, Richards, Eves.
Attendance | 51,568
