Many of us will be aware of the substantial crossover of players between Wolves and Saturday’s derby opponents Villa.
But we might easily have overlooked how large a part several men have played in the claret and blue story before or after serving at Molineux.
An underlining of the point came in issue 89 of Backpass, in which Ivan Ponting’s regular five-page ‘Third Quarter’ feature homed in on Villa. He listed five one-time Wolves men among the top 33 players he focused on from the 1945-70 period across the patch.
Dicky Dorsett, who scored Wolves’ goal in their shock FA Cup final defeat by Portsmouth in 1939 and played for the club before, during and after the war, is said to then have performed ‘splendidly’ for Villa in both inside-forward slots, both half-back positions and at full-back on the left and right. He top-scored in his first Villa Park season but gradually switched to defence and later served there as captain and a coach.
Derek Dougan, who played in Villa’s 1961 League Cup final victory over Rotherham and then clashed with Joe Mercer after being left out of the 1963 final defeat against Birmingham, is described by the writer as a ‘one-off – a flamboyant, swashbuckling individualist who was a born rebel, oozed panache and adored the limelight’. Ponting is quite a wordsmith!
Another Northern Ireland star, Peter McParland, was a team-mate of The Doog’s in the Second City and is also richly praised in this enduring, high-quality publication. The write-up about him contains reference to him being ‘a thrilling footballer who would light up the eyes of small boys.’
For those wishing to know a bit more about the style that brought him in 120 goals in 341 Villa games before he had a short but effective stay at Molineux, there is this insight: ‘He was tall, sinewy and speedy and with no pretence to elegance’. McParland scored twice in the 1957 FA Cup final and hit the extra-time winner in the 1961 League Cup final as well as being Villa’s 25-goal top scorer in their 1959-60 promotion season.
A pattern is emerging here….most of the Villa-Wolves players given star billing by Ponting are forwards. Another of them is Bobby Thomson, who is described as ‘pugnacious and not an opponent any defender would relish marking’.
The Scot was given scant opportunity by Stan Cullis at Wolves amid the vast array of talent at the club’s disposal but shone in the Second City and amassed the excellent record of not too far short of a goal every two matches from an appearance tally that climbed to around 170.
The only man in this particular five-strong group whose job was purely about stopping goals is keeper Nigel Sims – another who made great use of his much more frequent chances at Villa Park.
After playing only 39 first-team games while at Molineux, he then appeared in more than 300 for one of Wolves’ rivals, including victorious finals of the FA Cup and League Cup and Second Division title glory in between.
According to the writer, Sims was ‘courageous….and immensely athletic for a hefty fellow.’ Match-winner McParland wasn’t the only man of Molineux connections among his team-mates against Manchester United at Wembley in 1957. Also in the victors’ line-up that afternoon was Leslie Smith, the winger who made almost 100 Wolves appearances and quite a few more for Villa.