Defender Passes Away In North Wales

Sad news has reached us this teatime of the passing of George Showell, another of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ highly decorated golden generation.

The long-serving defender reportedly collapsed at a supermarket in his home town of Wrexham this morning. He was 78.

Showell was in the reserves during the 1953-54 League Championship triumph and spent several years understudying more celebrated names.

But he totalled 15 First Division appearances across the two seasons in which the club regained the title in 1957-58 and then retained it 12 months later.

He also played in the last three rounds when Wolves lifted the FA Cup in 1960, having become much more of a regular by that time following the retirement of Billy Wright. In addition, he played in two Charity Shield matches.

Signed in 1949, he went on to make exactly 200 League appearances for the club, his tally of outings in all competitions rising to 218 and leaving him joint 64th in Wolves’ all-time appearance-makers list (please see the Legends area of this website for more detail).

He, Bert Williams and Bill Shorthouse were honoured in the 1990s by the holding of a ‘Sons of Bradley’ function, all three having come from the tiny district just outside Bilston.

George, whose finest hour arguably came when he impressed greatly while facing Alfredo Di Stefano in Wolves’ friendly home victory over Real Madrid in 1957, was a full-back or central defender but was given a handful of games in Stan Cullis’s attack in the late 1950s.

He was transferred in 1965 to Bristol City but moved to Wrexham after only 11 League appearances while at Ashton Gate.

And he became a legend at the Racecourse Ground, playing more than 50 games for them and staying at the club for almost a quarter of a century until 1990, serving in the process as assistant manager, trainer, caretaker manager and physio.

He was one of 20 inaugural inductees to the club’s Supporters Association Hall of Fame.

We at Wolves Heroes wish to send our condolences to his family and friends and will be posting a full tribute to him later this week.