Ted Was A Wow At Two Sets Of Wanderers

Talk of a post-war manager at Wolves normally centres on only one man. But Stan Cullis’s predecessor in the role had an outstanding career in the game, too, and played his own big part in the glory years that followed. Charles Bamforth tells the Ted Vizard story.

When my widowed mother first used to drive my brother, John, and I to watch the Wolves at Molineux, it was long before the M6 had been completed. So, the route from our home near Wigan took us to mecca on the A49 and A41 by way of Warrington, Tarporley and Whitchurch.

I always felt that we had arrived when we passed The Crown pub in Tettenhall. Not yet a teen, I never went in, of course, but had I done so, would have seen Ted Vizard. He was ‘mine host’.

I knew merely that he was Stan Cullis’s predecessor in the Molineux manager’s seat but that had been some 15 years earlier, which seems a lot shorter time now that it did then! So, who was Edward Vizard?

He was born on June 7, 1889, in Cogan, a district of Penarth, near Cardiff. As a youngster, he played rugby as a three-quarter for Penarth and football on the left wing for Barry District, who would become Barry Town United.

Both Cardiff RFC and the rugby league club in Leeds took a shine to him. So did Bristol Rovers and Aston Villa but Vizard fancied staying closer to home as a footballer and approached Cardiff City, suggesting that 30 shillings a week would be a reasonable reward for his services. Their response was essentially: “You cheeky b****r”.

In November, 1910, he was snapped up after a trial by Bolton as a 21-year-old. It was a long way from home but his form was convincing enough for him to earn his first Wales cap in Belfast just two months later. On the opposite wing was the legendary Billy Meredith, of Manchester City.

Vizard enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps in World War One and, in what survived of the football programme during the conflict, turned out for Bolton when at home and for Chelsea when at his station.

In 1913, the Athletic News published this poetic tribute: “Clever and fast is Vizard, With energy all a-glow, As dexterous as a wizard, When the leather’s at his toe.”

Bolton had a formidable team and Vizard was in the winning side at the infamous 1923 FA Cup final against West Ham that featured a white horse called Billie, who was ridden on to the pitch as a crowd-controlling measure.

Vizard was in the winning team again in the 1926 final (against Manchester City) but not in the 1929 one versus Portsmouth, against whom The Trotters were again victorious. He had become an utter stalwart of the Burnden Park ranks and was to make a colossal 512 appearances for the club.

His last game was against Derby in 1931, three months before his 42nd birthday. The cheeky youngster had become a true veteran – and then some!

Upon retiring, he joined the coaching staff at Burnden Park and looked after the third team but was tempted to take charge at Swindon in April, 1933. His parents were from Wiltshire.

The Robins were steady, sometimes impressive performers in the old Division Three (South) and Vizard The Wizard, as they called him in Swindon, moved to QPR in 1939 as secretary-manager. But the Second World War broke out before he had the chance to lead his new team in that same division.

He managed QPR for most of the war years but, on April 5, 1944, beat 99 other applicants to replace the legendary Major Frank Buckley at Wolves. Remarkably, the deal was that Vizard would look after both clubs for a while, at least until he was able to move to live in Wolverhampton after his wife, Clarice, completed her duties as the chief commander in the Auxiliary Territorial Services. Their daughter, Audrey, was a subaltern in the ATS.

What an appointment Vizard was! When League football recommenced in 1946-47, he led Wolves to third place in the top division, the side missing out on becoming champions only by losing at home to Liverpool on the last day of the season. The Merseysiders held off Stoke to win the title by a point.

Fifth place the following season seemingly wasn’t good enough for the Wolves directors because, on June 14, 1948, Charles Buchan in the News Chronicle reported this statement from them: “A difference of opinion between the board and the secretary-manager has arisen over the future policy of the club.” And that was that.

Enter his assistant, Stanley Cullis. And what did Stan inherit? Well, for starters, the core of the Wolves side of the late 1940s and early 1950s were signed by Vizard; Bert Williams, Bill Shorthouse, Billy Crook, Johnny Hancocks, Jesse Pye, Roy Swinbourne and Sammy Smyth. Quite the legacy!

But there was another Vizard appointment that is maybe even more important. Namely the legendary scout, George Noakes, who unearthed so much talent for the club.

And where did Ted Vizard go? In November, 1949, he accepted the job at Birmingham League club Cradley Heath. Hardly glamorous. And it wasn’t long before he took up the role as licensee of The Crown. I wish I had been old enough to share a jar with him.

Ted Vizard died on Christmas Day, 1973, at the age of 84.