The story of Wolves’ old gold shirts 70 years on from special Honved match
An iconic feature of Wolves’ most famous game, the 1954 victory over Honved, was the shiny gold satin shirts worn by Stan Cullis’s team, writes Steve Gordos.
Yet, contrary to urban myth, they were not specially commissioned for the series of floodlit games, highlight of which was the 3-2 win over the Hungarian maestros on December 13, 70 years ago.
Wolves decided to experiment with “luminous” gold shirts in the winter of 1951, aware that the old gold they wore in those days was not easily visible on dark winter afternoons. Floodlights were not permitted in Football League or FA Cup games at the time so Wolves thought the brighter shirts would be a good idea.
The shirts were first used in the second half of the game against Charlton at Molineux on Saturday, November 24, 1951. It was an ideal day to test the new shirts as the weather was dull and it rained throughout the match. The shirts were supposed to be gold but the Birmingham Gazette did not go along with that as it reported: “In the second half of the game against Charlton Wolves players tried out a device for finding one another in the gloom of a dark November day. They wore yellow fluorescent shirts and they shone out like fireflies.”
