Classic match report - Wolves 1 Villa 0, 1960

The Hawthorns was the setting in March 1960 when Wolves, league champions for two years in a row, were chasing an elusive double.

A buoyant atmosphere, complete with 'rattles, banners, coloured umbrellas, the lot' saw more than 56,000 pack into the home of Wolves and Villa's fierce rivals.

Norman Deeley was the match-winner, with the Sporting Star reporting that all Wolves supporters would toast the pint-sized Wednesbury-born hero.

Stan Cullis sprang a surprise with his line-up, selecting 19-year-old Gerry Mannion for his FA Cup debut on the right wing.

But Mannion was involved in the game's only goal, teeing up Jimmy Murray whose cross was palmed out to Deeley whose volley hit the back of the net.

In the other semi-final on the same day Blackburn Rovers beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 at Maine Road, with a certain Derek Dougan scoring both goals.

Wolves of course defeated Rovers in the final - but Burnley denied them the double as they pipped them to the league title.

Saturday March 26, 1960

Wolves 1 Aston Villa 0

Wolves are there! Deeley's goal wrote 'Finis' to Villa's FA Cup saga

It's Wembley for Wolves, for the first time since they won the FA Cup in 1949.

They are there as the result of the narrowest possible win in a semi-final of high tension against their old rivals, Aston Villa, at the Hawthorns, West Bromwich, on Saturday.

This was never a great game in the soccer sense but it was a keen one, and often breathtaking, and to tell the story from the point of view of both teams the "Express and Star" sent to the ground the two reporters, "commentator" and "observer", who have followed the cup progress of the teams respectively from the day in January when they began, Wolves at Newcastle and Villa against Leeds United. Here are their impressions.

Call is class, call it power, call it what you will. The fact remains that Wolves had something the Villa lacked to see them through.

There was a greater difference between the teams than the one-goal margin can indicate, and yet, such was the never-say-die attitude of Villa, it took a daredevil save by Finlayson not long before the end to prevent the embarrassment for Wolves of a replay.

But that was the sort of game it was, marked by the tension that puts the semi-finals in a class by themselves in the football calendar.

That was why it never reached the academic heights, but it was also the reason it remained such an exciting business almost from first to last.

Nothing doubtful about the shot

What turned out to be the moment of decision came in the 32nd minute.

A quickly developed right-wing sortie following a quick throw-in led to a half chance for Jimmy Murray.

He took it with a shot on the turn so fierce that Nigel Sims, leaping sideways, could only push the ball away. He pushed it right into the path of little Norman Deeley – the man who had been a doubtful starter – who, running in at full pelt, drove for the open goal with the gusto the occasion demanded.

And it was to the beginning of that goal-producing move one had to go to find the man who did more than anybody else to bring to Wolves line a little less tension than marked the Villa attack.

That man was Peter Broadbent. In this almost electric atmosphere he showed the touch of class needed to calm things down when everybody it seemed was prepared to tear around regardless.

No nerves and no frills

This made Broadbent one of the Wolves men of the match and, since we have come now to accept the excellence of Bill Slater as natural, one of the others who most impressed me was right-back George Showell.

Playing a direct game and dispensing with anything that even vaguely resembled a frill, he dealt so effectively with the menace of Peter McParland that he was beaten only once by the Villa winger who later moved into the middle.

There were two other Wolves players on whom it was felt manager Stan Cullis may have taken a gamble, but in both cases he was justified.

The biggest question, of course, related to young Gerry Mannion, a cup debutant thrown into the tension of a semi-final.

But nobody had cause to worry. There were no nerves from Mannion; instead there were signs of a maturity far beyond his years and experience.

The other was Malcolm Finlayson, whose inclusion was justified 12 minutes from the end when Wolves stretched their offside trap to breaking point, and left Bobby Thomson with a clear run for goal.

Then it was that Finlayson excelled. With a bravery that did him great credit, and at the cost of kicks on the thigh and chin, he dived on the ball as the Villa man was about to shoot and saved the situation – and the side.

If these were the Wolves individuals who impressed me particularly there was about the whole team a little extra ability that gave them the edge.

It was the all-round extra speed of action that was largely the undoing of Villa, whose forwards were that fraction too slow to take advantage of any opening they may have tried to engineer.

Thus were the limitations of the Villa attack exposed and with that accomplished Wolves were always on the way towards winning.

WOLVES: Finlayson, Clamp, Showell, Slater, Harris, Flowers, Mannion, Mason, Murray, Broadbent, Deeley.

VILLA: Sims, Lynn, Crowe, Dugdale, Neal, Saward, MacEwan, Thomson, Hitchens, Wylie, McParland.

Attendance: 56,400