League Championship 60th anniversary: Stan Cullis made Wolves great

A name that comes to the lips of any Wolves fan as one of the greatest, the iconic figure managed the club through its most successful era, which saw the Molineux men win the first division three times, and the FA Cup twice.

He pulled on the old gold shirt 171 times during his 13-year playing career, which was interrupted during the Second World War, which lasted for six years.

He was first division runner-up twice and FA Cup runner-up once during his time on the pitch, but it was his time as the boss that saw the ‘Iron Manager’ earn his legendary status.

At the tender age of 31, Cullis took the reigns as Wolves manager in June 1948 after acting as assistant to Ted Vizard the year before.

In his first season in charge he became the youngest manager to win the FA Cup at Wembley when a double from Jesse Pye and a goal from Sammy Smyth defeated Leicester City 3-1, giving heroic captain Billy Wright the chance to lift the club’s first major trophy since 1908.

Cullis had brought Wolves back into the big time where they consistently challenged for titles.

They won the league title three times over the next decade and were runners-up on three other occasions.

Cullis’s first title success came in the 1953-54 season where the side overhauled bitter rivals West Brom to win the club’s first ever first division championship.

Two more league titles followed in back-to-back seasons from 1957 to 1959, the last time Wolves were top flight champions.

Cullis was etched in Molineux folklore already, and his side went desperately close to claiming a hat-trick of titles in the 1959-60 season, missing out to Burnley by just one point.

Although this was, of course, the year that Wolves won their fourth, and last, FA Cup.

It’s important to remember that during these glory years in the club’s history, Wolves were one of the pioneers of European football, under the guidance of Cullis.

They took on and defeated a Honved side, who were full of the Hungarian stars who hammered England 6-3 and 7-1 home and away, in 1954, before playing Spartak Moscow and Real Madrid in 1957 friendlies.

The victory over Honved, when they had trailed 2-0 before hitting back to win 3-2, lifted the a nation that was reeling from those defeats to Hungary and led the Daily Mail to pronounce Wolves as ‘Champions of the World’.

This all came before a period where Wolves began to struggle in the 1960s – which ultimately ended in Cullis’ sacking in September 1964.

Cullis gave 16 years of his life as Wolves manager, spending 29 years at the club as both a player and manager, making him the most decorated boss in the club’s history.

He was inducted into the English Football Hall Of Fame in 2003, two years after his death aged 84 and is remembered to this day with a statue outside the terraces of the ‘Stan Cullis Stand’ at Molineux.