On the photo below, take a look at the player one in from the far left on the same row as the goalkeepers. Charles Bamforth certainly did, again and again. Identifying him was a challenge but, once more, our man near America’s west coast came up with answers…..
One man on the accompanying Wolves squad picture from 1960, posted on this site some weeks ago, was a real puzzler.
Thankfully, help was at hand and I posed this question to our friend Vic Povey: “Who is the guy stood between Des Horne and John Kirkham?”
The Truro-based former Wolves right-winger responded as quick as a flash: “That’s Tommy McMullan. And look at where he is stood. Horne to one side, Eddie Stuart behind his right shoulder, Cliff Durandt in front of him and to his left. The four South Africans. I bet Eddie persuaded Joe Gardiner to let him in on this photo. Tommy wasn’t even a second team player!”
McMullan, a 20-year-old centre-forward, had signed for Wolves in July, 1960, probably around the time the photo was taken. He came from Benoni United some 15 miles east of Johannesburg for a fee reputed to be all of £200. He was apparently the first South African player ever to be transferred overseas for a fee.
The Benoni chairman was quoted as saying that Wolves wanted two other players as well but ‘we wanted more than £1,000 for each’, so the decision-makers at Molineux went with the low-cost option.
It seems that several other clubs wanted Tommy but the player was reported to have said: “I wanted to come to Wolves. They have a big reputation back home and there are three South Africans already here.”
McMullan played his first game in the famous gold and black on the opening afternoon of the 1960-61 campaign – in the fourth team in the Worcestershire Combination. It was a 6-0 thrashing of Allens Cross, from the south-west of Birmingham. Tommy contributed one of the goals, with the others coming from Terry Wharton (2), Arthur Hodgetts (2) and Ken Sill.
Freddie Goodwin in his fresh-faced youth at Molineux.
Other notable team-mates that day were Bobby Thomson at right-back, half-backs Fred Goodwin, David Woodfield and Ken Knighton, and Graham Newton on the left wing.
The strength of the team was partly on account of there being no third-team game that day. The Midland Intermediate League season kicked off the following Saturday with a 3-0 defeat of Birmingham at Castlecroft, with goals from David Read, Sill and McMullan.
Thomson, Goodwin, Woodfield, Knighton, Sill, McMullan and Hodgetts were all in that team, as well as Scottish goalkeeper John Shanley. Vic Cockcroft was at left-back, Slipper Read on the right flank and Ken Hodge was on the left wing. The latter was highly promising and on the books of my local club, Skelmersdale United, just before they went on to FA Amateur Cup excellence. Hodge played a few trial games for the Wolves A and B teams and was also catching the eye of Everton and Manchester Unted but never made it into a League club and went on to give good service to Skem’s neighbours, Burscough.
Back to McMullan. He was soon pushed out of the third team by a strapping centre-forward brought down from the Yorkshire nursery side, Wath Wanderers. John Galley started smashing in the goals and the South African was forced to ply his trade in the B side. But his return there of 11 goals from 15 appearances was creditable.
Vic Povey in action against Hong Kong in Sydney in 1967.
Let’s head to September 19, 1960, and a game at Castlecroft in which Wolves turned Shelfield Athletic over 3-1. The match report from the Sunday Mercury notes that John Doughty and Povey scored the first two Wolves goals and McMullan got the third close to the end. But one player got a special mention: Ball, the Wolves inside-left, who ‘produced some good football but could not score’.
That of course was a little red head, like Hodge from Lancashire. Unlike Hodge, though, he did go on to play a fair bit of senior football. It was Alan Ball.
Others in the Wolves side that day included keeper Trevor Edwards, who had previously been on Albion’s books and who in 1960-61 was the last line in the Wolves FA Youth Cup side alongside Thomson, Price, Goodwin, Woodfield, Knighton, Povey, Sill, Galley, Hodgetts and Alan Hinton, the latter being a regular in the second team and soon to make his first-team bow.
Edwards, like McMullan, never played in the reserves in the Central League side and switched to Stourbridge. He fared well there, attracting major interest in 1962-63. A trial at Exeter, whose manager was the ex-Wolves keeper Cyril Spiers, fell foul of the terrible weather that winter. Tottenham were also keen but nothing came of it.
Back to that team who faced Shelfield Athletic. Right-back was Michael Booth, a Mansfield Boys player good enough to represent The North in a trial match to assist the selection process for England Schoolboys. But this was Booth’s only game in a gold shirt.
Roger Price at left-back was an amateur who could also play inside-forward. In fact, the last game he played for Wolves was in the crushing 5-0 Youth Cup defeat at Stoke in November. He had been a regular in the fourth team and we can only suppose that Mr Cullis was none too pleased to see his youngsters slaughtered.
The Staffordshire Sentinel reported that Price picked up a first-half injury, adding that ‘this made little or no difference to the outcome’. Ouch! Price, known as ‘Podger’, went on to play for Allen’s Cross, Stourbridge, Alvechurch and Moor Green.
At left-half was Bob Wickett, a strapping lad from Erdington who was in the 1959 Birmingham County Boys team from whom Wolves also picked up Thomson and Woodfield (as well as Roger Mould, Malcolm Allsopp and Gerry Kendrick).
Wickett gave up on Wolves after two years as an amateur and approached Villa for a trial which led to nothing. And partnering Ball on the left was Ray Brennan, himself a native of Blackpool, who proceded to play League football for Barrow and, without first-team appearances, at Blackburn and Norwich.
Ball played the next two Worcestershire Combination games, a 3-0 win at Bournville and a 2-1 home defeat to Paget Rangers. McMullan was in the no 9 shirt for both. But Ball was let go, with some saying he was told he should make a career as a jockey.
Cliff Durandt….a natural ally for Tommy McMullan.
McMullan remained until the season’s end and, in the following season after stints with Kidderminster and Stourbridge, he headed back to his homeland alongside former Wolves centre-half Peter Russell.
But he was lucky to be alive to do that. On June 14, 1961, he and Cliff Durandt were in a car that overturned on the Wolverhampton to Bridgnorth Road at Shipley. Durandt – a first-teamer of course – dislocated a shoulder while Tommy received severe bruising and cuts around the face. The car was a write-off. Stan Cullis was surely displeased because Alan Hinton was also in a serious crash a few weeks earlier.
It was a formidable challenge for anyone to get through the ranks at Molineux with so much talent around, whether it was professional, groundstaff, amateur or the incessant flow of promising youngsters, including those from the Wath Wanderers nursery side.
McMullan, then, departed. Galley was thriving, 15-year-old Clive Ford was starting to appear and, soon afterwards, a young man by the name of Peter Knowles came along.