A fixture that goes back to the very dawn of English footballing time itself. Now it's back as a league fixture for the first time in more than five years, and in front of fans at Molineux since 2012. It was first contested as a league game in December 1888 - the very first season of the Football League - when Wolves won 2-1.
However, Albion had already won their first two meetings, in 1886 and 1887, both in the FA Cup. Since then, there have been so many derby memories, both magic and tragic at opposite ends of the emotional scale. And, since the explosion of televised football, so many of those moments captured on video to be relived - or mentally erased depending on your allegiance - over and over again.
It's a fixture that the Black Country never stops talking about, the first the fans look for when the sides are in the same division. And the pre-match banter begins earlier with every staging - and every look back at all those derby highlights from the past 40 years. Steve Bull's first derby goal in 1989, a toothlessly grinning Iwan Roberts' Hawthorns hat-trick in 1996, George Ndah's double on the back of an inspired Keith Andrews performance in 2001 and two-goal Steven Fletcher's matchwinning efforts in May 2011 to help keep Mick McCarthy's side in the Premier League.
For Albion, there was Darren Bradley's 35-yard screamer in 1993, Bob Taylor's late Hawthorns clincher in 1995, Jordao's Molineux matchwinner in December 2001, the season when Albion pipped Wolves for promotion by three points, and Carlos Vela's injury-time equaliser in Roy Hodgson's first game in charge in 2011. Wolves legends plead for calm ahead of derby Wolves and Albion issue warning over derby disorder February 2012. A day when Peter Odemwingie netted a hat-trick and a slightly older Andrews rubbed it in by scoring against his old club.
Wolves were ripped apart and boss McCarthy lost his job the next day. Sunday's game is the first chance since when a 'gold and black' Molineux crowd will have been there to see their team try to avenge that day of great gloating from the 'stars in stripes'. Wolves, relegated at the end of that campaign, just as they were again in May, have since spent eight seasons in the top flight, to Albion's seven - but only once at the same time.
That was the post-Covid season of 2020-21, when both derbies were played behind closed doors - and the Baggies took four points out of a possible six off their neighbours, but still got relegated. It all adds up to why this Sunday's meeting is so important. The first chance to truly avenge that 5-1 embarrassment - Wolves' joint second-worst in a Black Country derby, bettered only by an 8-0 home defeat in 1894, way back in the latter days of Queen Victoria's reign.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
