Stadium

History of the stadium

The Wolverhampton Wanderers stadium, Molineux, has been the Black Country club’s base since 1889 and is among the oldest to host a current Premier League side.

Wolves moved into Molineux as their second permanent stadium having first resided at Dudley Road from 1881. While the club even started out by playing on two strips of land in the city centre in their first four years in existence. But Molineux has been the stadium for Wolves’ greatest achievements.

Molineux opened its doors for the first time in 1889 as Wolves made the first purpose-built stadium for a Football League club. It was not long before the West Midlands outfit started redeveloping the site, either. Wolves began the construction of a main stand in 1923 after buying the land around the site.

Further redevelopment works followed with Wolves opening the Molineux Street Stand in 1932 and redesigning the end terraces in 1935. But it was not before 1975 that Wolves began to upgrade the facilities again with safety requirements necessitating further changes to the Molineux Street Stand.

The financial demands for rebuilding the Molineux Street Stand nearly bankrupted Wolves and they could not afford the work needed to keep other parts of the stadium up to standard over the 1980s. But the arrival of Sir Jack Hayward as owner in the 1990s brought Wolves, and building works, back.

Hayward brought Wolves back from the brink to redevelop Molineux

Hayward financed the demolition of the three remaining terraces as Wolves welcomed in a new-look Molineux as their stadium. While work started in 2010 on a £40m project to redevelop the ground to fill in the corners whilst replacing the Stan Cullis and Steve Bull stands with new two-tier structures.

Wolves also announced further plans to redevelop Molineux in 2019 to take the stadium’s capacity up from 32,050 to 50,000. The club’s owners, Fosun, also commissioned renders to indicate what the changed Steve Bull and Billy Wright stands would look like alongside a single-tier South Bank stand.

But other than the introduction of rail seating, wholesale changes to Molineux have only remained as blueprints. Wolves put all plans to redevelop the stadium on the backburner after the pandemic owing to the likely £46m bill for rebuilding the Steve Bull and South Bank stands, per Birmingham Live.

How to get to Molineux

Fans can get to Molineux with ease owing to Wolves’ stadium being located in the centre of the city of Wolverhampton. Its location also ensures public transport links to the ground are in high supply. Train connections into Wolverhampton station leave supporters with a seven-minute walk to the ground.

There is also a bus stop outside of Molineux which also services the National Express West Midlands service numbers 3, 4 and 5. While the Wolverhampton St George’s metro station is a 10-minute walk from the ground. There are also a few official club-partnered and nearby pay-and-display car parks.

Stadium tour info

Wolves run tours of Molineux for fans wishing to see behind the scenes of the club’s stadium. There is also a museum at the ground dedicated to the history of the club which is priced at £5 per person.

There are a clutch of types of tours of Molineux, meanwhile, with Wolves offering standard, VIP and afternoon tea. Standard tours run on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and include access to the club’s museum. While a Wolves legend guides the VIP tours and also speaks on their own spell at the club.

Wolves also run inclusive tours once a month that are designed for guests with accessible needs. The afternoon tea tour, meanwhile, features afternoon tea in Sir Jack’s Restaurant on certain weekends.

Address

Molineux: Molineux Stadium, Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton, WV1 4QR