Johnny Phillips: Wolves legend Bill Slater, great footballer and an even greater man

I hope Bill Slater knew how revered he was. Three league titles and an FA Cup with Wolves – won during one of the most exciting decades in English football – and a World Cup finals with England, mark him out as a player of great pedigree.

But the measure of the man could be found just as much in his humility off the pitch.

So many supporters and former players have been paying tribute to the club’s great half back this week, since his death at the age of 91 was announced.

But, if you will forgive the family indulgence, he also left an indelible mark on the person who brought Wolves into my life.

The Wolves of the 1950s must have been an incredible side to watch. Slater was a stalwart of the great Wolves team that attracted my dad because of its name, the unique old gold and black kit, the European floodlit friendlies and, of course, the success.

The photograph of Slater, hoist aloft the shoulders of Ron Flowers and Peter Broadbent, lifting the 1960 FA Cup at Wembley, is one of the most iconic images in the club’s history.

The Wolves of 1959/60 finished just one point away from securing a league and Cup double. What a joy it must have been to live through that period as a supporter.

Slater also formed part of a Wolves half-back trio, alongside the similarly commanding Billy Wright and Eddie Clamp, at the 1958 World Cup. It is incredible to think that he was only ever a semi-professional footballer, combining his time at Wolves with his role as a physical education lecturer at Birmingham University.

When my dad was furthering his own studies at Liverpool University in the mid 1960s, he would come face to face with the man he once loved watching on the terraces. Slater was by now director of physical education at Liverpool University, a post that would now bear the title of sports science.

As well as his academic post, Slater was also warden of McNair Hall of Residence and turned out for their student team in the Halls League every week, at centre-half. He had a reputation for never crossing the halfway line unless McNair were losing. My dad’s team, one of the university Sunday League teams, came up against McNair one afternoon and, with five minutes to go, were leading one nil.

Predictably, Slater came up for a last gasp corner and waited outside the box. The ball was cleared straight to him. Seeing my dad, not the tallest of full backs, standing on the line he chipped it straight over his head into the top corner. One-all and honour saved.

There was another Wolves fan in my dad’s team that day. At the end of the game the two students introduced themselves to Slater who, to their amazement, invited them to his living quarters at the hall for a drink.

There they spent the whole evening talking about the great Wolves teams of the 1950s, and particularly about manager Stan Cullis.

By the mid 1960s, Wolves were in decline. It was personified by the sacking in 1964 of Cullis, in what seemed like brutal circumstances, after 16 years as manager.

Slater had lots of stories to tell of the great nights at a wonderful club. But what stuck in my dad’s memory was the account he gave of Cullis and his style of management.

There was huge admiration for his achievements but also a revealing account of a strict disciplinarian who, in his search for better effort, could humiliate these great players.

After a poor performance, he would point to a boot boy and scream at his first team international player that the boot boy had more skill in his little toe than the first teamer had in his whole body. It was a harsh environment but it brought success. Ultimately, Cullis did not move with the changing times.

The sadness of it all was that when Cullis’s time was up there was no way of changing the guard with dignity, Slater said.

There was nowhere upstairs for him to go, no equivalent of the ambassadorial role invented since then.

To be shipped out of the club with an ignominious sacking was the only route open in those days. No way of rewarding the club’s greatest ever manager for all that he had done for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

During my childhood, ‘The day dad met Bill Slater’ would come up in conversation from time to time.

Slater was the first player’s name from the past that entered my head. Growing up, it would have an almost mythical resonance in my imagination.

On hearing of Slater’s passing this week, I asked my dad what stood out about his character on that day more than 50 years ago that remains so vivid in his memory today.

“He was just intelligent and frank about things,” he said.

We were undergraduates and he treated us with respect, and appreciated we were Wolves fans. We spoke about so much; the nature of management and leadership. He was thoughtful and reflective.

“We were sitting at the feet of someone who had captained Wolves to great success, had played in a World Cup, and he just seemed to be enjoying the conversation.”

More than half-a-century later, my dad has never forgotten the day he met one of his childhood idols and found a man of great humility.

Bill Slater. A real gentleman.