Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, commonly known as ''Wolves F.C.'', is an English professional
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
club. The club played its first match in 1877 as ''St Luke's F.C.'', after being formed by pupils of a school in
Blakenhall
Blakenhall is a suburb and ward in Wolverhampton, England.
Toponymy and history
Blakenhall's name, according to toponymists comes from the Old English 'blæc', meaning 'black' or dark coloured, & 'halh' meaning 'nook' or 'corner'. It was deve ...
,
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...
bearing this name. Two years later they merged with the local cricket and football club ''The Wanderers'' to become ''Wolverhampton Wanderers''.
After competing in numerous local league and cup competitions during its formative years, the club became a founder member of
The Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
, the first professional league in global association football, in 1888.
The club has won a total of thirteen "major" trophies, including the
League Championship three times, the
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
four times, the
League Cup
In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...
twice and the
FA Charity/Community Shield four times. Wolves have also featured in
UEFA competitions
UEFA competitions (french: competitions de l'UEFA), referred improperly by the mass media as European football, are the set of tournaments organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), generally in professional and amateur asso ...
during seven seasons; their best performance coming in 1972 when they were runners-up in
the inaugural UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...
. They have also had successes in less high-profile cup competitions such as the
Texaco Cup
The Texaco Cup, officially known as the International League Board Competition, was an association football competition started in 1970, involving sides from England, Scotland, and Ireland that had not qualified for European competitions.
It wa ...
and the Football League Trophy (''now'' the
EFL Trophy
The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Le ...
).
This list details the club's performance at first team level in league and cup competitions and the top scorers for each season since their first entry into the FA Cup in 1883–84.
Seasons
Key
*Pld – Matches played
*W – Matches won
*D – Matches drawn
*L – Matches lost
*GF – Goals for
*GA – Goals against
*Pts – Points
*Pos – Final position
*Prem –
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
*Champ –
EFL Championship
The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...
*Lge 1 –
EFL League One
The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...
*FL –
Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
*Div 1 –
Football League First Division
The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...
*Div 2 –
Football League Second Division
The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third ti ...
*Div 3 –
Football League Third Division
The Football League Third Division was the third tier of the English football league system in 1920–21 and again from 1958 until 1992. When the FA Premier League was formed, the division become the fourth tier level. In 2004, following the f ...
*Div 3(N) –
Football League Third Division North
The Third Division North of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division South with clubs elected to the League or relegated
In sports leagues, promotion and ...
*Div 4 –
Football League Fourth Division
The Football League Fourth Division was the fourth-highest division in the English football league system from the 1958–59 season until the creation of the Premier League prior to the 1992–93 season. Whilst the division disappeared in name ...
*PR – Preliminary round
*GS – Group stage
*R1 – Round 1
*R2 – Round 2
*R3 – Round 3
*R4 – Round 4
*R5 – Round 5
*R32 – Round of 32
*R16 – Round of 16
*QF – Quarter-finals
*SF – Semi-finals
*AF – Area finals
*RU – Runners-up
*W – Winners
Notes
References
*
{{Lists of English football seasons
Seasons
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...