Tram honour for Wolves favourite

Today’s unveiling of a tram named in honour of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ football legend Billy Wright could not have come soon enough for Wolves fans taking the Metro to the city to watch matches at Molineux.

Baggies’ hero Jeff Astle’s tram has been running since  July but today the ex-England captain’s Wolves team-mates Malcolm Finlayson, Roy Swinbourne, George Showell, Bobby Mason and Bill Slater, took the newly christened tram, – running without a name for seven months – from Potters Lane depot, Wednesbury to Wolverhampton St Georges.

They joined guests of honour Vicky and Kelly Wright, Billy’s daughter and granddaughter. The reunion was a treat for retired milkman Derek Horton, who won an Express & Star competition to drive the tram between Wednesbury Great Western Street and Wednesbury Parkway.

The father of three, 67, of Ivetsy Bank Road, Bishops Wood, brought old programmes from matches he attended as a child and asked the players to sign.

 He said: “Billy Wright was my hero and it’s been wonderful to see some of the team together again. I think my programmes set them off on a little trip down memory lane.”

Billy’s daughter, Vicky, 49, a singer like her mother Joy Beverley, said she was overwhelmed by the love people in Wolverhampton still had for her father 14 years after his death on September 3, 1994. She said: “He would have been very proud and I know he’s looking down with the biggest smile on his face.” On the tram she got a phone call from her mother, 81, who asked to have the phone held up so the players could say hello to her. “She sends her love to everyone in Wolverhampton”, Miss Wright said.