Some fans went on the pitch thinking it was all over and thankfully it is now, writes Martin Swain.

While the exuberance at Molineux on Saturday may have been just a touch premature, it was surely forgivable.

Wolves have secured another season in the Premier League with two games remaining and there is not a supporter alive who would not have grabbed at that outcome when the team set off on its survival quest 36 games ago.

OK, we won’t be holding our breath for much of a presence in MotD’s April goal of the month competition but maybe that captures perfectly how this campaign has been fought by Mick McCarthy and his players – with a dogged persistence and a tenacity which were the very qualities the club wanted the manager to inject into Molineux when he was appointed in the chaotic summer of four years ago.

It was interesting to hear Delia Smith speaking after her club’s title triumph at the weekend a couple of levels below.

“This season in League One has taught me something,” she said. “Sometimes, when you are left picking up the leftovers from the Premier League, they do not have the hunger. I think whatever we try to do now, we shall try to do with the hungry players who have brought us back to the Championship.”

For Wolves 2006 read Norwich 2010. There will be those who seek to downgrade the Molineux club’s performance over the last eight months by pointing at the obvious frailties of those who have now fallen. Maybe Wolves were fortunate to be fighting for survival with a crisis-hit, always-doomed Portsmouth, fatally-flawed Hull and an inevitably weak Burnley around them.

But that is to deny the journey the club have undertaken since the Dave Jones era began the wasted, apathy-inducing 18 months that was Glenn Hoddle’s regime.

Wolves’ survival should not be viewed in the isolation of one campaign but as part of a four-year recovery process from that summer of genuine crisis since when the club has put itself back together again. There have been times, even this season, when the itchy-trigger culture of the day have attempted to persuade chairman Steve Morgan to fire a few bullets but, thankfully and commendably, Wolves have stayed rock solid on and off the pitch.

So well done to all at Molineux. It is only a pity that the merciless, unrelenting demands of this division they have safely negotiated means the 3Ms can allow themselves about three-and-a-half minutes of self-congratulation before starting planning to defend their hard-earned status.

P.S. Moving on swiftly from PA announcer Jason Forrest’s gaffe in introducing Des Horne as Des Holmes during the parade of the 1960 FA Cup winners on Saturday, the appearance of the trophy at Molineux allowed one fan to fulfill a lifelong dream long after the ground had emptied.

After Morgan and his family had enjoyed having their pictures taken with the famous old silverware, who was that one-time starry-eyed youngster caught holding it aloft in the classic, time-honoured pose and imagining Molineux to be full to applaud the sight?

Yep, Robert Plant remains a Wolves nut down to his toes. “I’ll never get the chance to do this again!” shouted the stadium-packing Zep star.