No-one will forget the day they brought the Championship trophy to Molineux. No-one will remember the game that came with it.

Wolves did their best to produce a performance befitting the formal crowning of the Championship’s best team but they never stood a chance.

Rarely has Molineux looked more golden and rarely can a 90 minutes involving Wolves have occupied such a secondary place on the day’s schedule for their flag-waving supporters.

The bonus of a single winning goal for the champions from Richard Stearman in injury time gave the season its perfect conclusion but this was a match to remind us that football without meaning is not football at all.

Instead, fans found themselves ticking down the minutes to the moment they had really come for, the presentation of the very same Championship trophy last clutched by Billy Wright 50 years ago, and nothing in the game could come close to distracting their anticipation.

This is not to chide Mick McCarthy’s players at all. Their work has been long done and a pretty impressive body of work it is too. Yesterday’s victory saw them finish with 90 points, 80 goals and 27 wins a little more than a year after they were ran off their feet at Molineux by an Albion side en route to the same championship.

Their neighbours rightly received much critical acclaim for the merits of their season but it comes up short in the measure of this Wolves title campaign – nine fewer points, four fewer victories and just eight goals more by an Albion team lauded for its splendid attacking football.

Having posted such an impressive set of statistics in claiming the cherished top prize in the division, it was a tribute to the competitive core and proud heartbeart of this Wolves team that they displayed typical stubborness yesterday against a relaxed Doncaster revelling the opportunity for a rare appearance in the spotlight.

And the goal which would win the game had the stamp of some of the mainstream qualities which have sent Wolves surging over the finishing line while their rivals were fretting and faltering.

A corner forced by the tireless chasing of Karl Henry, a feature of his leadership from midfield this season; played short to a team-mate in Stephen Ward, who has delivered a campaign of under-stated excellence from what might otherwise have been a problem position for McCarthy; a powerful scoring header from Ward’s cross by Stearman, just one of any number of promising young recruits who have re-energized the club.

It was also fitting that two thirds of this combination – Henry and Stearman – are the local lads in McCarthy’s assembly, Wolves born and bred and perhaps more capable than their colleagues of tuning into just how much this has all meant to supporters who have craved a day like yesterday for too long.

Their previous promotion to the Premier League came via the play-offs, a much more dramatic ascent but one lacking the demolition job on the rest of the Championship this Wolves team has performed.

And since 2003, they have had to play second fiddle to their neighbours, who have conjured two more promotions and dominated the derbies crammed in between.

Wolves fans will see what the Premier League has made of Albion and be cautioned not to get as carried away with their prospects as they did last time.

But, undoubtedly, there is a more bullish vision at the top of the club as owner Steve Morgan, given a rapturous reception as he strode out to the centre circle to address the throng, made clear in his programme notes.

Morgan generously led an ovation for his guest in the directors box, Sir Jack Hayward, who he joked had now offered to buy back the club for £20 and give Merseyside’s biggest Wolves fan a 100 per cent return on his investment.

“I’ve told him £20 million, £20 billion would not buy back the club now.

“This is the proudest football day of my life,” said Hayward’s successor.

He means it too.

And that will ensure that there will be none of the financial hesitancy which effectively relegated Wolves before a ball had been kicked six years ago.

The team will need strengthening and the key figures did not need to see Wolves chugging through the motions and emotions yesterday to realise that.

But, unquestionably, McCarthy has fostered a willpower within his squad to complement the flashes of quality and potential.

It ensured that, at critical times, they refused to yield when Doncaster got through – a marvellous Jody Craddock challenge to deny James Hayter a first half goal summed up the club captain’s season. The same Doncaster player was later thwarted at point-blank range by a Wayne Hennessey save which was of the highest class.

McCarthy had all but apologised in advance for the tone of his team’s performance, knowing how difficult his men would find it to inject any intensity into their work.

But no-one cared even though a Kevin Foley shot turned away by veteran Neil Sullivan was their only effort of note before they somehow found a winning goal.

By then, the air of celebration had moved up a gear with the return as a late substitute of a player whose season-long absence has not lessened his standing as a folk-idol with supporters.

A thundering ovation was given to George Elokobi, another raw player of enormous potential who made it back into action for the first time since his August injury nightmare.

He is probably still smiling about it today.

He won’t be the only one.

By Martin Swain.