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WATCH: Glory for Wolves at Wembley

It was a day when Wolves took on the best and won.

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Wolves, a great name from the past, upset the odds to beat Nottingham Forest at Wembley to win the League Cup.

Victory in front of a sell-out crowd of 100,000 at the Twin Towers shocked the footballing world.

So confident was ATV sports presenter Gary Newbon of a Forest win that he laid down an on-air bet to Wolves boss John Barnwell on the eve of the final of a crate of champagne if the Molineux men were to win.

Forest, led by the irrepressible and charismatic Brian Clough, were champions of Europe at the time and were six weeks away from retaining the crown.

They were also attempting to win the League Cup for a third consecutive time, something never achieved before at the time.

Although Wolves had one of the proudest histories in the game, Forest were the 'new kids on the block' and very much the team to beat.

Promoted with Wolves less than three years before in 1977, Clough led Forest on an unparalleled rise to the top of the game.

Crowned champions of England within a year of that promotion - pipping mighty Liverpool along the way - they won their first League Cup in the same season then retained it the following year when they were runners-up to the Reds in the league.

Clough had built a formidable team packed full of stars - England internationals Peter Shilton, Viv Anderson, Larry Lloyd, Trevor Francis and Garry Birtles and Scotland's Frank Gray and Kenny Burns, plus the hugely influential captain John McGovern.

Forest reinforced their reputations as firm favourites to retain the trophy by beating Liverpool in the two-legged semi-final, while Wolves overcame Third Division Swindon.

And if anyone doubted Forest, then the men from the East Midlands had their own mouthpiece in Clough to tell everyone just how good he and his team were.

Indeed, Forest even recorded a song 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands' with the inference that the manager could turn anything to gold.

Wolves enjoyed their own slice of the limelight as the team entered the recording studios to make the fondly-remembered ditty 'Wonderful Wolves', complete with new team photo taken at a frostbound Castlecroft training ground.

However they had fewer big names in their side than Forest and had initially struggled back at the top level which was to ultimately cost Sammy Chung his job before Barnwell's arrival in November 1978.

But that was all to change with the signings of big names Emlyn Hughes and Andy Gray after selling Steve Daley in a whirlwind of record-breaking transfer activity in September 1979 that turned the national spotlight back on Molineux after a period in the wilderness.

Yet if Barnwell's side lacked stardust, they made up for it with experience.

Hughes, the captain, was attempting to win the only cup to have eluded him in his trophy-laden 13-year spell at Liverpool.

Gray, Britain's most expensive footballer at £1,469,000 at the time, was the highest profile player in the Wolves team and he shared his billing as one of the only £1m players with the first, Francis.

As brave as they come, and in contrast to his fashionable blonde perm, the outspoken Scotland international was a warrior on the pitch and gave the team a swagger, focal point and immense presence.

As a teenage upstart at Villa, Gray had taken England by storm, becoming the first player ever to be voted PFA Young Footballer of the Year and Footballer of the Year in 1977, when he also helped the claret and blues to the League Cup.

Wolves had other vastly experienced players such as Derek Parkin and Willie Carr, who if not at the peak of their powers, were enjoying an Indian summer.

Supplemented by the youth and energy of players such as right-back Geoff Palmer, Peter Daniel - more of him later - and Mel Eves, Wolves quietly fancied their chances.

And if Newbon and the rest of the nation thought the final was a foregone conclusion, then Wolves fans believed otherwise.

Thousands of fans queued through the night for tickets around Molineux and around 50,000 eventually made the pilgrimage down from Wolverhampton, south Staffordshire and the Black Country.

Crammed into cars, coaches and special trains laid on by British Rail, they turned Wembley into a sea of gold and black to roar their team on.

Unlike the 1974 League Cup final against Manchester City which was a hugely entertaining game, this was totally different and it became a cautious affair with defences dominant.

Wolves boss Barnwell and assistant Richie Barker knew Forest's attacking riches needed shackling and they came up with a plan.

Knowing the chief source of danger was left winger John Robertson, Barnwell and Barker swapped central midfielder Peter Daniel and right-sided Kenny Hibbitt.

The tactical switch was subtle but would prove hugely effective.

Daniel had started his career as a right-back and in fact played in that position when he arrived as the club record £180,000 signing from Hull City almost two years earlier.

So the more naturally combative Daniel was an ideal companion to Geoff Palmer to help shackle Robertson as opposed to the more creative Hibbitt - and so it proved.

It may have made for a more defensively-minded game of few chances, but it was highly effective.

After a nervous start, Wolves settled into their stride and Daniel tested Shilton when he drove narrowly off target.

Forest created little but Wolves had to be alert and twice Palmer denied Birtles with keeper Paul Bradshaw committed.

But the Molineux men, picking up on a below-par Forest performance were slowly gaining in confidence.

A minute before the winner, a cross from Daniel saw the ball bobble into the net off the grounded John Richards over Shilton as Carr closed in.

Daniel was again the provider in the moment that followed which remains unforgettable in the minds of Wolves fans.

The bearded midfielder pumped a long ball forwards, Shilton and centre-half Dave Needham left it to each other and Gray strode forward to sidefoot home into the empty net to send the gold and black hordes delirious.

Gray sprinted behind the goal to celebrate and was quickly joined by his jubilant team-mates in a mass pile-on.

Order was soon resumed and Wolves faced an onslaught from Forest.

Gray ended up playing as a makeshift centre-back alongside Hughes and George Berry to try to keep out the attacks as Clough's side laid siege to Bradshaw's goal late on.

Palmer, Berry and Hughes made vital clearances to keep Wolves' lead intact.

But in Hughes they had a canny player and the late former Liverpool captain - who sadly died in November 2004 after a brain tumour - used his vast experience and savvy to keep them at bay and buy his team-mates the extra time they needed to draw breath.

In the end their determination paid off as the referee blew his whistle to signal relief and unbridled joy in the faces of the drained Wolves players and their jubilant fans, while Forest players sank to their knees on the Wembley turf in despair.

Hughes lifted the cup to the cheers of the Wolves fans, while many thousands of Forest fans had already left the ground in dismay - and the champers was on Newbon.

Wolves returned to Wolverhampton to parade the cup before huge crowds around the town and its suburbs.

The team went on to finish the season in sixth place, their highest since 1972-73, one place and one point below Forest.

But sadly, rather than the dawn of a new era, the trophy was to prove the pinnacle of success for this Wolves team.

And after finishing 18th the following season, they were relegated in 1982 and the club went bankrupt, signalling the spiral of despair that went on to see the club plummet from the First to the Fourth Division in successive years.

But the club's fall from grace - they are hopefully back on the right track now - only serves to make the memories of their last major trophy success on March 15, 1980 burn even brighter.

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