Arsenal has never been a happy Wolves hunting ground - except for the Molineux class of 1979

 It’s not been a happy hunting ground over the last half a century, with some notable exceptions. Paul Berry looks back, with the help of a couple of club legends.

It’s just over five years since the surreal and nearly horrific night at the Emirates Stadium when Raul Jimenez suffered a sickening injury after a clash of heads with David Luiz.

Time seemed to stand still as Wolves’ Mexican frontman was knocked unconscious and, in the concerned and almost distressed silence of a Covid-affected fixture played without supporters, was treated on the pitch for ten minutes before being whisked off to hospital.

Thankfully Jimenez went on to make a full recovery, returning to score goals for Wolves, Mexico and now Fulham, still going strong in the Premier League at the age of 34.

Somehow the Wolves team that November night overcame the trauma of what happened to their hugely popular talisman to win the game 2-1, thanks to goals from Pedro Neto and Daniel Podence.

That took the team into seventh in the table, with five wins from their first ten, whilst Arsenal sat 14th, speculation growing over Mikel Arteta’s future after just a year at the helm.  It was their worst start to a season since 1981. And one of Wolves’ best. How times have changed.   Arsenal now sit astride the summit of the Premier League table, with Wolves propping things up at the bottom. 

That eerie November night provided a rare win for Wolves in the red and white corner of North London. Their only one of the last 16, a run which also featured four draws and 11 defeats.

To be fair, Wolves run at Molineux hasn’t been much better, a Mel Eves winner in 1978 the prelude to a sequence of 10 winless fixtures on home soil, of which only one was drawn, until a 3-1 success in 2019.

“I remember meeting Joao Moutinho after that game as Wolves had finally won again at Molineux – what a lovely guy,” Eves recalled this week.

Back then to life on the road. And Wolves’ trips to Arsenal.

Given that the win five years ago came during footballing lockdown, it remains a very long time since Wolves downed the Gunners away from home in front of any supporters.

Forty-six years to be precise.

But if the current Wolves crop need any inspiration to try and produce a seismic shock at the Emirates on Saturday evening, then maybe it can be found in the class of ‘79.

Wolves had won once at Arsenal in the decade up until 1979, in one of just five third place play-offs for the FA Cup, a fixture at Highbury at the start of the 1973/74 season after both had been beaten in the semi-finals of the competition the previous campaign.

That was a game which provided a debut for a certain young full back by the name of Geoff Palmer, who would later become one of the gang of four – along with John Richards, Kenny Hibbitt and Derek Parkin – to win both the 1974 and 1980 League Cup finals with Wolves.

“I’ve still got the little tankard we received for winning that play-off,” Richards recalls.

But sitting around a table at Oxley Park Golf Club, it is clear that as good as that Wolves team was in the 1970s, they knew Arsenal - who won the league and cup double at the decade’s start - were always such a strong force in opposition.

“They were one of the big teams of that period with some fantastic players,” Richards explains.

“Players such as Peter Storey, Liam Brady, Pat Jennings in goal – they were such a strong outfit especially in the cup competitions.”

“Arsenal were one of the best sides around at the time,” added Hibbitt.

“To be honest, they were a pain in the butt, just like Tottenham, for some of the results we had against them.