'The Good, The Bad And The History' is a new feature on Wolves Official Website looking at life at Wolves - past and present - from a different angle.  We heard last week from new guest columnist Steve Kindon, and still to come we'll be putting Wolves current players 'In the Hotseat' to answer your questions and will also be asking for supporters' memories of Wolves in a 'Fans of the Month' feature.  We are also delighted that renowned local journalist and footballing author Steve Gordos is to pen a monthly column for which the subject matter will be wide-ranging.  With Wolves preparing for their latest battle with Blackburn at Ewood Park on Saturday, the first instalment of 'The Gordos Files' looks back at perhaps the most famous meeting of all between the two clubs - and how in his view history has started to be re-written.....

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I was tempted the other day to search out my DVD of the 1960 FA Cup final. 

 

No, I am not living in the past nor was I prompted by a desire to check if nostalgia is what it used to be.

 

The remarks of a certain Dave Whelan were what prompted me to take a trip down memory lane.

 

One of the defining moments of that May day when Wolves beat Blackburn Rovers 3-0 was the injury to Whelan - and his recollection of it certainly does not coincide with mine.

 

The Rovers left-back broke his left leg in an innocuous tussle for the ball with Wolves right-winger Norman Deeley. Well, that's how I remember it and I was at the game.

 

Whelan sees it differently, very differently, which is why I wanted to check if my memory was playing tricks.

 

I found the DVD - right next to my copy of Fifty Great Stoke Throw-ins - and quickly fast-forwarded to the Deeley-Whelan incident.

 

At both normal speed and in slow motion I could see nothing malicious. What a pity that Whelan, now the well-respected chairman of Wigan Athletic, does not recall it that way. Far from it.

 

With his autobiography newly published, Whelan was interviewed on Five Live radio by Simon Mayo and was adamant he had been victim of an over-the-ball tackle.

 

Whelan told Mayo: "Norman Deeley was a tough cookie and I had just given him a little going-over and I knew I would get something back because he was that kind of guy. 

 

"He wouldn't put up with anybody kicking him and not having a go back.

 

"Within five minutes the ball came between the pair of us. I got the ball and he got me. He came over the ball, there was no question about that. I'm not blaming him, by the way, it's a tough game and it was a tough tackle. I do not blame Norman Deeley. It was fifty-fifty and he came out on top on that one."

 

One thing is clear: Whelan did give Deeley a "little going over" as he called it in that earlier incident.

 

He continued with his foot up in a tackle on Deeley well after the Wolves man had parted with the ball. It would have been a certain yellow card today. The winger needed treatment after that one.

 

The tackle which saw Whelan injured was entirely different. As the ball came between them, both led with their right foot and Deeley's seemed to be first to connect with the ball.

 

However, Whelan's left leg seemed to stick in the lush Wembley turf and Deeley could not avoid colliding with that leg.

 

 

Some put it down to the "Wembley Hoodoo" which had seen a succession of injuries on Wembley's big day, notably Arsenal's Walley Barnes in 1952, Bolton's Eric Bell in 1963, Manchester City's Jimmy Meadows in 1955, City's Bert Trautmann the following season, Manchester United keeper Ray Wood in 1958 and Nottingham Forest's Roy Dwight in 1959.

 

Newspaper reports on the 1960 final were unanimous in saying it was an accident and Wolves inside-forward Peter Broadbent, interviewed in the dressing room exclusively by the News of the World afterwards said: "Ronnie Clayton, Blackburn Rovers' skipper, has just been in to offer his congratulations to us and we all agreed that it was the purest accident that put Dave Whelan out of the game."

 

No less a publication than The Official FA Yearbook wrote in its report for the final: "Two minutes later came Whelan's injury, sustained in a harmless looking tackle with Deeley."

 

There was not the slightest suggestion that Deeley had gone over the ball. The only thing that seems to be over the top is Whelan's assessment of the incident. A few years ago he even compared it to the horror tackle by Chelsea's Michael Essien on Liverpool's Dietmar Hamann.

 

It would seem to be a case of everyone is out of step expect Whelan and it is a pity that the man who has done as much for Wigan as Sir Jack Hayward did for Wolves should sully the memory of a great little player like Deeley.

 

 

I am not naïve enough to suggest that Wolves did not have a tough cookie or two in their 1960 line-up but Norman Deeley, all 5ft 5ins of him, was not among them. Sadly, he is no longer with us to defend his good name.

 

No doubt the allegations about the incident are repeated in Whelan's new book so those who were not at Wembley that day may well believe he was indeed the victim of a bad tackle. Those of us who were there, whether Wolves fans or not, know he has got it wrong.

 

However, it is not too late for him to take a look at the DVD and perhaps, having done so, apologise for doing Deeley down.

 

He can borrow my copy, if he wants.