“WITH Wolverhampton Wanderers, the League champions, and West Bromwich Albion, the cup holders, vying with each other for the First Division leadership, there is bound to be a big gate at Molineux.”

Many words will be written and spoken previewing Sunday’s Black Country derby, the 148th league meeting of the famous old rivals, but that sentence won’t be among them.

This weekend’s clash falls, like all in recent memory, into one of two categories: with the two clubs either scrapping for survival in or trying to scrap their way up to the Premier League.

But it was not always so.

Albion and Wolves fans of a certain vintage can recall days when their teams were right at the top of English football. Winning trophies and offering the lead for others to follow.

Just as the Manchester clubs are currently duelling for not only local but national supremacy, so, once did the Black Country neighbours.

Albion and Wolves were the top dogs. And never was their place at the peak of English football crystallised more vividly than when they met at Molineux in September 1954 in the Charity Shield.

Quite why the showpiece match was scheduled for a Wednesday night six weeks into the season, only the Football Association knew.

It was a strange decision, made even stranger by the fact that England were to play Northern Ireland in Belfast four days later so both teams were deprived of key men.

Wolves were without Billy Wright and Bill Slater and Albion missed Ray Barlow (for whom the Ireland match was to provide his solitary England cap) but that did not detract from the sense of anticipation surrounding the latest instalment of a great rivalry fuelled even further by the happy fact they were two great teams.

Wolves had just won the League for the first time. While Bert Williams excelled in goal behind Wright, Slater and Bill Shorthouse, at the other end of the pitch, three players shared 75 goals. Johnny Hancocks (the only ever-present) and Dennis Wilshaw scored 25 apiece and Roy Swinbourne 24.

Wolves had fought off a determined title challenge from the Baggies, over whom they completed the double, including a crucial 1-0 win at The Hawthorns in early April. Hancocks was devastating on the right wing all season with Jimmy Mullen almost as menacing on the left.

After more than 50 years trying, Wolves had landed the League title. Happy days. Albion, meanwhile, lifted the FA Cup for the fourth time after surviving titanic struggles in both semi-final and final. In the semi they needed a late penalty from Ronnie Allen to see off Third Division side Port Vale. In the final they overcame Preston 3-2 having trailed 2-1 before Allen equalised from the spot and Frank Griffin nabbed an 87th-minute winner.