For the first half of this decade the club was obviously hit by the attendant tragedies of a world war, but there was some football played.  In addition to friendlies, we entered the Alfred Bird Cup and in the first round in 1940 were drawn against Wolvehampton Gas.  Because of the peculiar circumstances existing at that time, the Gas team consisted of nine Wolves players and Jack Rowley of Manchester United!  We did extremely well to only be defeated by three goals to nil.  In the next round the Gas team had lost all their "guest" players and were themselves defeated by ten goals to nil!  Another wartime fixture of note was against the full Wolves reserve side at Molineux.  Although many players remembered the game well, they were not too keen on revealing the result, but dark mutterings of a ten-nil defeat were bounded about!

There are many stories of Old Wulfs fixing themselves up with games of football all over the globe during the war.  One of the most interesting of these concerned Eric Blakemore.  Eric was playing a game in Mombassa in a very high cross wind.  It is reported that during this game "Blakemore headed in his own centre".  Should anyone have doubted this occurrence, due to the fact that Eric would normally have gone to any lengths to avoid having to head the ball, Eric would proudly show off the newspaper report on the game.

In July 1945 the first meeting of the club for five years was held.  It was decided to enter the Wolverhampton Amateur League as the Birmingham A.F.A. was not reformed until 1946, when we rejoined.  There was a grave shortage of equipment though, we only had one fairly new ball and the secretary was instructed to obtain a permit to allow us to buy another.

Two pitches were acquired in Danescourt Road, with changing accommodation at the Dog and Gun.  (Doesn't it strike you as out of character with the club that our pitches and public houses seemed to go together?)  The cost of these pitches was £80 a year, a large sum in those days, but A.J. Hill, who was still chairman, again came up trumps financially.

The main problem with the Danescourt pitches was that they were in a farmer's field, which was also used by cows during the week. The clearing of cow pats therefore became a solemn pre match ritual, but unfortunately they were not always totally removed as many players will testify.  One person to suffer because of this was goalkeeper John Ridley who once ended up face down in ''one which was still steaming''.  John's reaction to this cannot be recorded on this website for fear of prosecution for the publication of obscene literature.

John wasn't the only person to be pleased at the news that in 1949 our present War Memorial Ground had been purchased from Ansells Brewery, though a look at what was then two sloping cow fields and a pond might well have brought a doubt or two.  Undismayed by this, however, plans were drawn up for the levelling of the ground and although obviously some of the work was contracted out, it was decided that a great deal of the operation would be undertaken using our own cheap labour system.