Mr Major’s Tribute to Billy Wright – 4 September 1994

Below are Mr Major’s tribute comments to Billy Wright on 4th September 1994.

PRIME MINISTER:

There weren’t any other Billy Wrights. I suppose these days you would hear youngsters saying they don’t have footballers like that any more. Perhaps they don’t.

When I first started watching soccer as a boy, I guess there were four great footballers: Billy Wright, Stan Matthews, Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse. Billy Wright was the only defender and in any ways he was a very unique figure at that time.

But every one of my generation will remember those early days of television, those wonderful games at Molineux when Wolverhampton played Honved, and so many other teams at the time. They were great national events. The atmosphere at the time and the way in which people remember them forty years later, people won’t forget that.

People won’t forget Billy Wright. I can close my eyes now, forty years on, and see him play. Of course people will remember him, they won’t forget Billy Wright. He’s one of the legends of football.