Wolves hit the Premiership jackpot at last

Sheffield United 0 Wolves 3

Over the past 19 often bleak years in the Black Country, the motto of Wolverhampton Wanderers - "Out of Darkness Comes Light" - has appeared both mocking and ironic.

Yesterday the light poured out in a glorious, golden torrent as finally Wolves seized the top-flight football that has so long been denied them. They did so in a calm, majestic performance which swept away one of English football's most resilient teams before the half-time whistle sounded.

Sometimes Wolverhampton has seemed such a long-drawn-out people's tragedy you expected to find Dostoyevsky as director of football. Yesterday's triumph was sweet enough to banish memories of last year's squandered 11-point lead, not to mention the plunge from the First to Fourth Divisions, the incompetent ownership of the Bhatti brothers and losing a play-off tie to Aldershot.

Ten minutes before the end, the screens at the Millennium Stadium flashed up an image of Sir Jack Hayward, who shyly stuck up two thumbs to spark a great, beery cheer. In the 13 years since he bought the club in whose shadow he was born, guiding Wolves into the Premiership has cost Hayward heavily. There has been his health (a triple heart-bypass operation), his family (he is barely on speaking terms with his son Jonathan, whom he sacked as Wolves chairman) and a sum in the range of £60m. His success has been earned. "We have had so many terrible disappointments and humiliations but now we have made it," he said. "The board have done bloody well, they have never denied the manager anything."

For that manager, Dave Jones, this was a special kind of redemption. "I earned one go at managing in the Premiership and it was taken away from me," he said, referring to the absurd and groundless charges of child abuse that cost him his job at Southampton. "When I came here I was not only trying to rebuild a club, I was trying to rebuild my life. This has gone a long way towards erasing some of the memories."

This season his team have succeeded by performing above themselves away from Molineux and here Wolves did so again, destroying a Sheffield United side who, having twice fallen at the final hurdle attempting to reach Cardiff, must have wondered why they bothered. There was barely a quorum of Yorkshire supporters left for the United players to applaud at the conclusion of as disastrous a match as they could have feared.

Wolves attacked with a fluid precision. The first shot whistled past Paddy Kenny's goal before 30 seconds were up and, by the time six minutes were showing on the Millennium scoreboard, they were ahead. Nathan Blake controlled a long punt upfield, fed Kenny Miller, who steered the ball perfectly into Mark Kennedy's path. His first-time shot flew into the corner of Kenny's net.

Sheffield United never came to terms with Wolves' movement and were still trying to reorganise when, in the 22nd minute, they were hit again as Blake headed home Paul Ince's knock-on from a corner. The ball was already over the line when Mark Rankine's boot propelled it into the roof of the net. There would, incidentally, have been no corner without Colin Cameron, who saw three red-and-white shirted defenders backing off him, shot between two of them, and saw the drive tipped past the post.

Sheffield United had recovered from a two-goal deficit in the semi-final against Nottingham Forest but then they were at Bramall Lane and playing considerably better. Jones was preparing his half-time team talk on the basis that Wolves would be defending a two-goal lead when his script had to be changed. Again the goal was wonderfully worked; Blake, returning triumphantly to Cardiff, spotted Shaun Newton marauding down the Wolves right flank and a precise, square ball was scuffed in by the onrushing Miller.

For United, a whole season's work; two cup semi-finals and a third-place finish was gone in less than an hour. This was Neil Warnock's first defeat in five play-off finals and it was a cruel irony that it should have come at the helm of the club closest to his heart. The United manager hardly helped his players by being banished to the stands after a furious altercation with the referee, Steve Bennett, in the tunnel at half-time. Although United performed more coherently in his absence, it was rather late for a revival.

They were awarded a penalty two minutes into the second half, when Paul Butler handled Peter Ndlovu's cross, but Michael Brown's weak spot-kick was well saved by Matt Murray. The two had diametrically opposite games.

Murray played well enough to be voted man of the match in a game Wolves won comfortably. The penalty save aside, he reacted brilliantly to palm away a back header from his own captain, Ince, and pushed Michael Tonge's free-kick on to a post. Much as United pushed forward after the interval, which was, frankly, the only game-plan available to them, Jones' assessment that "there was always a body or a head in the way" was reasonable.

There was also a hand in the way; Butler's handball was punished but Kennedy's blocking of Brown's drive on the line with his arm went unnoticed and summed up Sheffield United's afternoon. Their supporters were occupying the supposedly "lucky end" of the stadium, where, over the Bank Holiday weekend, Lincoln City, Queen's Park Rangers and then Sheffield United suffered. It is time for a change of name.

Sheffield United 0 Wolves 3
Kennedy 6, Blake 22, Miller 45

Half-time: 0-3 Att: 69,473

Sheffield United (4-1-3-2): Kenny; Curtis, Page, Jagielka, Kozluk; Rankine (McCall, h-t); Ndlovu (Peschisolido, 64), Brown, Tonge; Kabba, Asaba (Allison, 73). Substitutes not used: Montgomery, Kelly (gk).

Wolverhampton Wanderers (4-4-2): Murray; Irwin, Butler, Lescott, Naylor; Newton, Ince, Cameron, Kennedy; Miller (Sturridge, 76), Blake (Proudlock, 88). Substitutes not used: Rae, Edworthy, Oakes (gk).

Referee: S Bennett (Kent).