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Stanley Cullis (25 October 1916 – 28 February 2001) was an English professional footballer and manager, primarily for Wolverhampton Wanderers.
During his term as manager between 1948 and 1964, Wolves became one of the strongest teams in the English game, winning the league title on three occasions, and playing a series of high-profile friendly matches against top European sides which acted as a precursor to the European Cup.
Cullis led the team to become one of the top teams in England, finishing runners-up in the league in 1937–38 and 1938–39. In 1939 Wolves had the chance to win The Double, but with only 5 wins in the last 11 matches the team lost the championship by 5 points to Everton. They reached the FA Cup Final but lost 4–1 to Portsmouth, thus becoming the third English club to finish as runners-up in both League and FA Cup.
He won a call-up to the England team and made his international debut on 23 October 1937 in a 5–1 success against Ireland. Because of the outbreak of the war, he won only 12 full caps (once as captain), although he also played in 20 wartime internationals (10 as captain).
England played Germany in Berlin on 14 May 1938. The England players were directed pre-match that on the pitch during the German national anthem, they should give a Hitler salute. With similarities to Jack Kirby in 1934, Cullis refused. After Cullis responded, "Count me out", "Stan Cullis: Cheshire's England football legend who refused to do Nazi salute in Germany", 3 April 2024, Cheshire Live the only player to refuse, he was dropped from the team. His place went to Alf Young of Huddersfield. England won the match 6–3.
During the conflict, he served as a PT instructor in both Britain and Italy, and also managed 34 wartime appearances for Wolves in regional competitions, as well as guesting for Aldershot, Fulham and Liverpool. Shortly after, he also managed briefly Fredrikstad FK in 1946.
When competitive football resumed in England in 1946–47, Cullis played just one more season for Wolves, in which the club once again narrowly missed out on a first league title. He then announced his retirement as a result of injury and was appointed assistant to manager Ted Vizard, after having made 171 appearances in total for the club.
Cullis's team restored some pride to English football after the national team's thrashings at the hands of Hungary when they beat the star-studded Honvéd side in a 1954 friendly, and Cullis's comments that his team were "champions of the world" played a large part in the formation of European club competitions. They also played Moscow Spartak, Dynamo and Real Madrid (1957) in other floodlit friendlies.
Cullis led Wolves to two more league titles, in 1957–58 and 1958–59, and they narrowly missed the hat-trick in 1959–60, losing by one point to Burnley, while also winning the FA Cup again in 1960 to seal their position as one of the dominant teams of the era. The 1960s saw Wolves begin to struggle, and Cullis was surprisingly sacked in September 1964, declaring that he would not work in football again, despite offers from Toronto City and Juventus FC.
After a short spell working as a sales representative, he did return to the game as manager of Birmingham City in December 1965, but could not reproduce the success he had enjoyed at Wolves. Cullis retired from football in March 1970, and took up a post with a travel agency in Malvern, his adopted home town.
Tributes to Cullis include the naming of a stand (the Stan Cullis Stand) at Wolves' Molineux Stadium and a statue of him outside it; in 2003 he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his impact as a manager.
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