Anna Morphet Says Wolves Women Submitted Promotion Bid After Shock

wolves women are one game from promotion after submitting their promotion application this year, a sharp change from last spring when the club did not file even though it met every criterion. The missed deadline landed after the players finished second and were told in the dressing room.

Anna Morphet on the dressing-room shock

Anna Morphet called the moment “a shock, complete disbelief. A lot of emotions. I remember not knowing what to say so I did not say a lot, I was just trying to digest it.”

The captain said the news came after Wolves Women had finished second last season, with the promotion application due in February and never sent in. The club was at the centre of a storm last spring, and the players only learned of the issue after the final whistle on a season that still left them with a mathematical chance of finishing above Nottingham Forest on the final day.

Dan McNamara kept it quiet

Head coach Dan McNamara said, “It was one of the toughest things I have ever had to say.” He kept the information to himself until after the final game last season, then explained why he waited until the end: “We decided that the girls needed to enjoy the moment together before we brought them back down to earth right away. We did not want to take away that moment they had worked so hard for. If we had done it, it would have been obviously horrendous.”

McNamara also described his first reaction to learning the application had not been filed: “When I was first told the news. I was emotional. Part of me wanted to tell the girls and let the whole thing blow up and hope they did not turn up for the last few games of the season,”

That reaction ended in a decision to hold the group together. McNamara said, “I just could not walk away from the girls. They said, 'look, shall we give the club a chance? Do we really want to play elsewhere?' The general consensus was that we wanted to stick together.”

Wolves Women back in the race

One year on, the application is in and the football is doing the rest. Wolves have won 20 of their 22 games in the FA Women's National League Northern Premier Division, and they are the league's top scorers. The next step is simple for the team that absorbed last spring’s fallout: finish the job on the pitch and turn a second-place season into promotion.

Morphet said the episode tightened the squad rather than splitting it apart. “Those moments bring you closer together. You look around and realise how special this group is and the characters in it. If we didn't have the closeness that we had before finding out that news I don't know if we would have come through as well as we have.” That is the clearest line through this season’s push — the club lost a promotion filing once, but it has kept the same core intact long enough to reach the edge of the second tier again.