Doncaster-born Wolves and England hero Ron Flowers awarded MBE in New Year Honours

Wolverhampton Wanderers central defender Ron Flowers in training, circa 1960. (Photo by Don Morley/Getty Images)

Doncaster-born Ron Flowers has been recognised for his contribution to football by being made an MBE in the New Year's Honours list.

Edlington-born Flowers has been honoured alongside Jimmy Greaves.

The pair were both part of the England squad which won the World Cup on home soil in 1966, and the only two members of that group still alive who were still to be honoured.

Flowers is a Wolverhampton Wanderers legend who collected 49 caps for England and scored ten goals.

He was a product of nursery club Wath Wanderers.

Glen Flowers, Ron’s son, told Wolves’ official website: “This is really good news. We’re immensely proud, not just of this latest award, but of all his achievements.

"He came to Wolverhampton as a 17-year-old. For a lad from a mining village, he’d been in the loco shed in Doncaster, to then find himself in the Wolves first-team and then not so many years later make his debut for England was a heck of an accomplishment.”

Flowers featured in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, as well as scoring England’s first ever European Championship goal later that year in a game with France at Hillsborough.

The midfielder was part of Sir Alf Ramsey’s squad for the 1966 World Cup, but didn’t make an appearance in the tournament and his final cap came in a warm-up game with Norway before the competition began.

Along with Greaves, Flowers and the other players who didn’t feature in the 1966 World Cup Final received a winners’ medal from then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Downing Street in 2009, following an FA campaign for all members of the squad to be recognised.