The West Bromwich Albion Miscellany E-Book

David Clayton

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 125

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The West Bromwich Albion Miscellany – a book on the Baggies like no other, packed with facts, stats, trivia, stories and legend. Now, with the club experiencing previously uncharted highs, take a look back at what has made West Bromwich Albion Football Club what it is today – the players and characters that have represented the Albion over the years and the events that have shaped the club. If you want to know the record crowd for a home game, the record appearance holder, the longest-serving manager and a host of other weird, wonderful and entertaining facts, look no further – this is the book you've been waiting for. From record goal scorers, to record defeats; from Cyrille Regis to Ron Atkinson, from nicknames to Frank Skinner and other celebrity supporters – it's all in The West Bromwich Albion Miscellany – can you afford not to own a copy?

Leseprobe

First published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2017

© David Clayton, 2009

The right of David Clayton to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 8406 5

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

I’d like to dedicate this book to four people:

For Pete Wild (no ‘e’) – my best Baggies mate and a loyal (if somewhat displaced) fan of this most fine club

For Frank Skinner – entirely for Fantasy Football

To the memory of Laurie Cunningham

And the one and only Sir Bobby Robson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Pete Wild for lending me his precious collection of Albion paraphernalia. To all the website editors and historians who may be unheralded in name, but I’d like to thank you for making all your hard work accessible for my research needs. A special mention to Tony Matthews (and Colin Mackenzie) for the superb 1987 collation of Albion history and stats and also to www.baggies.com for their boundless information. To Michelle Tilling, my editor at The History Press – this book arrived later than a Martin Jol tackle – and special thanks, as always, to my wife Sarah and our three beautiful young children, Harry, Jaime and Chrissie. That’s pretty much it – for facts and figures from elsewhere, thanks as well. You know who you are.

David Clayton, 2009

A STROLL IN THE PARK

West Bromwich Albion Football Club actually began life (as if you didn’t already know) as West Bromwich Strollers. In 1878, a group of men from Salter’s Spring Works in West Bromwich decided to form a football team. With no club shop (there was no club yet!), no JJB Sports-type stores in existence and no Argos, the fledgling team needed the correct equipment, so after chipping in sixpence apiece, several of the prospective team took a stroll (you can see where this is leading) to neighbouring Wednesbury, several miles away, to buy their first football. Along the way, some bright spark suggested they should name their team after their excursion and so the club was christened the West Bromwich Strollers – though they are no relation to the San Francisco side, the Bay City Strollers.

BLOODY HELL

Who could ever forget the grisly clash of heads between Albion’s John Wile and Ipswich Town’s Brian Talbot which occurred during the 1978 FA Cup semi-final at Highbury? Well, Mrs Talbot and Mrs Wile for a start! Wile and Talbot emerged from a (literally) full-blooded challenge with gaping head wounds that would haunt the millions of TV viewers who were unlucky enough to watch it on Match of the Day. The memory of such heroics in the line of duty still remains strong in the minds of the Baggies fans who witnessed it more than 30 years on. Wile was Albion’s Terry Butcher, a fearless warrior of the back four who spent 13 years as a player at The Hawthorns, clocking up 619 appearances in all competitions including exactly 500 in the League.

THE YAM-YAMS (THE WOLVES FANS): A DEFINITION

As per an official definition of a Yam-Yam, AKA supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers: ‘A person from the Black Country area of the West Midlands of England. Yam-yams use a slight variation of English that is often incomprehensible to non-locals (and even to their neighbours from Birmingham, with whom they share many similarities in vocal accent) due to both the thick accent of the speaker and the frequent exchange of standard words in place of local terminology. One of the most famous features is the ‘yam yam’ sound when saying certain phrases. ‘You are’ is pronounced ‘yo’am’ and ‘are you’ is pronounced ‘am ya’.’ So now you know – Bostin!

BAGGIES FANS RULE THE WORLD – OFFICIAL

In 2002/03, Albion’s fans were voted the best in the Premier League by fellow Premier League supporters. Also in 2002, as part of the BBC’s Test the Nation series, Albion fans were revealed as ‘more likely to be smarter than any other football supporters, registering an average score of 138.’

BAGGIES ORIGINS

It’s unclear when or how Albion acquired the nickname of the Baggies and it was a moniker the club initially used to frown upon. One theory is that it is derived from the heavy money-bags the gate men used to carry around the pitch perimeter in days gone by – or perhaps it was due to a baggy style kit the players once wore, but this seems unlikely as the kit the team played in was used for many years before the Baggies moniker started to do the rounds. Another suggestion is that the name was bestowed on Albion supporters by Aston Villa supporters, making a joke of the large baggy trousers (Madness, anyone?) that many Albion fans wore at work to protect themselves from molten iron in the factories and foundries of the Black Country. Of all the theories, however, it seems the gatekeeper idea may be the most likely of all nickname origins. When Albion moved to The Hawthorns in 1900, the club took the nickname of ‘the Throstles’ – a local name for the thrush, which was a common sight around the abundant hawthorn bushes the ground took its name from. The new ground had just two gates in its early years, one behind each goal, and on match days the gatekeepers would gather up the takings at each end and be escorted by police officers along the sides of the pitch to the centre line where a small office was located under the stand. The admission money, mostly in pennies, was carried in large cloth bags. It wasn’t long before the gatekeepers’ appearance in front of the main stand developed into a chant of ‘here come the Baggies!’ giving the team a new, if unofficial, nickname.

CREATURES FROM THE BLACK LAKE

The unknown, obscure and, as far as we can work out, now extinct tiny Midlands club Black Lake Victoria will forever hold a place in the history and, dare we suggest, hearts of Albion fans around the globe. It was Black Lake Victoria who became West Bromwich Strollers’ first official opponents on 13 December 1879. The game, played at Dartmouth Park, ended 1–0 to West Brom. The pioneers that day for the Baggies were: Biddlestone, Twist, H. Bell, T. Smith, Johnstone, Stanton, Bisseker (captain), Stokes, E.T. Smith, Timmins, Aston, and G. Bell. Around 500 people turned up and reliable sources suggest Harry Aston grabbed the winner. What became of Black Lake Victoria? Well, all we can find is this rather sorry piece of travel info:

‘Black Lake tram stop is a tram stop in Black Lake in the West Midlands, England. It was opened on 31 May 1999 and is situated on Midland Metro Line 1. It is situated nearby the site of Swan Village railway station, which closed with the rest of the line in 1972.’

Next time you’re passing that particular tram stop, give a moment’s thought to the long-forgotten players of Black Lake Victoria – that could have been the Baggies!

CHINESE, JOHN?

Albion became the first British football team to tour China in May 1978 after the Chinese government approached the Football Association with the request of sending a decent team over with the intention of promoting the sport over there. Ron Atkinson’s side played four matches on the tour, during which Baggies star John Trewick commented that he had no intention of going to visit the Great Wall of China because, as he so succinctly pointed out, ‘If you’ve seen one wall, you’ve seen them all.’

Despite Trewick’s reticence, the tour was an enormous success, attracting huge crowds, and was the subject of a TV documentary. A total of 239,900 fans watched the four tour games with more than 80,000 in attendance for two successive matches alone.

The historic tour results were:

Peking XI 1–3 Albion

A. Brown (2), Regis

Att: 80,000

China 0–2 Albion

Regis, A. Brown

Att: 89,400

Shanghai 0–2 Albion

Regis, Cunningham

Att: 40,000

Kwangtung Province 0–6 Albion

Regis (2), Wile, Martin, T. Brown, Cunningham

Att: 30,500

Ron Atkinson’s side rounded the tour off with a game against a Hong Kong Select side, winning 3–0 with goals from Tony Brown, Regis and an own goal from Chi-Keung in front of an appreciative 18,000 fans.

PAID YOUR SUBS?

Substitutes were first introduced into the English game for the start of the 1965/66 season, though they were only permitted, initially, for injuries. Albion’s first ever sub was Graham Lovett, who deputised for the injured Ken Foggo on 10 September 1965. Lovett was the Baggies’ first sub to play during an FA Cup tie too, three years later at Colchester United’s Layer Road. He made a total of 15 appearances from the bench during his eight years at The Hawthorns (just in case you thought he spent his whole life gathering splinters).

AND I WOULD ROLL 500 MILES . . .

Here’s a round-trip most clubs would have nightmares about – the Baggies travelled to London on 2 April 1926 to face Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, clocking up around 250 miles there and back. A day later they were away to Burnley – another 250-mile round trip, meaning they’d travelled about 500 miles in two days. Though Spurs won the first game 3–2, Albion showed plenty of spirit to win in Lancashire the next day 4–3.

MASCOT SCHMASCOT

There’s only one bird any self-respecting Albion fan would be seen with on his arm – the club mascot Baggie Bird. OK, not the most exciting name in the world, but Baggie Bird does exactly what it says on the nest. He may be six foot tall and weigh more than Preston’s Jon Parkin, but he’s Albion through-and-through and cheep (geddit?) aside from being easily the best-loved mascot in England – not forgetting his offspring, Baggie Jnr, of course.

GET WITH THE PROGRAMME

The Baggies’ first matchday programme debuted on 2 September 1905 for the home clash with Burnley. Entitled Albion News, it was eight pages long and cost one penny and it’s fair to say if you’ve got one of the 2,000 that were printed for that match, it’s worth considerably more today. Within two years the circulation had increased to 5,000, though it would be 69 years before the first colour matchday programme appeared in time for the 1974/75 campaign.

CLUB LEGEND: BOB TAYLOR

There really was only one Bob Taylor – a club legend who will go down in Albion folklore – but do you know all there is to know about Super Bob?

Name: Robert Taylor

Date of Birth: 3 February 1967

Place of Birth: Easington, County Durham

Position: Forward

Nickname: Super Bob

Early on he had unsuccessful trials for Newcastle and Hartlepool

1986: Began professional career with Billy Bremner’s Leeds United

12/4/1986: Debut v. Millwall and went on to lose Division One play-off final to Charlton Athletic later that season

1988: Howard Wilkinson replaced Bremner as Leeds manager and Taylor finds himself surplus to requirements

March 1989: Moved to Bristol City with Carl Shutt moving in opposite direction

1989/90: Helped the Robins achieve promotion to Division Two and was named club player of the year, finishing as Division Three leading scorer with 27 League goals

January 1992: Signed for Albion for £300,000

1992/93 season: Finished as Division Two’s top scorer with 30 League goals

1993: Promoted to Division One following play-off win over Port Vale

1993/94: League’s top scorer with 18 goals but club struggled and only survived on the final day of the season

12/3/1996: Only hat-trick for club, v. Watford in 4–4 draw

1996: Scored 100th goal for Baggies v. Derby County – on the final day of the season

1998: A change of management and a struggle for fitness meant that Taylor was loaned out to Bolton Wanderers A goal against Manchester United in his final game of a first loan spell gave him hero status among the Wanderers fans and was the main reason for his return for the final games of the season, though ultimately Bolton were relegated on goal difference

July 1998: Signed for Bolton for a fee of £90,000 where he played alongside Eidur Gudjohnsen

2000: Returned to The Hawthorns for a fee of £90,000 under management of Gary Megson. His goals kept Albion up that season

2000: His goal against Bolton in a 4–4 draw was voted the club’s Goal of the Season

2001: Part of team that lost in the Division 1 play-offs to Bolton

28/10/2001: Became the 100th player to be sent off for WBA in a first team game when dismissed v. Barnsley

2001/02: Taylor’s goals considered the main reason Albion are promoted to the Premiership

11/05/2003: Following an unsettled and inconsistent season, Taylor played his 377th and final appearance for WBA v. Newcastle United and received a standing ovation when he left the field after half an hour due to injury

13/05/2003: Taylor’s testimonial match played at The Hawthorns

2003/04: Joined Cheltenham Town for a season

2004: Joined Tamworth

6/11/2004: Scored ten-minute hat-trick in the second half of a 3–2 win over Leigh RMI

2006: Joined Kidderminster Harriers

January 2007: Left Kidderminster and retired from football

HEAVEN SENT TALE

In March 2003, the following joke was knocking around various websites and was reproduced on Super Bob Taylor’s official website – it pretty much sums up where SBT lies in the folklore of West Bromwich Albion Football Club . . .

Bob Taylor, Michael Owen and David Beckham are standing before God at the throne of heaven. God looks at them and says, ‘Before granting you a place at my side, I must first ask you what you believe in.’

Addressing David Beckham first, he asks, ‘What do you believe?’ David looks God in the eye and states passionately, ‘I believe football to be the food of life. Nothing else brings such unbridled joy to so many people, from the slums of Rio to the bright lights of Barcelona. I have devoted my life to bringing such joy to people who stood on the terraces supporting their club.’

God looks up and offers David the seat to his left. He then turns to Michael Owen. ‘And you, Michael, what do you believe?’

Michael stands tall and proud. ‘I believe courage, honour and passion are the fundamentals of life, and I’ve spent my whole playing career providing a living embodiment of these traits.’

God, moved by the passion of the speech, offers Michael the seat to his right.

Finally, he turns to Bob Taylor. ‘And you, Mr Taylor, what do you believe?’

‘I believe,’ says Bob, ‘that you’re sitting in my seat.’

BIG RON QUOTES – VOLUME 1