On being a fan: why I love West Bromwich Albion

I really don’t remember when I first became aware of soccer as a kid. It was always there. Each piece of wasteland was a pitch, each battered can a ball. WBA, Wolves and Villa graffiti were painted all over the pub parking lot walls and cut into most of the red leather seats on Midland Red’s fleet buses. In Black Country, West’s heavily industrialized core Midlands, football is totally tribal.

West Bromwich Albion was formed in 1880, one of the founding clubs of the first Football League, beginning as West Bromwich Strollers in 1878 formed by a dedicated group of manufacturing workers at the Salter Spring Works in West Bromwich. Thus, the club’s roots are firmly embedded in the industrial heritage of the area, and in its early years, nearby heavy industry workers traversed the Hawthorns turnstiles, their heavy industrial protective garments giving rise to the label “Baggies”, which has been used to refer to both the club and the fans.

For me, soccer dominated childhood Saturdays during the season and Albion was always talked about. Legendary names like Jeff Astle and Ronnie Allen were as familiar as any on the streets where I grew up. Our path was an “Albion path” and all the scarves were navy blue and white. On home game Saturdays, the garage doors would lift in unison and Ford Cortinas and Escorts would reverse in formation before the crowd drove toward West Bromwich to the ground that Albion fans now call “The Sanctuary.” Even to this day, 30-plus years later, the sight of those Hawthorns spotlights still sends a shiver down my spine, sending me back to the days when the team raced to the beat of the old reggae tune. Harry J. Allstars and Bryan Robson’s ‘The Liquidator’ wore the Captain’s No. 7 jersey.

West Brom in your veins. So it has always been. The emotional bond you feel with your local soccer club, especially when it has been carried down the family line, is difficult to explain to non-fans, but you can never walk away and, my God, sometimes you want to run. Supporting “The Baggies” is not for lilies. You have to be stoic, very stoic.

Albion is as much a part of my family as any of us. Dad and Grandpa were huge Albion fans and this was passed on to me and my brother as the last name through scratched DNA. In today’s games, I often think of Dad, back in the 1950s, sitting on the train sleepers that were wedged into the bench that is now the Birmingham “Brummie” Road End staring at his beloved Throstles after leaving his bike. near “someone’s entrance”. down. And then there is my very dear grandfather, Daniel Nock, long gone, who was in front of where I am sitting now, flat cap and rain, cigar in hand in the Hawthorns of the 1960s when Albion flew high, winning the Cup of the League in ’66 and the FA Cup in ’68. The ground gives me the strangest feeling of being “at home”, it sounds corny but it’s true. For me, there is something very special about that place and I know that that essential feeling will not fade away.

When I was little, soccer was everything and everywhere. Saturday afternoons were spent at my grandfather and grandmother’s house in Blackheath. Nan and I would listen to the game on the radio, waiting for Dad, Grandpa, my brother, and the onion champion twin neighbors, Ernie and Ivan, to return from the game. If we won, and in most cases in the late ’70s, Grandpa would walk in the back door armed with tokens and stories from my childhood hero, Cyrille Regis, and total Albion legend Tony’ Bomber ‘Brown. . These were the days when I was told I was too young to go and Dad absolutely forbade it. Therefore, I had to rely on my brother’s accounts of his experiences at the Smethwick End booth. Stories that amazed me, stories of the crowding of the terraces and the sporadic violence that by then was increasing in the English game, of bricks and coins thrown into finely segregated fans.

In the late 1970s, West Brom was a great golden team and this was a great time to be a fan, a welcome distraction from many of the pains of a severe economic depression that was hitting the Black Country hard, with old steel. and manufacturing. Industries that had sustained our communities for a century or more, beginning to falter and collapse. Soccer took on an even bigger role for the local population who needed a focus and an escape.

In 1979, the WBA finished third in Old Division 1 and qualified for European soccer. This was the style team that fans still celebrate today and only in the last two seasons have we seen (with some glee) an Albion team rise to a level close to their level. Albion then fielded three black players on the same team, something that was then totally unknown in English football: Cyrille Regis, Brendon Batson and the wonderfully talented, woefully late Laurie Cunningham. These incredibly talented footballers became known to fans as ‘The Three Degrees’ and acted as pioneers of black players in soccer, inspiring a generation.

Cyrille was and still is a tower of man and is still much loved and admired by Albion fans. An extraordinarily strong and powerful player, he would become for many the true benchmark of everything a center forward should be. Brave, big, fast and the scorer of some all-time hitting belts from a distance and beyond. They didn’t knock him down very often. In late 2011, I was lucky enough to meet Cyrille while collecting for charity outside of the Hawthorns before a home game. It was wonderful to tell him that he was my hero from Albion and I, nervous but proud, showed him the back of my shirt as proof, adorned as it was with “Regis 9”. He seemed very surprised to see a fan with his name stamped on a recent home jersey and was as gracious as he had always imagined. It was a great moment for that WBA loving boy who is still me.

Players like Regis, Batson and Cunningham had to face horrible racism just to do what they did best, week after week. There is a much-watched video of West Brom’s famous 1978 5-3 victory over Man Utd at Old Trafford on You Tube. In the images, Laurie Cunningham in particular can be clearly heard being repeatedly booed by Man Utd fans. It is undoubtedly due to the color of their skin and, unusually for the time, it is even mentioned by the commentator Gerald Sinstadt referring to the “repeated boos of the black players.” The skill displayed by Cunningham as he traversed United’s midfield is impressive. . He just keeps going through it all and Sinstadt describes him as “booed but unflappable”, showing how truly skilled and wonderful he was. All three players responded to racism in this way and let their football respond to ignorance and mindless chants. For me and the hordes of other fans, ‘The Three Degrees’ made our club that little bit more special and we take it into our hearts.

In terms of Albion’s history, the years that followed the success of the late 1970s were mixed and difficult for Baggies fans. My first league game was West Brom against Liverpool in February 1981. We won that game 2-0 against the league champions of the time with a miraculous goal from Bryan Robson in the back. I guess when I was a kid, I thought it would always be like this. It didn’t work that well. I had to wait thirty more years to sit back and watch my club do something really special, when I was lucky enough to see Albion beat Arsenal at the Emirates in a Premier League match in September 2010. But it was worth the wait. . It was a pleasure to hear Albion fans talking on the phone with their loved ones after the match yelling “I feel like we won the Cup!” … other young fans in their 20s proudly proclaimed on Facebook “This is the best day.” of my life! “It sounds ridiculous but I know what they mean. That day in 1981 at the old Rainbow Stand with my dad with his tartan jar full of soup and mini pork cakes was one of mine and I will never forget it.

In 1992, I convinced my dad to come with me to see Albion together for the first time in years. By then we were languishing in what was the old Division 3. The Hawthorns were in bad shape and attendance was poor. We were playing Leyton Orient and the performance was lacking in sparkle, to say the least. I remember feeling devastated to see the club on its knees after what we had been and I know it was even more difficult for my dad to see the happy days of Jeff Astle. But, I was still encouraged by the singing from the stands at Brummie Rd and Smethwick End and the fact that the hard-core fans had taken over the club. At halftime, I went and touched the grass at Hawthorns field, no one seemed to care that I jumped the barrier. It wasn’t the wonderful footballing style I’d seen Albion play as a kid, but at least we’d gotten a draw. There were many ups and downs to follow, too many to list here, as Albion was to be crowned the classic ‘yo yo’ club, with successive promotions and relegations that put great stress on Albion fans season after season.

I met one of the bosses who earned Albion promotion, Roberto di Matteo, at Wembley in August 2010. Albion had been promoted to the Premier League with Di Matteo during the 2009-2010 championship season. My friend approached Di Matteo and brought him to have a photograph with me ‘for my dad’ as she told him. I remember greeting him muttering something about being a West Brom fan, probably with the kind of face a Chilean miner might look at their savior. God knows what he was thinking but he obeyed with grace and good humor, I guess he was looking back on that cold dark day in November 1992 and was very grateful for what he and others like Ardilles, Megson and Roy Hodgson after him had brought to our club. .

In 2010, my annual WBA membership renewal featured a club promotional brochure adorned with a picture of the Hawthorns and Jeff Astle and reading, “You were born in Baggie and have been a part of the team ever since.” written across it. At first I thought it was a bit cheesy, then I was surprised that half a tear came out, because it’s quite true. It’s about belonging and that’s what the local soccer clubs we love do for us.

The club I was ‘born’ into has sometimes been the bathroom of my life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Blue and white striped veins, or “Albion until I die”, that’s the way it is.

I hope to God the days of 1992 are gone forever, but if they come back, I know that I will still love the club and will always love it. But I’d moan and we like a good moan when we get going. That’s why we’ll keep singing Psalm 23 whatever the score – you never know when you’ll need help getting to those green pastures and calm waters. To this day, I will never tire of hearing thousands sing ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ in Black Country accents. It cannot be a coincidence that this is Albion’s football ‘anthem’ and you will hear it sung by fans at every match. If ever there was a hymn for the need for faith when faced with the dark nights of the soul, then this is it and, my goodness, there have been plenty of those for us Albion fans. 3-0 up at halftime, do you think you’re safe? Think again. It’s what we call “typical bloody Albion,” but try to keep us away, we can’t. We are Albion.