You won’t believe number four!
Everybody loves a bit of clickbait – sorry, a list – these days and so, with the season at an end, we’ve decided to present an Albion one.
Enjoy the summer Throstletariat…
1. When he finished his Albion career, Igor Balis returned to Slovakia and took up his role as the hereditary Crown Prince of the nation. Amongst his proclamations of the last ten years, he has twinned Bratislava with Bradford, made loud shouting by football managers punishable by exile and has banned the colour “old gold”.
2. If you laid all of James McClean’s tattoos from end to end, you’d have enough ink to redo the roof of the Sistine Chapel.
3. New documents found among the personal papers of Ian Fleming reveal that the original inspiration for James Bond was, in fact, one time Albion manager Vic Buckingham. Vic mixed his football work with a sideline as a part-time spy for MI5, his invention of “total football’ in Amsterdam nothing more than an elaborate coded message to his spymasters to send fresh tins of spam.
4. Albion kit man Jacko Smith has an electronic scoreboard in his room at the training ground which he uses to monitor the number of baseball caps Tony Pulis has used since arriving at The Hawthorns. The number currently stands at 741.
5. Unbeknown to us, throughout his Albion career, Stephane Sessegnon kept an aquarium full of seahorses secreted in his locker at the training ground. It was only discovered last week as we were tidying up for the summer.
6. Tommy Magee, the only Albion man to win both a league and FA Cup medal at the club, is the grandfather of Debbie McGee, assistant and widow of magician Paul Daniels. She changed the spelling of her name to avoid trading on her grandfather’s fame.
7. In an interesting condition in his will, former Albion full-back Liam Ridgewell has left his quiff to medical science.
8. One well known national journalist once asked the media department if it was true that The Hawthorns was the highest ground above sea level. On being told it was indeed a fact, he asked the timeless question, “Why?” We told him we’d had the sea specially lowered.
9. Derek Kevan, memorably seen removing his teeth before a game in “The Saturday Men” film, left the club over a sponsorship dispute. Years ahead of his time, The Tank wanted the legend “Fixodent” emblazoned on the front of his shirt.