West Bromwich Albion are delighted to welcome you to the official platform celebrating the 125th Anniversary at The Hawthorns.
Supporters are encouraged to visit the platform regularly throughout the season for updates as we celebrate our prestigious anniversary.
Given football’s global domination in the 21st century, it’s sobering to recall that just over a century ago, the organised game was still in its relative infancy when it was thrown into chaos by the onset of the first global conflict, the Great War.
When it began in 1914, league football tried to stumble on, looking to maintain business as usual insofar as it could, tangled up in a web of pre-existing player contracts and other financial obligations, along with absolutely no conception of how long the war would last.
When it became clear that it wasn’t going to be over by Christmas 1914 after all, when crowds plummeted as young supporters set off for the fight and as players too began to enlist in the forces, when the sheer scale of the losses and the horrific nature of the suffering caused became everyday currency, the idea of football going on its own sweet way quickly became distasteful.
The 1914/15 season really couldn’t end soon enough and once the final ball was kicked, the game was mothballed and put into deep storage, only to be dug out again once normality had returned to the world. That normality was a long, long time in coming and the names Verdun, the Somme, Passchendaele and others would have to be etched, deep and savage, into the public consciousness before we could think again of Newcastle, Everton and Albion.
Eventually, as the summer of 1918 turned towards the autumn, there was light at the end of the tunnel and the possibility of peace beckoned from the horizon. On the home front, that exercised some minds most vigorously and wheels were set in motion to restore the national game to the forefront of the national conversation.
A fully fledged return to Football League arrangements was impossible. The war was not yet over, many players – and supporters – were still serving on far flung fields, casualties were still being suffered. Nonetheless, starved of almost any income for some three years, largely moribund football clubs were desperate to start filling the coffers once more. In consequence, regional leagues were discussed and, ultimately, begun, the Football League creating a Lancashire Section and a Midland Section to prevent unnecessary travel.
Albion made it clear from the outset that we would have no truck with such arrangements, the minutes of the August 9th 1918 board meeting noting that at the recent annual meeting of the Football League, we had “expressed the unwillingness of the Directors to allow the Club to take part in any competitive list of league games during the coming season whilst the War is on”.
This was no easy decision for like every other club at the time, we were haemorrhaging funds, but the reasoning behind it was brought savagely home at the next meeting in October when, “The Secretary reported…that he had sent a letter of sympathy to Jesse Pennington on the death of his younger brother in action in France”. While that was going on, we simply could not countenance playing a mere game.
Ultimately, the following month, the Armistice was signed and, gradually, the process of returning life to normal began in earnest for the 1919/20 season. All this was for the future of course. What mattered more immediately was getting some kind of football back onto The Hawthorns to give some entertainment to the locals and to assess the strength of our playing squad ahead of the resumption of the Football League proper that August.
We’d missed the boat in terms of the Football League and so we conferred with officials at Derby County, Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers, all of whom had also declined to play, in order to set up a small scale competition in the spring of 1919. The games were to be played for charity, the profits to be pooled and divided equally between the clubs “for distribution to charities etc as they may think fit”. And so, the first steps towards the 1919 Midland Victory League were taken.
If the destruction of the Great War had not been enough, Spanish flu was devastating already weakened populations and causing another wave of mass fatalities. It was recorded in the March minutes that both Claude Jephcott and Jesse Pennington had suffered very bad attacks of the virus and were highly unlikely to feature in any of the fixtures that ran from March 29th to April 26th, six games in all.
Indeed, there were concerns that the 35-year-old Pennington would ever recover sufficiently to play the game again. Thankfully, he was restored to rude enough health to skipper the Albion to the First Division title the following season, but neither he nor Jephcott were able to figure in the opening Midland Victory League fixtures, the first of which took place at The Hawthorns against the Wolves on March 29th 1919.
Considering the carnage that had shattered the world over those years of the Great War, Albion’s side had a remarkable familiar ring to it. Hubert Pearson, Joe Smith, Frank Waterhouse, Sammy Richardson, Jack Crisp, Howard Gregory and Ben Shearman were all there from the pre-war side and, over the course of the six games, would be joined by the returning Fred Reed, Bobby McNeal, Alf Bentley, Harry Wright, Sid Bowser, Louis Bookman and Fred Morris.
We needed them back for we started the competition on a low, losing at home to Wolves by the only goal of the game in front of 4,348 spectators. A bright start from Albion failed to yield a goal though Gregory hit the bar, and after the break, Wolves won the game with a goal from Green, though some reports suggest it was Bourne who registered the goal.
Defeat, even to the Wolves, didn’t really matter in the circumstances, for the important thing was that football had returned to The Hawthorns some three years, 11 months and five days since it had been abandoned for the duration. And we could afford to be magnanimous because when the sixth and final game came around, away to Aston Villa, Albion were still in the running to win the competition.
Played in a howling gale on April 26th 1919, the Throstles gave an indication of the whirlwind that the rest of English football should expect in the coming season, opening in imperious form to simply blow the Villa away, Edwards and Morris all but ending the game as a contest inside 22 minutes as Albion raced to a 2-0 lead. Magee duly applied the cherry to the cake with another headed goal from a Wright cross and there we were, on top of the table, the same seven points as Derby and Wolves, but with a goal average of 2.00 compared with their 1.83 and 1.50 respectively.
Perhaps there was going to be a brave new world after all…
There have been plenty of devastating goalscorers who have donned the stripes during these 125 years at The Hawthorns, but certainly as far as the 21st century goes, there has been no better finisher for the Albion than Kevin Phillips.
Signed by Bryan Robson at the tail-end of his reign as manager in August 2006, the fact that Phillips had moved from Villa Park had no impact on the reverence in which he was held by the Throstletariat.
Off the mark with a penalty against Leicester City on his debut Hawthorns appearance, SuperKev wasn’t here for long, but across two seasons, he was the focal point of what became Tony Mowbray’s team of supreme entertainers. Albion topped the century of goals in both 2006/07 and 2007/08 and across that spell, Phillips bagged 46 of them, 26 of them at The Hawthorns.
What more excuse than The Hawthorns’ 125th anniversary do we need to enjoy them all again?
2006/07
Leicester City – 9 September 2006
Leeds United – 30 September 2006
Coventry City – 16 December 2006
Leeds United (FA Cup) – 6 January 2007
Luton Town (2) – 12 January 2007
Southampton – 10 February 2007
Crystal Palace – 14 March 2007
Barnsley (3) – 6 May 07
Wolverhampton Wanderers (play-offs) – 16 May 2007
2007/08
Preston North End - 18 August 2007
Ipswich Town (2) - 15 September 2007
QPR (2) - 30 September 2007
Norwich City – 27 October 2007
Sheffield Wednesday - 6 November 2007
Charlton Athletic – 15 December 2007
Bristol City (2) – 26 December 07
Scunthorpe United (2) - 29 December 07
Crystal Palace – 12 March 2008
Colchester United – 29 March 2008
ENGLAND 1 ITALY 2
21 APRIL 1998
With the European Championships currently in full swing and dominating the national conversation, there is little doubt that women’s football is still enjoying remarkable, rapid growth.
It was not always so.
Back in the 1990s, it was still a game scrambling to get some attention, and so international games were particularly important. Taking the England Women’s team to major stadia around the country, long before they could dream of filling Wembley Stadium as they do with such ease now, was an important stepping stone on the way to today. The Hawthorns played its part, hosting a game between England and Italy on 21 April 1998.
The squad trained at the Birmingham FA’s grounds at Great Barr, the friendly acting as part of the build up to some key fixtures in England’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the 1999 World Cup, team manager Dick Bate in his last months in the job as he prepared to pass the baton on to Hope Powell, who became England Women’s first ever full-time coach that summer.
Albion played their part in trying to drum up support for the game, pegging ticket prices at just £3 for adults, with under-16s able to get in for free, not bad given that league games that season cost from £12 in the Brummie and the Smethwick. It was made clear that the women’s game still had a long way to go when a crowd of just 2,520 turned out for their game, a sharp contrast to the 13,917 that had attended England B against Chile B at The Hawthorns two months earlier, when the men’s side included future Albion men Ricci Scimeca and Nigel Quashie.
Ironically, the games had the same scoreline, England losing 2-1 on both occasions. The women had made a good start against the Italians, taking an early lead when Sue Smith’s corner into the box found Faye White, and she headed into the net.
Italy fought back but England defended well, skipper Gillian Coulthard marshalling the side, and limiting the Italians to few real opportunities. The combative nature of the friendly was underlined just before the break when the Italians lost two players to injury. Roberta Stefanelli limped off following a tackle with Coulthard, then Anna Duo was stretchered off after coming off worst in a challenge with Danielle Murphy, who was booked. Shades of Luigi Riva and the Anglo-Italian Cup of 1971, for those with long memories.
In spite of that, Italy rallied further after the break and they were level in the 70th minute, Patrizia Saerti running onto a through ball to fire past Pauline Cope. England then brought on Rachel Brown in goal, one of five substitutes on the night, but she was also beaten soon afterwards when Piera Maglio fired home a free-kick from 20 yards.
Not the result that England wanted, but nonetheless, it was a big night for some women who would go on to be big names among a trailblazing generation that paved the way for the successes of today.
It proved a successful night for The Hawthorns too, the Football Association full of praise for the way the game had been staged. This plaque was due commemoration of the occasion.
The Birmingham Road, for all its charms, has never been the most architecturally elegant stretch of real estate in the Black Country, but on Friday July 11, 2003, it became a site transformed by the unveiling of the Jeff Astle Memorial Gates at the entrance to The Hawthorns’ East Stand.
Following the tragic death of the King in January 2002, there was plenty of debate about how his life should be properly celebrated, with much discussion between supporters’ groups, the club and, most important, Jeff’s wife, Laraine, and the rest of the Astle family.
At that point in time, physical memorials to former Albion heroes did not extend beyond the naming of suites and executive boxes within the stadium, but Jeff Astle’s passing clearly demanded something more.
Given Astle’s relationship with the support, particularly as the King of the Brummie, that was the location where any tribute simply had to be. Installing a set of memorial gates was the conclusion, constructed along the Birmingham Road itself, next to the stand, running across the East Stand car park, marking the entrance way to the stadium and the main offices of the club.
The project, funded by Smethwick Regeneration Partnership and Smethwick Town Team, alongside generous donations from the football club, Shareholders 4 Albion, Grorty Dick, the WBA Supporters Club and the Boing website, has become a real focal point at The Hawthorns, a place where many supporters meet up before and after games.
Beyond that, the Gates have become a rallying point in good times and sad. When Cyrille Regis, Astle’s great successor in the number 9 shirt, passed away in 2018, the Gates were festooned with scarves, shirts, flowers and all manner of tributes to another fallen hero, taken before his time.
The Gates themselves were designed to honour Astle in real detail, the arch featuring not just his dates, 1942-2002, but the number nine within a crown on each gate – after all, he was the King. The illustration panels feature Astle in the triumphant pose he struck having thumped in the goal that beat Everton to win the FA Cup in 1968, with a bit of poetic licence included to put him in the home kit instead. The panels featuring the club crest were changed after that was updated in 2006.
Fittingly, it was Laraine and Jeff’s grandchildren, Matthew and Taylar who unveiled the gates back in 2003, leaving Jeff looking out over the Birmingham Road, his kingdom, in perpetuity.
Astle is the King. Don’t ever forget it.
ALBION 0 BIRMINGHAM CITY 0
20 JUNE 2020
Some 109 days after hosting Newcastle United in the FA Cup, football returned to The Hawthorns after the Covid hiatus.
Well, football, yes, but not as we knew it.
With all the various Covid protocols still very much in place across the country, with much of it still locked down in all but name, the authorities concluded that bringing football back from its own shutdown was not only vital for the health of the game, but for the morale of the nation.
The only problem with that was that in a world of social distancing, Covid testing and all of that, there was simply no way that the games could be played in front of crowds. The only option was to play behind closed doors, the players performing in front of empty stands (no real change for some clubs not too far from here…).
And so, on June 20 2020, we stepped into a brave new footballing world. At least, the players and the officials did. The rest of us were still stuck in the house, watching the games as they were streamed live to our computers and TV sets.
Albion against Birmingham City was the first game at The Hawthorns, a 0-0 draw somehow appropriate in those bizarre new surroundings, a game also notable for being the first time Albion used five substitutes in a competitive fixture.
Little did we know how long it was all going to last.
30 JANUARY 1900
January 30th 1900. Queen Victoria was in the 63rd, and final, year of her reign. Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister. The second Boer War was raging. We were still 28 days away from the creation of the Labour Party and 24 hours from the copyrighting of the ‘His Master’s Voice’ illustration of Nipper the dog. But, as we shall see, these are mere trifles compared with the real history of the day. If you’re sitting comfortably, we’ll begin…
At that time, West Bromwich Albion were, undeniably, among the early giants of English football. The Throstles had won two FA Cups, reached three other finals and kicked off the Football League’s history, as well as winning plenty of local competitions, but there is more to running a business than just footballing glory. The difficult sums need to add up as well.
Things were coming to a head as the 19thcentury was heading towards its close along with the end of the Victorian age. A new world was on its way and, as far as football was concerned, it would increasingly revolve around pounds, shillings and pence. On that front, Albion’s rickety old Stoney Lane home made no real sense.
In April 1899, with the club struggling to make ends meet, The Free Press painted a pretty bleak picture both for us and the wider game. “The fact is that with the high prices now ruling for players, and the transfer system, the Albion are placed at an enormous disadvantage in their comparatively poor financial position in securing really good men. The clubs with the longest purse have the best chance of securing the cleverest players. These demands for high wages are gradually killing the game in many towns”. And they say history can teach us nothing.
The problem was simple. You might be able to cram supporters into Stoney Lane for one off cup games, but beyond that, it was lacking in the facilities needed to make it a welcoming venue. Additionally, the ground was only held on a short-term lease and, after some initial enthusiasm for the site, which included the building of the Noah’s Ark grandstand, the club directors soon refused to put any more money into improvements given this was not a permanent home.
With other clubs growing quickly by investing the money now coming in from the better attendances into stadium infrastructure, it meant Albion had perhaps the worst ground in the Football League, certainly in its top division, while the team was also in decline. Albion had survived the drop to Division Two in 1896 only by virtue of coming through the end of season “Test Matches” against Liverpool and Manchester City, an early version of the play-offs.
Stoney Lane was holding the club back and, while in the spring of 1899 Albion entered into a further 12 month lease on the ground, it was clear they needed to move on. Yet nothing is ever quite that simple in football, particularly as we are all so wedded to our traditions and our history. While the directors had already proposed a move from Stoney Lane well before things came to a head in 1899, as the Birmingham Gazette reported, it was an idea that for some seemed to be too far ahead of its time.
“The suddenness of the proposal was too great for a few individuals and a sentimental attachment to the old Stoney Lane ground caused opposition to be raised. Moreover, a number of gentlemen with interests in the vicinity came forward with a proposal to spend £2,500 on the old ground with the object of so improving it as to attract a greater number of people. The opposition was carried to such an extent by interested parties that eventually the owners withdrew the offer of the ground and the whole thing fell through.”
Stuck in Stoney Lane, financial matters deteriorated so badly in the 1898/99 season that a meeting of the club’s shareholders was called for 8 May 1899 to see if it could continue to operate at all, the notice asking them to ‘make a special (underlined!) effort to attend’. At that meeting, those who had earlier offered the £2,500 were called upon to see if their promise remained good. If you’ve ever paid any attention to high finance, you will not be surprised to learn that it did not, and that only around £300 was now on offer to improve Stoney Lane, chicken feed even then. A move was crucial if Albion were to survive. The club had reached a point of no return, from where it simply had to speculate if it was going to accumulate.
But if the move was on, where, exactly, was the club to go?
As the Birmingham Gazette noted, “It was useless looking for a ground in the direction of Hill Top or Great Bridge, as the neighbouring towns of Dudley and Wednesbury, from which in past years a large proportion of the club’s supporters have been drawn, have each now got successful junior football clubs of their own which attract 4,000 or 5,000 spectators to witness their matches. The reduction of the fare of the cable trams to ‘one penny all the way’ and the enormous increase in the populations of Handsworth and Smethwick has made it abundantly clear that any removal of the ground to prove a success must be in the direction of Handsworth”.
With Albion desperately scouring the locale for an appropriate site for a new ground, the timing could not have been better when, on December 5th 1899, a letter from Benjamin Karliese, the secretary of the Sandwell Park Colliery Company dropped on to the Albion’s doormat.
“My Board direct me to offer you a lease of the piece of land forming the corner of Halfords Lane and the Birmingham Road, about 10 acres (less sufficient land next to the “Oaklands”, to make a road across, 40 to 50 feet wide) for 14 years at a rental of £70 per annum for the first seven years, and £80 per annum for the second seven years. The West Bromwich Albion Football Club Company to have the option of terminating the lease at the end of the first seven years on giving such notice as may be mutually agreed.
“The Football Club Company to pay to the Company one-third of the revenue that may be derived from any hoarding that may be erected by the Club on the land in question during the existence of the lease, the Club retaining two-thirds of the revenue for the cost of erecting and maintaining the hoarding and collecting the revenue arising therefrom.
“My Board will reserve full powers for working the mines under and adjacent to the land, without being liable for damage to surface or erections thereon, and would require the covenants usual in their Leases to be embodied in this. It is understood that this offer is left open for your acceptance till 1st February, 1900, but if practicable my Board would be glad of a decision earlier”.
To translate, if your centre-forward suddenly dropped 250 feet through a hole in the six-yard box and down to the mine workings below, it would be, in a very real and legally binding sense, the club’s problem.
The Birmingham Gazette noted that this approach was a particularly pleasing development and that the plot in question fitted the bill perfectly, for the proposed site had good access, wide roads coming up to the ground from West Bromwich, Smethwick and Birmingham, although the later arrival of the motor car meant that easy post-match departures would eventually become a thing of the dim and distant past. But back then, with the main tram routes into Birmingham running right past the site, the perfect location had dropped into the laps of the Albion directors.
“A suitable piece of land was noted at the corner of Halford’s Lane on the main road, about halfway between the New Inns at Handsworth and the Dartmouth Hotel at West Bromwich. Its situation is believed to be even better than the ground near the Beeches Road which was proposed [in 1898], being easier of access from large centres of population.
“On the Handsworth side of it, a new street will be cut leading into Island Road, so that entrances to the ground can be made from three separate and wide roads, and with ten acres of land there will be abundance of room for all requirements. It will be easy of access from all parts, and it should be the commencement of a new lease of life for the club. The ground will have to be drained and relaid and suitable stands for the accommodation of the people provided. We are not in a position to state definitely as yet how the money will be raised, but we understand the directors can see a way of doing this without touching the funds of the club”.
Essentially, the plot was an area of marshland in a rural location. There was a brook running diagonally through what was effectively a meadow, the brook forming a border between Smethwick, Handsworth and West Bromwich. The Woodman Inn (of blessed memory) was on the Handsworth side, along with a blacksmith’s forge and a few houses. At the Smethwick end was a large house, Oaklands, and a garden nursery. A large private house was to one side of the land. It later became The Hawthorns Hotel and housed many Albion players – the great Ray Barlow got word of his first England call up there – and is now Greggs. From the sublime to the vegan sausage roll.
The amount of money available for undertaking all this work was a mere £1,800, but this did not deter the directors of the club who realised this was the route to the club’s ultimate salvation, the chairmanship of the newly installed Major H. Wilson Keys particularly crucial in driving the idea through. But we like a bit of brinkmanship at West Bromwich Albion, and so it was not until January 30th 1900 that the club accepted the proposal, signed the papers and the move became a reality.
But what to name the new place? Frank Heaven, Albion’s secretary-manager of the time, had done a little research on the site and had been told that in previous years, it had been part of an estate covered in trees, bushes and wildlife. Given the relationship between the throstle and the most prevalent of those trees, what better name than that of the original estate?
Welcome to The Hawthorns.
Albion will honour 125 years at The Hawthorns with a specially-designed home kit for the 2025/26 season.
The contemporary blue-and-white-striped shirt – designed by the club and Technical Partner Macron – draws inspiration from the jersey worn when the Baggies first walked out at The Hawthorns in 1900.
Tony ‘Bomber’ Brown – the player who holds the record for most appearances at The Hawthorns – stars in the club’s kit launch video and the quote affixed to his statue.
The inside neckline includes an image of The Hawthorns, while anniversary logos adorn the front and back of the shirt – which will be worn with navy socks and white shorts by the men’s first team, while the women’s first team will continue to wear navy shorts and socks.
An internal QR code – which can be scanned with a smartphone – will bring the kit to life throughout the anniversary campaign, with newly-appointed Club Historian Dave Bowler curating 125 unique pieces of Hawthorns content.
Every supporter who buys the new home shirt before August 1 will receive an A5 postcard featuring the poem narrated by Tony Brown in the kit launch video and a ‘Bomber’ moustache to create their very own memories. Fans can post their photos on social media using the hashtag #BomberMoustache – and the club will share its favourites.