Baggies

I am the lunatic malcontent, and I am a West Bromwich Albion fan.

It’s a rollercoaster ride at best. At worst, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I’ve lost count of the times we’ve lost games against teams we should have beaten. Every time I think we’re going to have a good run, I’m disappointed.

Being a Baggies fan is like being a bad gambler.

But I love it. I love being a Baggies fan. I’ve been one all my life; through the good times and the bad (admittedly, there have been more bad than good).

There’s a kind of bond between West Bromwich Albion fans. We’re like disaster survivors, or battered wives, coming together to share our pain. We support each other almost as much as we support the team. We share a unique kind of facial expression that says, “Disappointed again when we should have won”.

West Bromwich Albion was one of the founder members of the Football League. There was a time when we were one of the big boys; when other teams looked upon fixtures against us with dread. We’ve won the FA Cup; we’ve won the League Cup; we’ve won the league – back in the days before it was the Premiership. We’ve won 5 FA Cup Finals.

Unfortunately, most of these things happened before I was born.

I was too young to witness the genius and majesty of Jeff Astle, one of the greatest forwards ever, at first hand. I was only a baby when “Captain Marvel” Bryan Robson strutted his stuff at the Hawthorns.

My earliest football memory was an FA Cup semi-final match against Ipswich at Highbury in 1978. John Wile, our captain, suffered a head injury and played a lot of the game with blood pouring down his face. Of course, that wouldn’t happen these days. Back then, football players were real men, who weren’t afraid of being tackled, and who only went down if you shot them. Unfortunately, we lost that game 3-1, but it’s one that I will never forget.

We actually won the FA Cup ten years earlier, in 1968. We beat Everton 1-0 at Wembley. Our goal was scored by the one and only Jeff Astle in extra time, completing a record of him scoring in every round of the competition. I would give anything to have been able to watch that match live. It must have been amazing. Just as an aside, it was the first FA Cup Final to have been televised live in colour.

Yes, it’s a hard life, being a modern-day West Brom fan. You have to be thick-skinned; durable; you have to be able to endure a lot of rough to enjoy the smooth. You have to have an almost stupid optimism that things will get better and that next season we’ll be challenging for a European place.

If you have all of these things, then you can count yourself a member of the world’s greatest family.