West Bromwich Albion F.C. (The Baggies) History

West Bromwich Albion Football Club are an English football club based in West Bromwich. The history of West Bromwich Albion F.C. covers the years from the club's formation in 1878 to the present day.

• 1880 – the club were founded as West Bromwich Strollers by workers from Salter's Spring Works in West Bromwich, and were renamed West Bromwich Albion. The club have played their home games at The Hawthorns since 1900 .
• 1888 – Albion were one of the founding members of The Football League.
• 1919-20 - club have won the league title.
• 1878 – the club was founded in as West Bromwich Strollers in West Bromwich.
• 23 November 1878 – the team played their first match, drawing 0-0 in a 12-a-side game against workers from Hudson's, a local soap factory.
• 1879 or 1880 – they were renamed West Bromwich Albion, becoming the first team to adopt the Albion suffix.
• 1881-82 season – they decided to pay a subscription to join the Birmingham & District Football Association, thus becoming eligible for their first competition, the Birmingham Senior Cup.
• 1883 – the Albion team display the Staffordshire Cup. This was the first ever photograph taken of an Albion team.
• By 1882 they had also joined the Staffordshire FA, they won the Staffordshire Cup.
• 1883-84 – season they entered the FA Cup for the first time.
• 1885 – the club turned professional.
• 1886 – reached the FA Cup final for the first time, losing 2-0 to Blackburn Rovers .
• 1887 – they reached the final again, but lost 2-0 to Aston Villa .
• 1888 – they went one better and won the trophy for the first time, beating strong favourites Preston North End 2-1 in the final.
• The West Bromwich Albion team of 1888, FA Cup winners and Football League founder members
• March 1888 – William McGregor wrote to what he considered to be the top five English teams, including Albion, informing them of his intention to form an association of clubs that would play each other home and away each season.
• 1892 – Albion's secondFA Cup success, beating Aston Villa 3-0.
• 1895 – they met Villa again in the final, but lost 1-0.
• 1900-01 – the team suffered relegation to Division Two.
• May 1902 – Albion secretary Frank Heaven resigned and was replaced by 19 year-old Fred Everiss, who remained in the post of secretary-manager for 46 years.
• 1903-04 – Albion won just seven league games and were again relegated as the First Division's bottom club.
• 1905-06 season – 16-match unbeaten run between October and January helping the team to a 4th place finish.
• 1906-07 – Fred Shinton finished as top scorer in Division Two, with 28 league goals.
• 1910-11 – they won the Division Two championship once more.
• 1919-20 – Albion won the Football League title for the only time in their history following the end of the First World War.
• 1924-25 – the team finished as Division One runners-up in , narrowly losing out to Huddersfield Town , but were relegated in 1926-27 . The following season, Jimmy Cookson scored 38 league goals to finish as Division Two's top scorer.
• 1929-30 – Albion scored a club record 105 league goals, but could only finish sixth in Division Two.
• 1930-31 – they won promotion to Division One.
• 1935 – Albion reached the final again, losing to Sheffield Wednesday .
• 1935-1936 – W. G. Richardson scored 39 league goals, still a club record.
• 1937 – Albion reached the FA Cup semi-final but lost 4-1 to Preston North End.
• 1937-38 – Albion were relegated to Division Two.
• 1939-40 – season only a few games old, the Second World War broke out and football was suspended.
• Once normal league competition was resumed in 1946 (the 1945-46 season had been organised on a regional basis) Albion remained in the Second Division .
• 1948 – the turning point arrived with the retirement of Fred Everiss.
• 1948-49 – Albion's first modern manager was Jack Smith, who led the team to promotion. There followed the club's longest unbroken spell in the top flight of English football, a total of 24 years.
• 1950 – a talented new squad started to develop, marked by the arrival of Ronnie Allen.
• 1953-54 – Albion came close to being the first team in the 20th century to win the League and Cup double. They succeeded in winning the FA Cup , beating Preston 3-2, but a loss of form towards the end of the season meant that they finished as runners-up to fierce rivals Wolves in the league.
• 1953-54 – the team being hailed as "The Team of the Century".
• 1954 – Albion played in 'Le Soir Festival de Football', losing 5-3 to Hungarian side Honved in Brussels.
• 1957 – Albion became the first British professional team to win a game in the Soviet Union. They played three games, drawing against FC Zenit in Leningrad (Russia) and beating Dynamo Tbilisi (Georgia) and the Soviet Army side, CSKA Moscow (Russia).
• The 1950s also saw the arrival of players Don Howe , Derek Kevan and Bobby Robson .
• 1957-58 – Allen, Kevan and Robson scored 78 goals between them.
• 1957 – Albion reached the semi-final of the FA Cup.
• 1957-58 and 1959-60 the team achieved three consecutive top five finishes in Division One.
• September 1964 a young striker Jeff Astle was signed from Notts County F.C.
• 1968 – Ashman led Albion to FA Cup victory, Astle becoming the first player to score in every round of the competition including the only goal of the final against Everton.
• 1969 – Albion again reached the FA Cup semi-finals but narrowly lost out to Leicester City .
• 1970 – the club reached the League Cup final again but lost out to Manchester City 2-1.
• 1971 – former Albion player Don Howe replaced Ashman as manager.
• 1973 – Albion relegated to the Second Division.
• 1974 – failure to achieve promotion back the following season and the departure of Astle seemed to presage a gloomy future, and cost Howe his job.
• 1976 – player-manager Johnny Giles led the club to promotion but then dropped a bombshell on the club by submitting his resignation in order to give more attention to his other job, manager of the Irish national team .
• Ron Atkinson managed Albion during two separate spells in the 1970s and 1980s.
• 1978 – a relatively unknown young manager named Ron Atkinson arrived at the club, he inherited a team that already included youth-team graduate Bryan Robson and Derek Statham , Ally Robertson as well as the black pair of Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis , both acquired inexpensively from lower divisions.
• 1978 – Albion reached the FA Cup semi-final but lost to Ipswich Town .
• May 1978 – Albion became the first British professional team to play in China . Albion also reached the UEFA Cup quarter-final, where they were defeated by Red Star Belgrade.
• 1983-84 season - "The A Team", as the management trio, Johnny Giles, Norman Hunter and Nobby Stiles, were known, reversed the sinking trend in the and things improved the following year.
• 1987 – the team finished in the bottom half of the Second Division.
• Summer 1987 – Atkinson returned to Albion and halfway through his second season at the club they led the Second Division table.
• 1988-89 season – Talbot was unable to maintain Albion's good form and they were unable to claim even a playoff place.
• 1989-90 – brought even more frustration as Albion finished 20th in the Second Division – their lowest final position up to that time.
• January 1991 – the Albion board finally lost patience with Talbot after they lost 4-2 at home to non-league Woking in the Third Round of the FA Cup.
• 1992 – Albion just missed out on the Third Division playoffs and shortly afterwards Bobby Gould moved to Coventry City.
• 1992-93 – Ossie Ardiles led Albion to promotion.
• 1993-94 – Albion survived relegation back to Division Two but only because they had scored more goals than their nearest rivals, Birmingham City.
• October 1995 – they were second in Division One and hopeful of automatic promotion, but then came a drastic loss of form which saw them lose 13 games, draw one and win none: one point out of a possible 42.
• 1995-96 season – the team looked set to be relegated to Division Two, but a big improvement in form during the final four months saw them climb to mid table. Later during the season, the club signed Richard Sneekes from Bolton.
• January 1997 – Buckley was sacked and replaced by Ray Harford.
• 1996-97 – Ray Harford led Albion to Division One safety and in the first few months of the following season the side established itself in the top six.
• 1998-99 – Lee Hughes scored 31 times in the league to finish as top goalscorer in all four English divisions, but Albion finished only 12th and Smith was sacked in the summer of 1999.
• His successor Brian Little failed to make any progress at The Hawthorns and was sacked in March 2000, with Albion in real danger of relegation.
• March 2000 -Gary Megson was named as the new West Bromwich Albion manager and his arrival at the club heralded a revival of Albion's fortunes.
• Megson's rejuvenation of the side continued in2000-01, as Albion finished sixth, their highest league finish since relegation in 1986.
• 2001-02 – Albion reached the FA Cup quarter-finals, their best run in the competition for 20 years, eliminating Premiership sides Sunderland and Leicester City along the way.
• Albion celebrate promotion to the Premiership in 2004. Fans invade the pitch following the 2005 ecsape from relegation.
• 2003-04 season – Albion had their best League Cup run for 22 years, beating Newcastle United and Manchester United before losing to Arsenal in the quarter-finals.
• 2004-05 – the club won just one of their first 11 games and Gary Megson was sacked in October after announcing that he would not be renewing his contract when it expired at the end of the season.
• 2005-06 season – Albion failed to avoid the drop, despite home wins over Everton, Arsenal and Spurs.
• 2007-08 – West Brom reached the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time since 1982, but lost 1-0 to Portsmouth at Wembley Stadium . The crowd of 83,584 was the highest ever for an FA Cup semi-final. A month later they won a third promotion to the Premier League by winning the Football League Championship.