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From Strollers to Albion in 1898
The club was founded as West Bromwich Strollers in 1878 by workers from George Salter’s Spring Works in West Bromwich, in the Black Country. They were renamed West Bromwich Albion in 1880, becoming the first team to adopt the Albion suffix; Albion was a district of West Bromwich where some of the players lived or worked, close to what is today Greets Green. The club joined the Birmingham & District Football Association in 1881 and became eligible for their first competition, the Birmingham Cup. They reached the quarter-finals, beating several longer-established clubs on the way. In 1883, Albion won their first trophy, the Staffordshire Cup. Albion joined the Football Association in the same year; this enabled them to enter the FA Cup for the first time in the 1883–84 season. In 1885 the club turned professional, and in 1886 they reached the FA Cup final for the first time, losing 2–0 to Blackburn Rovers in a replay. They reached the final again in 1887 but lost 2–0 to Aston Villa. In 1888 the team won the trophy for the first time, beating strong favorites Preston North End 2–1 in the final. As FA Cup winners, they qualified to play in a Football World Championship game against Scottish Cup winners Renton, which ended in a 4–1 defeat.
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Premier League Champions in 1920
Albion won the Football League title in 1919–20 for the only time in their history following the end of World War I, their totals of 104 goals and 60 points both breaking the previous league records. The team finished as Division One runners-up in 1924–25, narrowly losing out to Huddersfield Town, but were relegated in 1926–27. In 1930–31, they won promotion as well as the FA Cup, beating Birmingham 2–1 in the final. The “double” of winning the FA Cup and promotion has not been achieved before or since. Albion reached the final again in 1935, losing to Sheffield Wednesday, but was relegated three years later. They gained promotion in 1948–49, and there followed the club’s longest unbroken spell in the top flight of English football, a total of 24 years.
Albion was one of the 12 founding members of the Football League in 1888, the first professional football league in the world. The club has spent the majority of its existence in the top tier of English football, where as of 2020 – 2021 it has played for 82 seasons. The club has been champions of England once, in 1919 – 2020, and has been runners-up twice. Albion teams have reached ten FA Cup finals and won the Cup on five occasions. The first win came in 1888, the year the league was founded, and the most recent in 1968, the club’s last major trophy. It also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966. The club’s longest continuous period in the top division spanned 24 years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 it spent its longest ever spell out of the top division.
Founded
1878
Location
West Bromwich, England
Team History
1898 – Present / West Bromwich Albion Football Club
1878 – 1898 / West Bromwich Strollers
Nickname
The Baggies, The Throstles, The Albion
Although known in their early days as “the Throstles”, the club’s more popular nickname among supporters came to be the Baggies, a term which the club itself looked down upon for many years but later embraced. The phrase was first heard at the Hawthorns in the 1900s, but its exact origins are uncertain.
Championships
Premier League / 1
1920
FA Cup / 5
1968, 1954, 1931, 1892, 1888
Premier League – FA Cup Double / 0
Stadium
1900 – Present / The Hawthorns
1885 – 1900 / Stoney Lane
1882 – 1885 / Four Acres
1881 – 1882 / Bunn’s Field
1879 – 1881 / Dartmouth Park
1878 – 1879 / Copper’s Hill
Current Owner
2016 – Present / Lai Guochuan
*Blue is this team’s history