Club Profile: West Bromwich Albion
One of several big ones in the Birmingham area, West Brom has been a yo-yo club bouncing up and down the divisions for years; their fans also bounce and sing “Boing Boing” when they score.
LOCATION: West Bromwich (it’s BROM-itch), which to us foreigners seems like just another part of Greater Birmingham, in the West Midlands
CONTACT: wba.co.uk, 0121 227 2227, #WBA
NICKNAMES: The Baggies, perhaps because factory workers in the old days attended games in their baggy work clothes. No one is sure. Sometimes also the Albion; the Throstles, for the bird on their crest; and the Stripes.
History
West Brom is one of the older clubs around; it was started by workers at a spring factory in 1878. (This whole area was very much ground zero for the Industrial Revolution.) At first they were called West Bromwich Strollers; then in 1880 they became the first team to use Albion, a pre-Roman word for the island of Great Britain. (The other big clubs using it are Burton Albion and Brighton and Hove Albion.) They were founder members of the Football League in 1888 and moved into The Hawthorns in 1900. They were relegated that season, setting something of a pattern.
They were good through the ’20s and ’30s, then again in the ’50s and ’60s. They won the League Cup in 1966 and the FA Cup in 1968, on a goal by “the King” Jeff Astle; look for him raising his arms on a very cool gate outside the ground. Another hero of those days, Tony “Bomber” Brown, has a statue nearby. That was their last major trophy, and by the early 1990s, they were all the way down in the third tier.
They got to the Premier League in 2001, then got relegated, then got back up and staged a miraculous great escape in 2005, becoming the first team to stay up after being bottom of the table at Christmas. There’s a great video online of their last game that season. Then they were relegated the next season anyway.
In 2020 they finished second in the league to go up, then in 2021 they were 19th in the Premier League and back down! They nearly went back up in 2024 via the playoffs, but were knocked out in the semifinals by Southampton.
They have worn the same blue-and-white stripes for virtually their entire history, and their crest features a cute little bird called a throstle; it used to sit on a crossbar but now rests on a hawthorn branch, a nod to their stadium. Legend has it that in the really old days, the pub where the players dressed kept such a bird in a cage.
About that famous boing-boinging. One theory is that it had to do with all the going up and down through the leagues, but a supporter we met, Nick, had a better story.
“It was about the 1992–93 season, and the story I heard was, in the coach on the way to the ground before a Cup game, there was this young lad who’d had a few pints, and he had his headphones on playing this house music, you know, with the pounding beat. And he’s bouncing his head up and down going ‘boing boing.’
“Well, the other lads started doing it to mock him, ya know, taking the piss out of it, and they come off the bus doing it, ‘boing boing.’ And when the Albion scored in that game, they started doing it in the stand. And it bloody stuck!”
2024–25 SEASON: 9th in the Championship, 3rd Round FA Cup, 1st Round League Cup
2025–26 SEASON: The Championship (relegated in 2021)
Rivalries
The other Birmingham-area clubs are rivals, especially Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers. With the latter they contest the Black Country derby, which goes all the way back to 1886 and has been played 162 times. That matchup—West Bromwich Albion vs. Wolverhampton Wanderers—is said to be the worst nightmare of the person who has about five minutes to engrave the FA Cup trophy with the winners’ name. It would be a cracking final, though.
Women's Team
The WBA FC Women play in the third-tier National Women’s League North. Home games are at the home of Redditch United.
Songs
The most random one is the 23rd Psalm. Yes, that one, “The Lord is my shepherd” and all of that. The leading theory traces it to a game away to Everton in 1974; issues with the electricity at the stadium moved the game to Sunday, and since it was the first Sunday game anyone could remember, they decided to get religious. It’s now written above the seats in the West Stand at The Hawthorns.
Stadium
The Hawthorns has been their home since 1900, and strangely, among the 92 Football League clubs, it’s the highest above sea level at 551 feet. The site had to be cleared of hawthorn bushes, hence the name.
Capacity is 26,688; it somehow looks smaller from the outside and bigger on the inside. It’s a very cozy, enclosed ground and is intimidating to opponents when the Baggies are good. The away fans are behind a goal in the Smethwick End; the hard-core Albion folks are opposite in the Birmingham Road End, known as the Brummie Road End. Between the Brummie and the East Stand is the Woodsman Corner, named for a pub that was there until 2004; look for the giant throstle statue there now.
TOURS: Once every couple of months, the club offers tours for £15 for an adult and £10 for children. Check the website for dates.
Going to a Game at West Bromwich Albion
GETTING THERE: The closest rail station is The Hawthorns, just a few minutes’ walk away. It’s about 20 minutes from the main Birmingham station, New Street, with a change at Snow Hill. You can also get there direct from Moor Street, right across from New Street, on West Midlands Trains. A few bus lines stop right outside.
PUBS: There aren’t many near the ground. The Vine is considered the best option and gets high marks for its Indian food. It’s about a 10-minute walk away. Also look for The Royal Oak, a similar distance in the other direction. There is the usual FanZone right by the ground.
GRUB: Other than the pubs, there’s nothing special in the area.
AROUND TOWN: There’s nothing much to see in West Bromwich, really. The sights are all in Birmingham proper and include the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the National Sea Life Centre, and Cadbury World, a chocolate museum. (Cadbury was founded in Birmingham.) The other main sights are related to the Industrial Revolution and old housing. The Jewellery Quarter is worth a walk around, but the real prizes for history buffs are the Birmingham Back to Backs (celebrating a common working-class style of housing) and the 26-acre Black Country Living Museum, a collection of homes, shops and other buildings collected from the area and brought in to reproduce a Victorian village and a 1940s-60s village, with folks walking around in character and lots of fun events planned. It’s a bit remote but worth the trip. And if this means anything to you, they shot a lot of “Peaky Blinders” there. See their website for more.
West Bromwich Albion Tickets
Last time they were in the Championship, adult tickets were £25 to £35 and kids at £10 to £14. Few games will sell out.
Photo Gallery
Videos
West Bromwich Albion Fans Doing Their "Boing Boing"
West Brom's Winning Penalty at Preston North End
