Reds snagged at the Hawthorns

40 years ago, this day, 11th March 1978, was the closest any club had got to winning the domestic treble, and would remains so until Liverpool won the league and F.A. Cup double and made it to the semi-finals of the League Cup in 1986. Manchester United, like last night, would out-do Liverpool in 1994 though, when they also won the league and (F.A.) Cup double and made it to the League Cup final.

No team has won the domestic treble yet.

After continuing their race to the title last week with a home win against West Ham, now, it was F. A. Cup Quarter Final day. The day when just eight teams are left to continue their dream of cup glory, playing at four packed home grounds around the country. After this it would be a neutral semi final and then, fingers crossed, Wembley Stadium for the final at the end of the season in May.

The draw for the 6th Round was made on Monday, 20th February but only two teams had won their 5th round tie at that time, Arsenal and Millwall. Due to bad weather and three drawn ties we had to wait days for all the 5th round ties to be resolved.

The original draw that day was...

Middlesbrough or Bolton Wanderers v Orient or Chelsea

Millwall v Bristol Rovers or Ipswich Town

Derby County or West Bromwich Albion v Queen's Park Rangers or Nottingham Forest

Wrexham or Blyth Spartans v Arsenal

Having won a replay at Loftus Road, we were rubbing our hands at the prospect of a quarter final at the Baseball Ground. How sweet would it be to win such a game. (Just like it would be sweet if we could win tonight in the Derby derby!)

It took another 10 ten days before the other six places were all decided.

West Brom won at Derby two days later ending our Derby derby dream.

Five nights later three more were decided. Boro beat Bolton on the same night Orient shocked Chelsea - to set up what looked like an easy passage to the semis for Middlesbrough. Wrexham disposed of Blyth Spartans at St James' Park to earn a very attractive home tie versus Arsenal. That was the night of Forest's first replay with QPR. Frustratingly it was again drawn and so it went to a second replay.

The following night Ipswich eased passed Bristol Rovers to "earn" a nasty-looking trip to Millwall's Den.

Finally, ten days after the draw, Forest finally managed to get past Rangers and make up the eight.

How the eight got through to the quarter finals

This was my third visit to The Hawthorns and the 6th time I'd watched Albion. But before taking our nostalgic place in the Smethwick End of the ground with the Forest fans, I'll do a quick look at the history of West Brom's home grounds, their odd bag of nicknames and an appreciation of their cup success over the years.

The Hawthorns

The Hawthorns is actually the 6th home of West Bromwich Albion, although the previous 5 were all relatively temporary.

Albion had already played at four grounds in just their first seven years. Their 5th home, Stoney Lane, was Albion's ground for 15 years before they moved to The Hawthorns at the turn of the last century. Of course they have been there ever since.

West Brom's Grounds

The Stoney Hill ground is the only one of the five I could find a (grainy) photo of on the Web.

Stoney Lane

84% of West Brom's history has been at the Hawthorns.

The grounds are all pretty close together. According to Google, it would take just over an hour to walk past the sites of all of them.

West Brom Ground Tour

Click here for an Albion-inspired review of all their previous grounds.

This is what the Hawthorns looked like early on...

The biggest crowd ever seen at the Hawthorns was in 1937 for the F.A. Cup 6th Round tie against Arsenal. 64,815 watched them beat high flying Arsenal 3-1 to clinch yet another place in the semi-finals against Preston, ironically, played at Highbury. Preston won that match but lost in the final to Sunderland, their first (of two) F.A. Cup wins.

Almost 65,000 watched West Brom beat Arsenal 3-1 to reach the F.A. Cup semi finals in 1937

Hawthorns in the 1950s...

In the 1970s the ground looked like this...

This was going to be my 3rd visit to West Brom. My second (the first was St James' Park for the FA Cup quarter final in 1974) Forest away match had been at the Hawthorns in October 1974, when Forest had won 1-0 though a goal from Paul Richardson in the first half.

Saw Richardson get the goal at Albion in '74

First Visit to the Hawthorn brings back pleasant memories

I went again the next season too but Forest lost that one 2-0 in front of 26,447 as The Albion were on their way back to the first division.

Hawthorns' ground capacity had settled back to around 38,600 by the time Forest went there in March 1978.

The Albion, Throstles or Baggies?

As I described in my previous blog about West Brom, when we drew 0-0 with them at the City Ground back in November, West Brom started life, in 1878, as "The Strollers". Forest had already been around for 13 years by then, of course. Soon they changed their name to "Albion".

Albion, apparently, is the oldest known name for the British Isles and seems to allude to the "white cliffs of Dover" but it seems to be a mystery why the name was chosen for West Brom.

Albion also have two nick names. One, "The Throstles" seems logical enough as it seems to have taken off after their move to the Hawthorns.

The throstle is a colloquial name for a song thrush which was known to sometimes nest in hawthorn trees.

Song Thrush nest - in a Hawthorn Tree

The current WBA badge sums this up very beautifully, I think.

The other nickname, and more popular, is "The baggies". It's a bit of a mystery, this one, with a number of origins myths about it. One, supported by the club historian, Tony Matthews, (so I'm backing it) suggests that it derives from the term "bagmen", people who carried the club's match day takings in big leather bags from the turnstiles to the cash office on the halfway line - again at the Hawthorns.

West Bromwich Albion - one of the best cup sides

For a relatively small club, who had only won the league once, despite being original members of the football league, West Bromwich Albion have a proud F.A. Cup history.

At the start of the 1977-78 season they were 4th in the table of cup winners.

Only three clubs had won the F. A. Cup more times than Albion in 1977.

In terms of appearances in the final, Albion's record was even better. Only Newcastle United had been in more finals than Albion.

Baggies 2nd best ever record as F.A. Cup Finalists

Looking at that list triggers an observation.

Here's a question:

What did The Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest and Bury all have in common in 1977?

Answer:

They all had 100% F.A. Cup Final records and had won it more than once.

Spurs would drop from this list in 1987 when they lost a final to Coventry City and so would Forest when we lost to Spurs at Wembley in 1991. So just The Wanderers and Bury left with 100% records in FA Cup finals then? Need to check that!

After this match (spoiler: which Albion would win of course) they would have the most semi final appearances of anyone in English football history.

West Brom - semi-finalists extraordinaire!

It's bizarre how Forest seem to do quite well at getting to the semis but their "final conversion rate" is poor - 2/9ths or approximately 22%. Albion's, at 55% is above the average one would expect.

Early Years

Old as Albion are, one feels an irresistible urge to remind everyone that Forest are older. WBA might have been original members of the football league (and it really irritates me that Forest weren't - why not!?) but we played in the F. A. Cup six seasons before they did. Forest missed the first seven competitions, Albion the first twelve.

In terms of which team had the better cup run in a season, Forest obviously already had a 5-0 lead when Albion started competing and extended it to 7-0 after the first two seasons when they did. But in the next seven seasons, Forest never did better than Albion.

It didn't take long for West Brom to overtake Forest in terms of actual cup glory when they won the damned thing in just their fifth attempt, beating the "to-be" invincibles, Preston North End 2-1 in 1888 - the season before the league started - in which Preston would win the double.

WBA Cup winners 1888

This period of success culminated when Albion won the cup for the second time in 1892 beating rivals Aston Villa 3-0 in the final, and Forest 6-2 at the Baseball Ground (of all places) in the semi after two replays.

And again, four years later

Forest kept their lead though, and for the next two season we progressed further than Albion making the score 9-6. (Remember, I'm talking about the score of seasons of which team did better in the cup). The Albion had a good couple of years and then it bounced back to Forest for a couple more until Forest finally won the cup themselves beating Derby 3-1 in 1898.

Forest beat West Brom on the way to winning the Cup that year, 3-2 at Stoney Lane.

Good contrast maybe but they didn't want to wear Derby shirts

In fact in the ten years from 1896 until 1906 West Brom only advanced further than us in the cup once and Forest knocked them out for a second time in the cup of 1903-04 when they drew at the new Hawthorns before securing a 3-1 win at the City Ground.

So when the Great War put a great big pause on football in England for a few years, Forest were marginally on top in terms of seasonal progress in the competition. Forest had done better 19 seasons, West Brom 14 seasons, and four seasons they'd both gone out in the same round.

Albion ahead 2-1 on Cup wins but ignoring those and finals appearances Forest had the better of the early years overall

As usual, the inter-war period wasn't a good one for Forest and as Albion won their 3rd trophy, were losing finalists once and also semi-finalists, it's not surprising that Albion dominated the next period.

Baggies bag the new cup in 1931

Forest did better than them on five occasions, Albion better than us on nine, and six times they both went out on the same round.

Albion 9 Forest 5 between the wars

After the second world war, Albion dominated the F.A. Cup battle. In the first 13 seasons Forest only did better than the Baggies twice to their ten times.

Both teams won the Cup in a six year period after the war, though. West Brom won it for their 4th time in 1954, beating Preston 3-2.

And, of course, Forest won it in 1959.

The season before Forest's cup win, we also played West Brom in a titanic Cup tie. Having drawn 3-3 at the Hawthorns, Forest must have been hoping for a successful replay back at the City Ground but Albion won 5-1.

The only consolation was a bumper crowd of well over 46,000. This is a work in progress but I keep discovering big City Ground crowds that I had not known about before. This is a case in point. This was 6th biggest ever home crowd as far as I am aware. If anyone can send me more information I'd be grateful.

6th biggest (so far) City Ground attendance.

Overall since the war, Forest have done better in the cup than Albion ten times but they've done better than us 18 times. Five times both clubs have gone out the same round.

West Brom dominate after the war too

So, overall, in the 90 seasons that Forest or West Brom have competed in the F.A. Cup we have progressed further than Albion 34 times to their 41 times. 15 seasons we both went out the same round.

Here's an overall analysis of the two teams' progress in the F.A. Cup...

Albion are the better Cup side

Here's a look at the two clubs' league history alongside their cup wins.

So, enough about history. What about this season's (and by that, of course, I mean the one 40 years ago!) F.A. Cup?

How did they Get There

West Brom, like Forest, had quite a tough passage through to the quarter finals, probably a little tougher than our's overall. Like us, they had played two first division sides, one from Manchester. We had to face title challengers in the 4th round Manchester City but they drew Man Utd away. They were drawn at mid table Derby in the 5th round, we at struggling QPR and took two replays to overcome. In the 3rd round they beat second division Blackpool 4-1. We beat third division Swindon by the same score.

It was all set up then for an intriguing encounter. Forest were chasing an incredible treble but with a few injuries and suspensions and having just played 4 games in eight days the week before. The team they were up against realistically had no chance of winning anything else.

The Teams

Forest were still without their two first choice full backs. Viv Anderson and Colin Barrett, so the versatile Ian Bowyer and the veteran Frank Clark stepped in again. John McGovern returned to action after a groin strain but he didn't look right.

Ron Atkinson's side, by contrast, had a more stable look about them apart from being without Bryan Robson.

West Bromwich Albion
1 Tony Godden, 2 Paddy Mulligan, 3 Derek Statham, 4 Tony Brown, 5 John Wile, 6 Alistair Robertson, 7 Mick Martin, 8 Alistair Brown, 9 Cyrille Regis, 10 John Trewick, 11 Willie Johnston.
Goals: Mick Martin 1, Cyril Regis 1.

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Ian Bowyer, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.

Attendance 36,506

The Game

We packed into the Smethwick end as the atmosphere built up for a game we'd been really looking forward to.

Forest started well and Tony Gooden was forced into a couple of early saves.

Soon the pattern of the game started to become clearer with Willie Johnston, no doubt looking forward to representing Scotland in Argentina, terrorising our capable, but hardly expert full-back, Ian Bowyer. In contrast when our brilliant Scottish winger got the ball, Albion crowded him with two defenders straight away. With McGovern seeming to be lacking somewhere, Albion started to get on top.

In the 15th minute they took the lead with what seemed a lucky deflected shot at the time. Judge for yourself from the video below.

1-0 down at half time seemed a bit harsh but it got much worse very quickly when Cyrille Regis beat a flat back line and then struck a venomous shot past Shilton on 47 minutes.

Forest came back strongly, with Archie Gemmill and Martin O'Neill in particular seeming to more than compensate for John McGovern's lack of fitness but alas, it wasn't to be.

The treble dream, incredible that it was, was over.

Johnston gave Bowyer a torrid time

Cyrille Regis powers home the death blow to Forest's dream of the treble - 2-0.

Watch highlights of the match here...

Sadly, this signaled the end of Forest's 22 match (112 day) unbeaten run in all competitions. Other sequences continued, of course, however. Unbeaten at home and unbeaten in the league to name two.

One run ends, others continue

Cyrille Regis

I cannot post this without writing a few inadequate words in tribute to Cyrille Regis who died of a heart attack a couple of months ago at the ridiculously young age for a sportsman - just 26 days shy of his 60th birthday.

Regis made 614 first team appearances (scoring 158 goals) for six league clubs, the first of which was West Brom, having signed from non-league Hayes.

Regis for England

Although he was born in Maripasoula, in the French Guiana, in South America, he had dual citizenship with France and the UK and elected to play for England. He won 5 caps.

He made his debut, still just about a teenager, for Albion earlier this (1977-78) season in the League Cup against Rotherham United and by the time of this match he'd made only 20 of his 241 league appearances for the Baggies.

Cup winner

He left Albion and moved the short distance across to Coventry City where he made almost as many appearances and won his only major trophy, the F.A.Cup in 1987, against Spurs.

After that, Regis had brief spells with Aston Villa and Wolves before he moved to another of "my" clubs, Wycombe Wanderers, then managed by my ex-Forest hero, Martin O'Neill. O'Neill had just taken "The Chairboys" from the GM Vauxhall Conference to Division Three in successive seasons and he looked to Regis to add some experienced goal power up front alongside the ex-Blackburn striker, Simon Garner. As the new year of 1995 started, the combined ages of Wycombe's striking pair reached 72 years!

1994-95 was another great season for Wycombe. They finished 6th but only one club won automatic promotion that year so Wycombe missed out on a play off place by just three points.

Here's a video of that season (O'Neill's last) at Wycombe Wanderers.

Cyrille Regis played just that one season at Adam's Park but scored 9 goals and was quite prolific in his partnership with Garner.

His last club was Chester, when they were a mid table fourth division side - just four years before their relegation to oblivion.

Here's a video tribute to him.

The Other Quarter Finals

Wrexham 2 Arsenal 3

Elsewhere in the Cup Sixth Round, Arsenal managed to win through a tight and pulsating game at The Racecourse Ground, against third division Wrexham to seal their place in the semi finals.

"Supermac" MacDonald, Alan Sunderland and Willie Young scored for the gunners.

Millwall 1 Ipswich Town 6

Ipswich had a nasty looking trip to Millwall and the reality turned out worse than expected after Millwall fans (aren't they lovely) invaded the pitch to try to get the game stopped. Justice was done as Ipswich romped to a 6-1 win. A Paul Mariner hat trick sealed the win.

In one of the most infamous (and least diplomatic) football quotes, after the match, Ipswich manager Bobby Robson said "These people are killing football. I would turn a flame-thrower on them."

Middlesbrough 0 Orient 0

Finally, even more disappointed than us must have been 'Boro fans. Given what seemed a relatively straightforward game tie against Orient, they failed to capitalise and the game went to a replay. Orient amazingly won through to the semi finals 2-1 for the only time in their history.

Orient, Arsenal, Ipswich, and Albion in the semi finals

Other Results

Seven first division games were played that day. Everton won to close the gap to just four points - albeit that Forest now had two games in hand. Liverpool also gained ground and were now seven points behind Forest.