PRE-SEASON ESCAPADES
With the current group of Albion players now back ‘full swing’ for pre-season training in readiness for the 2025/26 Championship campaign and preparing for a trip to a training camp in Austria as well as a couple of friendly games against Blackpool and Lincoln City on the road, giving the Albion fans the opportunity to have a look at new players and of course the new manager, it is maybe worth looking back at pre-seasons from the past, dating back to 1900 when the club moved to its present home ‘kicking off’ the Former Players Association’s own 125 year celebrations.
Pre-season training and preparations for new seasons are of course the staple diet of the professional footballer, and records of Albion’s pre-season preparations, training and of course matches goes back to the early 1900’s, when all levels of playing staff at the football club, youth players, reserves and first teamers played against each other in games arranged by the directors, and generally designated as “Whites -v– Stripes” or “Reds -v- “Stripes” with fans paying a nominal fee at the turnstiles for the privilege of seeing their heroes in ‘early’ action, with the money generated going to local charitable causes.
In August 1903, the first match report for such a game that I can source, describes a pre-season game between the “Whites” and “Stripes” arranged by the directors with the first team attack operating against the reserves defence, with the first team “Whites” coming out on top 3-2. Similar stories would be told in the following years, through the pages of the local newspapers such as the Birmingham Dispatch and Mail, throughout those early years, but in 1909 the Albion board decided on another novel way to prepare for a new season….a close season or summer tour, and the Albion directors paid for the first team to travel to Scandinavia, via boat from Harwich Port in Essex, to play seven games against various teams, including two other sides from the United Kingdom, Newcastle United and Hull City who were also involved in what has to be said was certainly an exciting adventure.
You could say that it was a tour that would be a pre-curser to following Albion tours to such far off ‘climes’ as the Soviet Union in 1957, to play three of the top Russians sides, Canada and North America in 1959, a month long nine match marathon and of course that highly publicised trip to China in May 1978, trips all designed to create harmony and friendship with Football Associations and the peoples of those countries visited, and it had to be said, the Albion delegations were warmly received wherever they set foot.
In September 1912, Albion first teamer’s who were of course desperately disappointed to have not beaten Barnsley in the F. A Cup Final of that year, found themselves up against the Reserves in front of an estimated 5,000 fans, equally disappointed no doubt, raising around £100, a lot of money in those days, that would be spread amongst so many local good causes, including the West Bromwich District Hospital, The Birmingham Queens Hospital and the Birmingham Military Veterans, amongst many others. Two years later in 1914, before Lieutenant Harold Godfrey Bache went to war, never to return, he was part of a group of players who played three pre-season ‘in house’ matches, played sat The Hawthorns, with the money generated going to the ‘Prince of Wales War Fund’, with Albion’s great Corinthian in majestic form, the Birmingham Mail reporting, “The Corinthian looked the picture of fitness”, having apparently just competed in the local Lawn Tennis championships.
Generally speaking around 10,000 fans would turn up for the pre-season ‘get-togethers’ normally played in blocks of three games, two at week-ends and one in midweek, which continued after the War ended up to and including the Second World War, and in August 1948, one ‘infamous’ mid-week pre-season clash had to be abandoned when the Borough of West Bromwich was hit by a violent thunder lightening and rainstorm, that turned the streets around The Hawthorns into miniature rivers-according to the Birmingham Gazette – “Where the Hawthorns landscape got so dark, the players could only be identified by the flashes of lightening, that lit up the stadium”, the game was wisely stopped by the referee. A young long legged wing half played that evening – his name – Ray Barlow!
In 1963, what seems to be the last of the ‘in house’ pre-season games was played at The Hawthorns, between the “Stripes” and the “Reds” with Jimmy Hagan’s new boy John Kaye, just purchased from Scunthorpe United, playing and scoring in his very first Albion game, a twelfth minute opener for the “Stripes” in their 5-3 victory over the “Reds”.
A year later Mr Hagan took his players off to Holland for a three match tour, including an historic game against the top Dutch side Ajax and the following year 1965, the players and management were off to the United States to compete in the New York International Football Tournament that would be played in ninety degrees plus heat. It was a complete disaster with the players so uncomfortable they could not wait to get on that flight back home to the United Kingdom, having played six exhausting games against top sides like Ferencvaros of Hungary, Dukla Prague and Scottish side Kilmarnock. One former player told me, that the heat was so intense, the players used to take refuge in the New York cinemas in their down-time. They were of course air conditioned!
In 1966, with Mr Hagan still in charge, it was another jaunt across the Atlantic to South America to play another six games before the 1966/67 season, and twelve months later a new manager Alan Ashman, would be more frugal, taking his new charges down to the south coast in August 1967 to play three games, against Bournemouth and Portsmouth, stopping off on the way at Ashton gate, Bristol, to play Bristol City. Eight months later with the F.A Cup safely under skipper Graham Williams pillow, the team were off to East Africa for a tour of football and ‘fisticuffs’ against some seriously uncompromising opposition, but bravely remaining unbeaten, with three wins under their belts. The players could be very proud of themselves.
In 1969 it was a tour of Canada and North America, taking in the ‘Palo Alto’ Tournament followed by a two game trip to Norway in July. The 1970’s featured new tournaments like the Anglo-Italian fiasco’s the Texaco Cup and the Watney Cup, with Albion playing out an enthralling 4-4 draw at The Hawthorns in 1971 with Colchester United, former full-back, the late Bobby Cram and Trainer Dick Graham at the helm of the Essex Club, who won the Watney Cup on penalties.
With the formation of the Premier League, pre-season’s became both expensive and to a certain extent expansive, Albion visiting Denmark several times under the management of Gary Megson, with a brilliant south coast tour of the West Country in 2002 after gaining promotion to the Premier League, playing against Exeter City, Tiverton Town, Torquay United and Bristol Rovers, followed by more great games against Stoke City, Port Vale, Stevenage and Telford preceding the club’s very first Premier League season in 2002/03. It was without doubt an extraordinary couple of weeks, with Gary Megson showing his empathy, on a moving day, when the ‘troops’ visiting a blind school in Exeter and playing football against the students, the Albion boys wearing eye masks to even up the competition. It was one of those “I was there moments” the Albion players were incredible with their generosity. Equally the 2006 pre-season tour of Scotland under the management of Brian Robson and Nigel Pearson was another incredible experience, Albion’s games against Kilmarnock and Motherwell, just a side show for a get together of a great bunch of players and backroom staff.
When Tony Mowbray arrived, he took the players across to Europe to play in Holland and Germany, and later Roy Hodgson also took his new players abroad, all part of the new world of pre-season football, which has come a long way from those early days when the club directors arranged a kick-about for the players ahead of a new campaign, but somehow, if you close your eyes and think about it, there is a certain charm about jumping on the tram to The Hawthorns, to watch a Saturday afternoon or a mid-week low key Hawthorns kick about with the reserves and the kids, just to see how the players were shaping up before the real action started. Football has indeed come a long way!”
CHAPTER TWO – “A NEW DAWN – BIRTH OF THE HAWTHORNS” To follow next week
Laurie Rampling – July 2025
