The 2001-2 season really did have everything. The most memorable promotion of this or any other decade came at the expense of our embittered local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers. The fortunes of the teams have reversed somewhat in recent years- indeed this season was a major factor in that turnaround- but back then the Baggies were the poor relations whilst Wolves were still being bankrolled by the self-titled ‘Golden Tit’ Jack Hayward. Whilst the financial gap stacked the odds in favour of Wolverhampton, early season results had exacerbated the gap. Seven straight wins from the turn of the year had left Wolves eight points clear of Manchester City in the race for the title. My beloved Baggies trailed them in third place, eleven points behind. That day- so legend has it- Wolves instructed their suppliers to begin printing “Premiership 2002-3″ on their club stationery and registered ex-player and folk hero Steve Bull as a player to allow him to make a crowd-pleasing appearance on the final day of the season. You should never tempt providence, should you?
The West Bromwich Albion team was built on strength of character and defensive resilience. On the eve of the season top scorer Lee Hughes moved to relegated Coventry City for the galling sum of £5,000,001 (thus invoking a £5m+ release clause) and star striker Jason Roberts broke his foot. Roberts returned for our 4-0 home thrashing of Manchester City and broke his foot again. In the same game his strike partner Danny Dichio also broke his foot. When Roberts returned again, he broke his foot shortly after for the third time in the season on the day that Wolves established their eleven point lead.
From the day that Wolves moved into their eleven point lead, the Baggies played ten games and won eight drawing the other two including a game where a disallowed goal was shown to be well over the line (a refereeing mistake which, incidentally, rescued Rotherham from relegation at the expense of unlucky Crewe).
The most crucial result in that run came in the penultimate game of the season as West Brom travelled to Bradford’s Valley Parade the day before Wolves hosted Wimbledon (now AFC Wimbledon). We were a point ahead with two to play and an inferior goal difference. The Baggies dominated the game but could not manage to find the breakthrough until we were awarded a penalty in the 93rd minute. That season we had already been awarded ten penalties. Sadly, though, we had missed nine of them and our penalty hoodoo looked likely to strike again. It had emerged, though, in the week preceeding the Bradford game that our non-English speaking Slovakian right back Igor Balis was a regular penalty taker for his country. He just hadn’t known how to tell anyone! Only in West Bromwich could that happen.
Nerves jangled from all parts of the stadium as the Slovakian lined up to take the kick. The award of the spot kick had been met with jubilant celebrations in all four stands as it became clear that the Baggies’ fans- having long since sold out our official allocation- had infiltrated the three home stands wherever tickets were available.
The despatch of the penalty was cool and confident, the ball nestling in the bottom corner of the net as the ground erupted in celebration. Balis, meanwhile, looked bemused. Perhaps he didn’t understand what it meant to the fans until that point- would he have beaten the keeper so comprehensively if he had?
Wolves defeated Wimbledon the following day, but their hearts had truly been broken by the Balis penalty. In order to secure promotion, we simply had to equal their result in our home match with Crystal Palace. Pre-match mindgames from the Wolves camp included the Golden Tit telling the local media that a fortune teller had told him that Palace’s former Wolves striker Ade Akinbiyi would score a hat-trick against us and Wolves winger Mark Kennedy stating that his international team-mate Palace’s other striker Clinton Morrison had assured him that Palace would win as “all the Irish lads hate West Brom” (a fallacy, as it happens). Morrison was conspicuously less forthcoming during the game after a pre-match conversation with two of our centre-backs who assured him that if he scored, he would not be joining the Republic of Ireland squad for that summer’s World Cup in Japan and South Korea. He limped off with a mystery injury early in the game.
The Palace game was played in a carnival atmosphere and glorious sunshine and- aside from the club’s clean-sheet-record breaking keeper Russell Hoult palming over a long-distance drive- entirely as the Baggies would have wished. A Wolves goal in their match at Hillsborough failed to set the nerves jangling, in fact the crowd became even louder in response. Partway through the first half a goal by cult hero centre-half (and largest man on earth) Darren “Big Dave” Moore was swiftly followed by a Sheffield Wednesday equaliser. We were playing out time waiting to celebrate the final whistle and not worrying how long it took to arrive.
Fittingly, the second half gave us a memory to cherish forever. Legendary striker Bob Taylor scored a typical poacher’s goal in front of the main home stand to seal the victory. He came, he set a season scoring record to win promotion, he was forced out by a manager and became a legend at Bolton, then returned to save us from relegation and finally scored the goal that took us back to the top tier for the first time in 16 years. At Hillsborough, Wolves’ capitulation was complete as they failed to beat a Sheffield Wednesday side with nothing to play for but it didn’t matter as we won 2-0 to secure promotion with the most dramatic comeback in our history. An eleven point lead for Wolves- the rich team with the Premiership stationery- turned into a three point deficit in the final nine games by the underdogs, the paupers, the pre-season relegation favourites: West Bromwich Albion
What a season that was! And just look at how the Wolves fans saw it all:
