Nobody likes a smartarse in football:
"During West Bromwich's visit to China he entered football history by, in reply to a question about the Great Wall, remarking "Impressive, isn't it? But once you've seen one wall, you've seen them all!". [Via his Wiki page.]
Granted, it's not on a par with the Arsenal Stadium Mystery but, because of my soft spot for this particular piece of brilliance that dates from my callow youth, I've always been intrigued by the Hawthorns Stadium Mystery.
Didn't you ever wonder what happened to the great West Brom side of the late seventies and early eighties? How did a team that included such class acts as Cyrille Regis, Bryan Robson, John Wile, Len Cantello, Tony Godden, Laurie Cunningham, Brendan Batson, Derek Statham, Peter Barnes, Tony and Ally Brown go from finishing 7, 6, 3 and 5 in the space of five years to being perennial mid-table mediocrities in the mid-eighties?
The official version is that the throstles got throttled when Ron Atkinson left to go to Old Trafford to mismanage Man Utd and when his great West Brom team broke up because of either retirements or big money transfers. However, I think the mystery has finally been solved and it's a music blogger, Any Major Dude, who has provided the photographic evidence.
Look at this panini sticker picture that dates from the early eighties. Who ate all the pies? Steve Mackenzie ate all the pies . . . and half of his team mates at West Brom by the look of that chin that he's hiding under his 'tash. How did he go from scoring the best goal in the 1981 FA Cup final to looking like Motorhead's roadie in the space of five years?
But it all makes sense now. I always wondered what happened to John Trewick after he left Hawthorns. Now I know: he never did leave West Brom.
PS - Also check out Any Major Dude's Perfect Pop - Volume 5 post. You can't go wrong with the Box Tops, Big Sound Authority, Thin Lizzy and Natalie Imbruglia.
Eight goal thriller over the Christmas period?
Forget yesterday's Villa/Chelski match, Man Utd versus WBA from 1978 will always stick in the memory.
Cyrille Regis should have got a hat trick, but for two brilliant saves from Gary Bailey; Laurie Cunningham blistering and unstoppable on both wings; the brilliant second goal from West Brom prompting the question, whatever happened to Len Cantello?; and with Stewart Houston, Mickey Thomas, Sammy McIlroy, Steve Coppell, Gordon McQueen and David McCreery in their line up, Man Utd must have been the ugliest football team in history, save for that 14th century village football team from Gloucestershire who were struck down with the bubonic plague after that European away fixture in Sicily.
Love to see the modern day marketing bods at Old Trafford selling that Man Utd first eleven's image rights to the Asian soccer market.
I just wish that Big Ron hadn't spoil it at the end of the clip by his words that brought it home that the seventies were a long time ago.
