Sport
The town's sport scene is dominated by West Bromwich Albion football club, who were founded in the town in 1879 and played at a stadium near the town centre until they moved to their current home, The Hawthorns on Birmingham Road (directly on the border with Birmingham) in 1900. Although they are now in their 109th year at the stadium, all traces of the original structures are long gone; the oldest stand is the Halfords Lane Stand that was built in 1979 and the other three stands were built between 1991 and 2001. During the summer of 2008 the Halfords Lane Stand was refurbished and is now called the West Stand.
Albion were among the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888, along with their two fiercest local rivals – Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The club has won seven major trophies; five FA Cups, one Football League title and one Football League Cup. Their most recent major trophy came in 1968 when they won the FA Cup with a 1–0 win over Everton at Wembley Stadium. They enjoyed further success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they finished in the top five league positions three times in four seasons as well as reaching a UEFA Cup quarter-final. However, since relegation from the old Football League First Division in 1986 (this division became the Premier League in 1992) they have played in the top level of English football for a total of just four seasons. This spell of relatively disappointing performances included 16 successive seasons without top division football, two of which were spent in the third tier of the English professional league system.
Notable former players of West Bromwich Albion include Ronnie Allen (who later had a relatively unsuccessful spell as the club's manager), Bryan Robson (who was later the club's manager), Laurie Cunningham (one of the first black players to play for the England national football team, but who died in a car crash in 1989 aged only 33), Tony Brown (the club's all time leading goalscorer) and Jeff Astle (who scored the club's winning goal in the 1968 FA Cup final and remained a cult figure among Albion fans).
The local cricket team is West Bromwich Dartmouth Cricket Club and is based locally.
Read more about this topic: West Bromwich
Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one’s appetite is not too keen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
The End”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)