A Forgotten Rivalry
Baggies v PNE
As Albion prepare for the visit of Preston North End, Steve Carr recalls a time when a Baggies match v PNE attracted a world record football attendance.
(Albion’s 1888 FA Cup Winners)
Football rivalries come in all shapes and forms. Albion have local rivalries with Villa and Wolves (and much less so with Blues). Not so long back, a rivalry built up with Stoke because we could never beat them (a role now undertaken by Derby County) and if you go back to the 1990s there was the unlikeliest of rivalries with Grimsby Town, which developed after we pinched their manager and then proceeded to sign most of their players!
Another type of rivalry, which doesn’t affect Albion these days, is the type whereby the top clubs of any area era regularly contest games for the most prestigious honours. In the case of West Bromwich Albion and Preston North End you have to go back to the 1880s, when the two clubs met in either the Final or Semi Final of the FA Cup in three consecutive seasons.
This, remember was before the Football League had been created so other fixtures were essentially friendlies - albeit much more fiercely fought than the ‘training ground’ exercises of today.
Having won the Staffordshire Cup in 1883, Albion became an attractive proposition for the top clubs in Lancashire, which was already a hotbed of football. The 1883-84 season saw Albion heading north on several occasions, starting with a visit to Deepdale. Preston North End hadn’t yet achieved anything of note, but defeated Albion 3-1 with a team containing veiled professionals ie Scots who were ‘employed’ in local factories as cover for the fact that they were being paid to play football, at a time when players were officially amateurs (until 1885, when professionalism was legalised).
This clearly created some interest back in the Black Country for the return fixture on Boxing Day 1883, when the home crowd had the added novelty of seeing Lancashire opposition for the first time. WBA won 2-1 in front of some 5,000 spectators at the Four Acres ground, an unimpressive figure by modern-day standards, but possibly Albion’s highest home ‘gate’ of the season, in an era where attendances were only announced sporadically.
These fixtures soon became annual events, though Albion’s record at Deepdale was poor, with the 1-3 first game defeat being followed by further losses of 0-4, 0-7 and 0-7 again (two successive seasons!), 2-4 and 0-2, only a 1-1 draw there on Boxing Day 1884 bringing any joy. On the plus side, North End were unsuccessful in West Bromwich, and were even thumped 5-1 at Stoney Lane over the Christmas period in 1886, results possibly emphasising the difficulties faced by players back then, using a combination of steam trains, with horse-drawn wagons to provide local connections, to convey players long distances - a significant change in the football landscape which just a few years earlier had been a very localised affair. Estimates of the attendance for the 5-1 victory at Stoney Lane vary wildly between 6,000 and 12,000, but in the context of the era this was one of the biggest gatherings at an Albion home game that season, emphasising the attractiveness of WBA v PNE fixtures by this time.
The 1886-87 season brought together these now established rivals on three separate occasions, starting with home & away ‘friendlies’ in December. Albion were thumped 7-0 at Deepdale for the second successive season, but largely avenged this with a 5-1 victory at Stoney Lane, as stated above. By far the most important encounter to date, though, came on 5th March 1887 when the two clubs met in the first of what proved to be three epic FA Cup encounters in successive seasons. This Semi Final tie was played at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, then as now known as a top cricket venue, but back then a regular football venue as the home of Notts County.
Bob Roberts
This was the game which brought goal keeper Bob Roberts national recognition, defying wave upon wave of Preston attacks as Albion came from behind to win 3-1, courtesy of two late goals, and earning himself an England call-up for the first time.
By the time the1887-88 season started Preston were Lancashire Cup holders for the first time, and Albion were again defeated at Deepdale, this time by the rather more respectable margin of 4-2. This was one of what turned out to be an unbeaten run of 45 games that North End had put together by the time they met Albion in the FA Cup Final on 24th Match 1888.
Played at the Kennington Oval cricket ground in London, such was Preston’s confidence going into the game that they asked to be photographed with the Cup before the game ie in their clean kit, but the request was rightly turned down by the referee. North End subsequently denied that such a request had been made, though it was confirmed by the Albion Chairman, Henry Jackson, who had overheard the conversation. No doubt, this incident only added to what was becoming a fierce rivalry! However, form counted for nothing on the day, as Albion defeated North End 2-1 to win the FA Cup for the first time, and 19-year-old Billy Bassett’s dazzling display brought him international recognition for the first time.
Albion’s FA Cup success meant they became an attraction across an even wider area, fulfilling many games against opponents old and new in the weeks following the Cup Final victory, but found time to fit in home & away fixtures with Preston North End, neither of which were won!
By the time the 1888-89 season started, both clubs had become founder members of the Football League, the world’s first League football competition. However, the first meeting of the clubs that season came in neither League nor Cup, and not at Deepdale or Stoney Lane either, for the match for the benefit of West Bromwich Institute was staged at Albion’s former ‘home’ at Dartmouth Park!
North End completed a League double over Albion that season, including a 5-0 drubbing at Stoney Lane, but a much closer affair ensued at the FA Cup Semi Final meeting of the two clubs in March. Once again the game was staged at a cricket ground, this time Bramall Lane (which only became home to Sheffield United FC the following season). The interest was such that the official attendance of 22,688 was the highest ever recorded for a football match anywhere in the world up until that point in time.
In reality, the were many more spectators inside the ground, thousands having broken in, and as a result the crowd was almost standing on the touchlines, making it difficult to take corners and throw-ins, and even causing the game to be stopped at one point. There are conflicting reports over whether or not the game should have continued (it certainly wouldn’t have gone ahead in the modern era), but Preston won by the only goal of the game, albeit there was a suspicion of a foul in the build-up to their goal, and an Albion ‘equaliser’ was denied as the officials were unable to judge whether or not the ball had crossed the line.
Albion’s subsequent protest to the FA was rejected. Preston North End went on to win the Cup for the first time, beating Wolves 3-0 in the Final, and it was this team which became known as the Preston ‘Invincibles’, becoming League champions without losing a game, and FA Cup winners without conceding a goal. However, it could have all been so different…
Despite the events described above, Preston were again popular visitors to Stoney Lane for League games on Boxing Day in both 1888 & 1889, but thereafter the fixtures were arranged more randomly The two clubs continued to be regular opponents for many years but have only met in the FA Cup on a handful of occasions since, most notably in 1937 (Albion losing a Semi Final at Highbury, which is a horribly familiar feeling to Albion fans of my generation!) and gloriously winning the Cup again in 1954.
In more recent times, Albion’s first victory under Bryan Robson’s management came in a 3rd Round FA Cup tie in 2005, courtesy of two Rob Earnshaw goals, but it’s safe to say that the strong sense of rivalry that existed between the two clubs back in the Victorian era has long since dissipated.