24-09-2020, 12:19
I'm a Brummie, brought up in Rubery on the south west of the city but my Mom was from Handsworth. We would visit my Grandad on Saturdays and my big brother would take me to the Hawthorns, it was all of a ten minutes walk! My first game was 1962 against Burnley - we lost 1-2 so nothing much has changed.
Lucky enough to see the 60s teams of Derek Kevan, Alec Jackson etc and then Astle, Hope, Bomber, Kaye, Ossie and others. We then had the first of the "wilderness years" periods but then, after the 1976 promotion, we had the great late 70s/early 80s teams which were just wonderful - since then, we've had our moments but, for me, nothing eclipses Regis, Cunningham, Robson, Wile, Robertson, Statham, Johnston and all the others too numerous to mention.
Hard to pick a favourite match - going to Wembley for the play off v Port Vale, as DerbyBaggie said, was brilliant but I'd probably pick a league game: 8-1 v Burnley in 1967 (revenge!!), 4-3 v Tottenham 1968/69, 4-3 v Man Utd 1971 (I think John Wile got the winner) but topping them all was probably 2-1 v Villa in 2011, when Mulumbu got the winner. We'd waited so long and endured so much crap...and we did it with ten men. Magic!!
Lucky enough to see the 60s teams of Derek Kevan, Alec Jackson etc and then Astle, Hope, Bomber, Kaye, Ossie and others. We then had the first of the "wilderness years" periods but then, after the 1976 promotion, we had the great late 70s/early 80s teams which were just wonderful - since then, we've had our moments but, for me, nothing eclipses Regis, Cunningham, Robson, Wile, Robertson, Statham, Johnston and all the others too numerous to mention.
Hard to pick a favourite match - going to Wembley for the play off v Port Vale, as DerbyBaggie said, was brilliant but I'd probably pick a league game: 8-1 v Burnley in 1967 (revenge!!), 4-3 v Tottenham 1968/69, 4-3 v Man Utd 1971 (I think John Wile got the winner) but topping them all was probably 2-1 v Villa in 2011, when Mulumbu got the winner. We'd waited so long and endured so much crap...and we did it with ten men. Magic!!
The light at the end of the tunnel is the light of an oncoming train