The word "Albion" has long fascinated me.
Why? Well, it's the suffix of my football team, West Bromwich Albion.
There are a handful of suffixes used by football teams; United, City and Town are the most common. There are a few Rovers, Wanderers, Athletic, County and Albion teams. And there are a bunch of teams with unique suffixes (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur, Accrington Stanley and Preston North End) and then a few with no suffix at all (Everton and Liverpool, for example).
These suffixes have meaning to them. City and Town being the most obvious. United less, obvious, but I understand it may have originally being from more than one team or location coming together. Albion as a word has a historic meaning that many may not know of. A quick flick through the dictionary and it is defined as a name for England or Britain, especially the England or Britain of ancient times. That makes sense, with Alba being Celtic word for Scotland and there are similar Irish, Welsh and Cornish words too. I didn't study latin at school (too young and not posh!), so I have to go on what I can research about the etymology, and there is a suggestion that it may come from the latin words for white (albus) or hill (alb).
Coming back to the topic of football monikers, these suffixes are often used locally in place of or in addition to nicknames. Where you live you might refer to your local team by the suffix as well as the nickname. (FYI, in addition to Albion, West Brom also have the nicknames of The Baggies and Throstles).
In some instances these suffixes can become synonymous with one club. United? Man United. City? Man City. Rangers? Glasgow Rangers. Real? Well, it's not going to be Real Salt Lake is it? Sorry, to the Claret and Cobalts. It's always going to be Real Madrid. And Albion? West Bromwich Albion.
Such global association of a suffix to your club comes with history. By history I mean both being the first, but also footballing success history too. I'd like to add that perhaps that success should be before the Premier League money started sloshing around and ruining the game and skewing the odds. Take a look at the domination of domestic trophies by a handful of cash-rich teams since 1992, and compare to the previous 100 years. Sadly the league is the play thing of billionaires....
Modern football fans have a very short attention span, and get all of their information from the internet. Sadly, all it takes is for one false article or a mischievous (or malevolent) edit on Wikipedia for incorrect information to become fact. These incorrect facts can then get referenced elsewhere. Just ask comedian Dave Gorman! I think it's sad that people no longer take the time to explore and learn about the culture and history and evolution of our beautiful game, and all their information comes from their phone or TV.
I've seen several poorly researched articles incorrectly suggesting Brighton & Hove (who I understand were the 5th team, behind WBA, Witton Albion, Albion FC [in Uruguay] and Albion Rovers) as the first team to use the Albion suffix - nope, wrong answer! Sorry if that sentence is a bit clumsy - I was cautious to not phrase it in such a way that it could be misconstrued by some search bot. I suspect the people who wrote these articles only skim the internet and watch just Premier League* on the telly.
* WBA ("The Albion") have spent the most seasons in top flight football (even just the Premier League) out of all of the Albion's. Read to the end for more on this fact.
Fun fact: I keep tabs on every team that has dropped out of the EFL. Teams shouldn't be forgotten by football fans just because they're not on the telly every week or on social media channels. Seriously, if you love the game then go beyond the glory of the top flight leagues. Watch out for Rayo Vallecano instead of Real Madrid (incidentally, Albion and England legend Laurie Cunningham played for both of these clubs), take in grass roots games, look at the history of your club, their rivals, their influences (for name, kit, badges etc.) For example, do you know why Juventus play in black and white stripes? I bet not many modern football fans do.
Formed in 1878 as West Bromwich Strollers (cool suffix, right?), Albion changed to West Bromwich Albion in 1880. Albion, were one of the 12 founding members of the Football League, along with Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke (they didn't have the City suffix at the time), and Wolverhampton Wanderers. The league commenced in 1888. When it was formed it didn't need to be known as the English Football League because it was the first. It wasn't until 2016 that for some reason the powers that be decided to rebrand the Football League.
So, West Bromwich Albion were the first team in the whole world to be known as Albion. And they're the most successful too.
Here's some other Albion facts for the uninitiated.
- West Brom were founded by factory workers. Their initial name West Bromwich Strollers came about because they walked to Wednesbury to buy a ball.
- Albion have worn their famous blue and white striped home kit since 1885.
- The bird on the club badge is a Throstle (a song thrush), which is perched on a hawthorn branch.
- They have been champions of England once (1919–20), and have been runners-up twice.
- They are the only team to win promotion and win the FA Cup in the same season.
- Albion have won the FA Cup 5 times, having made the final 10 times (prior to the Premier League era WBA were 5th most successful team in the FA Cup).
- They are 11th in England's all-time top flight table (the next nearest team with the Albion suffix are 49th with only 10% of The Albion's point tally).
- The ground is named The Hawthorns because the location where the ground was built was covered in hawthorn bushes.
- The Hawthorns is the highest ground above sea level of all English professional clubs.
- They reach the quarter finals of European Cup Winners' Cup in 1968-69
- WBA reached the quarter finals of the EUFA Cup in 1978-79
- They lost in the English Final of the Anglo Italian Cup in 1995-96
- West Brom were the first English club to sign a player for over £1/2M (David Mills from M'boro in 1979).
- On 23/01/22 Blackburn and West Bromwich Albion set a new record in the Premier League by fielding players from 22 different nations in the same game among the 27 players used in the game.
- Players from 64 different nations (at the time of writing) have played for WBA
- 700+ players have played for West Brom, with player surnames starting with every letter in the alphabet except X!
- They were the first team to avoid relegation in the Premier League having been bottom at Christmas (and the only team to avoid the drop whilst being bottom on the final day)
- Out of all the clubs to provide players for England, West Brom are 10th position, having provided 45 players to date (Spurs have provided the most with 78 at the time of writing).
Okay. I've got other things to do be doing, so I'll draw this post to a close.
I guess I wanted to make you think a bit more about the names of football teams, understand the history a bit more, not take things at face value or take what you see written on the internet (except this post, obviously, as it is bona fide 100% accurate at the time of writing) or social media as facts without doing your own research.
And in case there was any doubt:- West Bromwich Albion were definitely the first football team to use the Albion suffix moniker, and are the most successful Albion team in the world. So, yes, we are Albion. The Albion.
