HAWTHORNS REVISITED

Club Historian Richard Shepherd looks back at past trips to the Baggies

This weekend the Bluebirds travel to the Hawthorns for the first time in the league since goals from Chris Burke and Peter Whittingham secured a 2-0 victory in 2009 – a first win at the Hawthorns in 1957.

On that occasion, the win came in the old First Division when Gerry Hitchens and Colin Baker scored in a 2-1 victory for City. Even that was a rare win for the Bluebirds at Albion’s ground however with a previous triumph coming ten years earlier in December 1947 in the old Second Division when 38,914 had seen a 3-2 success with goals from Dougie Blair (2) and Colin Gibson.

City have won League matches at the Hawthorns on six occasions since they first went there in October 1921. That time it was a 2-2 draw in Division One with goals from Jimmy Gill and Fred Keenor. Making his debut for us that day was forward Joe Clennell, signed the previous day from Everton for a then-substantial £1,500 fee, and he was to be major factor in City’s rise of the early-1920s to becoming one of the top clubs in the League.

Three years later – on November 10th 1923 – City secured a spectacular 4-2 win at The Hawthorns with all four of the goals coming from Welsh International forward Len Davies. And in the 1926/27 season when the Bluebirds famously won the FA Cup, Davies was again on target in our 2-1 First Division win of February 1927.

Prior to City’s promotion from the lower divisions in 2003, City had previously travelled to West Bromwich on two occasions in the mid-1970s. In late-March 1974, City gained a 2-2 Second Division draw with two goals from ex-Middlesbrough forward Johnny Vincent, while the following season (1974/75) City lost 2-0 in mid-April 1975.

As for Cup matches, our last visit in all competitions came in January 2012 of course, City travelling to the West Midlands for a FA Cup third round match with the Baggies only to lose 4-2 despite goals from Robert Earnshaw and Joe Mason.

City also faced the Baggies in the League Cup in late-September 2007, winning 4-2 after running up a 4-0 lead through Robbie Fowler (2), Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink and Trevor Sinclair.

WATCH OUR EXCLUSIVE MATCH PREVIEW SHOW IN THE CITY, THE PERFECT BUILD-UP TO SATURDAY'S GAME.