SYNOPSIS

A match-by match look at West Bromwich Albion's 2001-2002 promotion season.

FOREWARD

Last season I was congratulating the team for a season of "glorious failure" - the club's best finish for fifteen years, and defeat in the Play-off semi-finals against Bolton, just twelve months after they had escaped relegation to the Second Division on the last day of the campaign.

Now it is time for more congratulations, as Gary Megson has gone one better and achieved automatic promotion; how much more satisfying it was for Albion supporters that this great achievement was managed against the odds - and at the expense of rivals Wolves...

In next season's Albion Review 2003 I will be able to write about the club's exploits in the Premiership against the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United, the club's highest finish in the national game for seventeen years - and, with any luck, be discussing the Albion's return to European competition in 2003. Ignore the pessimists who declare that Albion have no chance of stopping up next year - there are great days ahead at The Hawthorns.

I hope that you all enjoy this fourth offering of the Review; we have had a big increase in pre-orders this year because of everybody who wants a souvenir of a great season; I hope you all re-order next season...

As usual, I would like to thank everybody who contributed to this book and towards The Baggies newspaper in the past twelve months, especially John Homer, Kevin Grice, Dave Holloway, Dave Hewitt, Colin Mackenzie and Jill Pearson.

Glenn Willmore
July 10 2002

This book is dedicated to the memory of a great footballer, Jeff Astle 1942-2002 R.I.P