SYNOPSIS

A match-by match look at West Bromwich Albion's 2003-2004 Promotion season.

FOREWARD

This is the sixth year that we have produced the Albion Review. In the last five editions, we have covered a successful last-day struggle to avoid relegation (in 2000), defeat against Bolton in the Play-offs (2001), a fantastic promotion season (2002), relegation from the Premiership (2003) and, once again, automatic promotion back to the top flight (2004). Each time, Gary Megson has been at the helm, and what a marvellous job he has done at The Hawthorns since taking over from Brian Little in March 2000.

Morale was low last summer, after Albion had finished bottom-but-one in the Premiership, but Megson rebuilt his side, making more than a dozen new signings in a bid to get an immediate return to the top flight. Some of those signings were successful; Geoff Horsfield is a steady leader of the attack, Thomas Gaardsoe, who won his first Danish cap, is a classy defender, and Rob Hulse got off to a great scoring start at The Hawthorns. Artim Sakiri, the Macedonian captain, who only arrived after a great deal of work behind the scenes, was an enigma; perhaps, with more time on the ball, he will show his best in the Premier. Other players, like Facey, Kinsella and Skoubo, were mere stop-gaps.

In the end, Albion dominated the First Division as they have not done since the great Atkinson side of 1978-79; after being in the top two almost all season, they only narrowly lost out to Norwich for the championship, as they became one of the most consistent sides in Albion's long history. Let's hope the manager can take that sort of self-assurance into the top flight in 2004-05.

I would like to thank everybody who contributed to this book, and to The Baggies newspaper in the last year, especially John Homer, Kevin Grice, Dave Holloway, Dave Hewitt, Amanda Hume and Colin Mackenzie.

Glenn Willmore
July 10 2004