FOUR ACRES
1882-85
First Game:
7th October 1882 vs Stourbridge Standard, won 10-0 (Friendly)
Last Game:
6th April 1885 vs Wednesbury Old Athletic, won 3-2 (Friendly)
Biggest Recorded Victory:
26-0 vs Coseley, 11th November 1882 (Birmingham Cup round 1)
Biggest Recorded Defeat:
1-5 vs Stoke, 20th October 1883 (Friendly)
Highest Crowd:
16,393 vs Blackburn Rovers, 21st February 1885 (FA Cup Quarter Final)
Lowest Recorded Crowd:
600 vs
Cocknage, 3rd December 1883 (Staffordshire Cup round
1)
Modern day location of ground
In September
1882 the club moved from Bunn's Field to the nearby Four Acres, located in
Seagar Street. The ground, which had
been the home of West Bromwich Dartmouth
Cricket Club since 1834, had
been dedicated to the local people by William, Fourth Earl of Dartmouth
and was a venue for not only football and cricket but also athletics.
Dartmouth, who before Albion were also the leading football club in West
Bromwich, had decided to concentrate solely on cricket, mainly because of
Albion's newly found dominance of local football. Therefore, Dartmouth
offered Albion the chance to rent the ground off them and the first
tenancy agreement was signed in September 1882.
The move was initially agreed for only a year but Albion later agreed to
lease the ground for a further two at a cost of £15 per year, the club
also having to fund the building of a new ticket office and pavilion.

ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP OF 1902 SHOWING THE FOUR ACRES
In the club's opening fixture at the
ground Albion beat Stourbridge Standard 10-0 in a friendly, Billy Bisseker
scoring six of the goals.
Albion
entered the FA Cup for the first time whilst at the ground, the
club's first ever tie in the competition being
played against Wednesbury Town at the Four Acres on
November 10, 1883. The game ended in a 2-0 defeat
for Albion in front of a crowd of 5,129.
The 1883/84 season saw Albion issue a season ticket for the first time, at
a cost of three shillings (about £7.25 in today's money). Official club
records reveal that just a dozen were issued. The normal matchday
admission price for games at the Four Acres during the season was 6
pennies (about £1.20 today).
The biggest
game to ever take place at the ground was a FA Cup tie against the then cup
holders Blackburn Rovers on 21st February 1885. A record crowd of
16,393 watched Rovers defeat Albion 2-0.
During
Albion's time at the Four Acres the club lifted it's first
silverware, beating Stoke 3-2 at
the Victoria Ground in the
final of the Staffordshire Cup. The club's
all
time record victory was also achieved at the ground
when in November 1882 Albion beat Coseley 26-0
in a Birmingham Cup match.
The final game
at the Four Acres took place on April 6, 1885 when Albion beat Wednesbury
Old Athletic 3-2 in a friendly, watched by a crowd of around 3,500.
In total,
Albion played 61 games at the ground winning 48 and losing only 7.

Park Crescent - 2005
With the club limited to playing games only
outside the cricket season and with matches only being allowed on Saturdays
and Mondays, Albion stayed at the Four Acres for just three years before
moving to a new site in nearby Stoney Lane.
The site of Four Acres
is now Park Crescent, located off Seagar Street.