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Each month we take a look at an
Albion ‘programme from the past’. A number of the programmes will be rarities, allowing a much wider audience to view them, perhaps for the very first time.
Port Vale v West
Bromwich Albion, Official opening of Vale Park's floodlights,
Wednesday 24th September 1958
 With
Albion due to travel to Vale Park as part of the club's 2014/15 pre-season
schedule, this month's featured programme comes from a friendly fixture between
the two clubs 56 years ago, a game that saw the official opening of Vale Park's
floodlights.
The 1958/59 season
had started brightly for Albion, Vic Buckingham's men sitting in fifth place
after nine games with just one defeat suffered. One week prior to the trip to
Vale Park the Baggies had thrashed Portsmouth 6-2 at Fratton Park, remarkably
the second time the club had hit six goals in game already that season,
following on from a 6-0 demolition of Birmingham City at St Andrews two weeks
earlier - Ronnie Allen, Derek Kevan and David Burnside in particularly
devastating form.
Vale meanwhile,
experiencing Fourth Division football for the first time, had made a good start
in their quest for promotion, sitting fourth after their first nine games. As
the season went on, Vale, under the leadership of Scotsman Norman Low, went from
strength to strength. Three players - Graham Barnett, Stan Steele (later to join
Albion) and Jack Wilkinson, all hit 20 goals or more and Vale simply had too
much firepower for most teams in the division, charging to the league title and
scoring 110 goals in the process.
The Baggies
initially continued their good form following the Vale Park friendly, briefly
hitting top spot of the First Division in December before a run of poor form in
the new year saw them drop out of the title chase, eventually won by Black
Country rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers with Albion having to settle for a
creditable 5th place.
The game itself,
played in front of an impressive crowd of 18,749 despite heavy rain and strong
winds, was won 5-3 by the hosts, the Albion goals coming from Burnside (2) and
Main.
The 16 page
programme for the game, which included an insert with a photo of each team, is a
fairly rare item these days, often changing hands for £30 or more.
View the complete programme here
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