Seven teams faced the drop but would Albion survive?
W.G. Richardson was the club’s top scorer for an eighth successive season – a club record
WHEN the 2021-22 season reached its last day there was a relegation cliff-hanger featuring two teams – Leeds and Burnley. It pales into insignificance, however, when compared with the last day in 193738.
Then the top flight was the First Division and Albion were one of no fewer than seven sides hoping they would not fill the bottom two places which in those days brought relegation to the Second Division.
Of 22 clubs, those who could still go down when the last game arrived were Huddersfield who were 15th in the table on 37 points, followed on 36 points by Manchester City, Stoke City, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Albion and Grimsby Town.
One can only wonder how Sky Sport would have coped with-last day drama like that.
In those days goal average decided places when teams were level on points. It was arrived at by dividing goals scored by goals conceded. This was how the teams stood in the bottom seven places on the morning of May 7:
37 points Huddersfield, goal average 0.794, 36 points Manchester City 1.653, Stoke City 0.849, Birmingham 0.885, Portsmouth 0.852, Albion 0.839, Grimsby 0.720.
There had been little in the first half of the season to indicate Albion would be in trouble. The side who had reached the FA Cup semi-final the previous season were fifth in the table after 10 games and their 17th game of the season brought an away win over league leaders Brentford to keep them in a respectable 12th spot.
Then form took a worrying dip with only one win from their next nine games. That run was ended with a 5-1 home win over Liverpool, helped by a hat-trick from W.G. Richardson on his way to being the club’s top scorer for an eighth
successive season – a club record. It was only a brief halt to the slump and Albion’s fortunes fluctuated over Easter with three matches against two fellow strugglers. They lost 2-1 to Birmingham at St Andrew’s on Good Friday but won the return fixture 4-3 at the Hawthorns on Easter Monday. In between those games they were hammered 7-1 by Manchester City at Maine Road. Then came a 5-1 home win over another relegationthreated side, Huddersfield Town, and survival hopes continued to rise. They dramatically dipped again when a 3-1 defeat at Blackpool was followed by a 2-1 defeat at Molineux in a spirited display against a Wolves side hoping to be champions. So the last day came with the Baggies knowing that even if they won their final game –
against Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park – their fate was still in the hands of others. Chances of an away win looked good as Boro had failed to win any of their previous six games.
Boro’s recent record proved a false omen for the visitors and Boro hammered the Baggies 4-1, all the goals scored by their England centre-forward Micky Fenton. Yet he had been without a goal in his previous six appearances.
Albion were down and even if they had won that last game it would not have saved them as all the other results went against them. Stoke beat Liverpool 2-0, Blues won 4-1 at Leicester, Portsmouth beat Leeds 4-0 and Grimsby beat Chelsea 2-0.
Summing up Albion’s demise ‘Hawthorn’ wrote in the Birmingham Gazette: “Promoted six seasons ago in a blaze of glory, for they established a record which still stands by winning the FA Cup at the same time, Albion were ‘raked out’ of Division 1 football at Middlesbrough on Saturday like the embers of a slowly dying fire.all very tragic in its way, but even allowing for the nervous tension which might have been present by the knowledge of what was at stake, there was no real or concerted effort to rekindle such ‘flames’ as were left over from their Birmingham and Wolverhampton matches.”
Big shock was that the team who joined Albion in the drop were Manchester City, beaten 1-0 at Huddersfield. City had topped the First Division the previous season and this remains the only incidence of the top flight champions being relegated the following season.
If there was woe for the Baggies in the North East, so was there for Wolves. The win over Albion at Molineux meant Wolves were top of the table, a point ahead of Arsenal. They needed only to win at Sunderland to be crowned champions of England for the first time.
Major Frank Buckley’s side were 90 minutes from glory but chose this day to turn in their poorest display of the season and they were beaten 1-0, England inside-forward Raich Carter scoring in the seventh minute.
Sunderland had Scotland international left-half Alex Hastings sent off 12 minutes from time but Wolves were just as poor against ten men as they had been against eleven. Arsenal took full advantage of the defeat by beating Bolton 5-0 at home to take the title.
So it was double woe – a day when West Midlands fortunes went south in the North East.