Full name | West Bromwich Albion Football Club | |||
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Founded | 1878 | |||
Ground | The Hawthorns | |||
Capacity | 26,850[1] | |||
Owner | Bilkul Football WBA | |||
Chairman | Shilen Patel | |||
Head coach | Chris Brunt (interim) | |||
League | EFL Championship | |||
2023–24 | EFL Championship, 5th of 24 | |||
Website | wba.co.uk | |||
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West Bromwich Albion Football Club (/ˈbrɒmɪdʒ, -ɪtʃ/), commonly known as West Brom or The Albion, is a professional association football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league. The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900.
Albion were a founder member of the Football League in 1888, the first professional football league in the world. The club has spent the majority of its existence in the top tier of English football, where it has played for 82 seasons, most recently competing in the Premier League in 2021. They have been champions of England once, in 1919–20, and have been runner-up twice, in 1924–25 and 1953–54. Albion have reached ten FA Cup finals and won the Cup on five occasions. The first win came in 1888, the year the league was founded, followed by wins in 1892, 1931, 1954 and most recently in 1968, the club's last major trophy. Albion also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966, and have reached a further two finals. The club's longest continuous period in the top division spanned 24 years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 it had its longest spell out of the top division.
The team have played in navy blue and white stripes for most of the club's history, and the club badge features a throstle perched on a hawthorn branch. Albion have long-standing rivalries with their traditional local rivals Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Albion contest the Black Country derby with the latter.