Twenty Years

Exactly two decades to the very day have passed since my one and only visit to the old Wembley Stadium, to see Albion triumph over Port Vale in the 1993 Division Two playoff final. The motorway down to London was an armada of blue and white, with 44,000 Baggies on a southbound migration, and we filled the grand old stands of the Empire Stadium with our new "Boing Boing, Baggies Baggies" chant that had been coined midway through the season. The match was a close affair for the first hour - Vale were a good side who'd beaten us twice in the regular season - but the sending off of Peter Swan in the second half shifted the momentum relentlessly in Albion's favour. We emerged victors by three goals to nil, and it remains one of the truly amazing Albion matches that I've seen in my lifetime.

If I'd had a camera there that day, a fantastic blip it would have made, but my ticket is the only souvenir I'll ever need.