West Bromwich Albion Football Club /ˈbrɒmɪtʃ/, also known as West Brom, The Baggies, The Throstles, Albion or simply WBA, is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands. The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900. Albion currently play in the Championship, the second tier of English football, having been relegated from the Premier League in 2017–18.
Albion were one of the founding members of the Football League in 1888, and have spent the majority of their existence in the top tier of English football. They have been champions of Englandonce, in 1919–20, and have been runners-up twice. They have had more success in the FA Cup, winning it five times. The first came in 1888, the year the league was founded, and the most recent in 1968, their last major trophy. They also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966. The club’s longest consecutive period in the top division spanned twenty-four years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 they spent their longest ever spell out of the top division.
The team has 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 a number of long-standing rivalries with other West Midlands clubs; their traditional rivals being Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves) both of whom were, like Albion, founder members of the Football League. Albion contest the Black Country Derby with Wolves.
