page_title: West Bromwich Albion F.C.
section_title: "Baggies" nickname
hierarchical_section_title: West Bromwich Albion F.C. / Supporters / "Baggies" nickname
caption_attribution_description: Baggie Bird, the West Bromwich Albion F.C. mascot
context_page_description: West Bromwich Albion Football Club is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England, that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900.
  Albion were one of the 12 founding members of the Football League in 1888, the first professional football league in the world. The club have spent the majority of their existence in the top tier of English football, where they have played for 81 seasons as of May 2020. They have been champions of England once, in 1919–20, and have been runners-up twice. Albion have reached ten FA Cup finals, winning the Cup on five occasions. The first win 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 continuous period in the top division spanned 24 years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 they spent their longest ever spell out of the top division.
context_section_description: Although known in their early days as "the Throstles", the club's more popular nickname among supporters came to be the Baggies, a term which the club itself looked down upon for many years but later embraced. The phrase was first heard at the Hawthorns in the 1900s, but its exact origins are uncertain. One suggestion is that the name was bestowed on Albion supporters by their rivals at Aston Villa, because of the large baggy trousers that many Albion fans wore at work to protect themselves from molten iron in the factories and foundries of the Black Country. Club historian Tony Matthews, however, suggests that it derives from the "bagmen", who carried the club's matchday takings in big leather bags from the turnstiles to the cash office on the halfway line. Other theories relate to the baggy shorts worn by various players during the club's early years. The official club mascots are named Baggie Bird and Albi; both are based on the throstle depicted on the club crest.
caption: Baggie Bird is one of two West Bromwich Albion mascots.
exif: {}