Hawthorns celebrates 125 years as the Baggies hope to end the Derby hoodoo

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Brummie Road Ender

·12 September 2025

Hawthorns celebrates 125 years as the Baggies hope to end the Derby hoodoo

West Bromwich Albion v Derby County; The Hawthorns, Saturday 13th September 2025, 3pm

With the transfer window closed and the first international break of the season over, Albion face the first of five matches that will take us through to the October break. The results in those games will provide some extra clarity on how near Ryan Mason’s team are to challenging for promotion.

With Middlesbrough, Leicester City and Norwich City to come, a home game against Derby County should, on paper, be the least daunting of the five games, but the Rams have had something of a hold over the Baggies in recent years and have already knocked them out of the Carabao Cup this season, albeit on penalties.

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Albion haven’t beaten Derby County since they met during Project Restart in July 2020, a 2-0 win at the Hawthorns that is the Baggies’ only success against the Rams in the last eleven meetings in all competitions. County won both league games last season despite finishing just one point outside the bottom three.

On the face of it, it might appear that John Eustace’s side are facing another struggle against the drop this season as they are yet to taste victory this season, other than the penalty shoot-out success at the Hawthorns. Their league results have seen them lose 3-1 at Stoke City and 5-3 at home to Coventry City before draws at home to Bristol City and away to Ipswich Town. At Portman Road, they were denied victory by the hosts’ penalty in the 16th minute of added time.

However, Eustace has had a positive window and there were signs in that match at Ipswich that this season could see the Rams take a step in the right direction. Having brought in Carlton Morris from Luton Town and splashed out close to £6m on US international forward Patrick Agyemang, other new signings include former Albion players Kemar Roofe, Erik Pieters and Andi Weimann, along with Jeff Hendrick, Danny Batth, Rhian Brewster and Lewis Travis. County also managed to pick up Ben Brereton Díaz on loan from Southampton and the Chile international is set to make his debut at the Hawthorns, although his performance for his national team against Uruguay in midweek apparently left much to be desired.

Ryan Mason has a number of decisions to make with the signings made late in the window presumably available for selection. While there were suggestions that Daryl Dike may be available after the international break, there was no sign of him in the gallery from training this week published on the club website, nor were Karlan Grant, Krystian Bielik or Tammer Bany apparently involved. Josh Maja featured prominently and new signings, Charlie Taylor, Alfie Gilchrist and Samuel Iling-Junior were all actively involved.

The back four of Campbell, Phillips, Mepham and Styles were excellent at Stoke, so it may be difficult for Mason to justify a change there, but perhaps Iling-Junior may have a chance of a start with Johnston and Wallace the only other senior options for wide roles, and I’m not sure that the skipper is a preferred starter. Another option might be to play Maja as a ten with Price pushed wider.

Fans will be excited to see the new signings, and the 125th anniversary celebrations will add a sense of occasion, but ultimately it’s all about whether Albion can put to bed their recent poor record against the Rams, and thereby continue their positive start to the season. If Preston beat Boro at lunchtime, we could even see the Baggies in top spot by the end of the day. Now that would be nice to see!

History

On this auspicious occasion to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Hawthorns, it seems fitting to talk about that very first match at the Shrine on 3rd September 1900. While it was the first match at the Hawthorns, it was actually the 26th meeting between Albion and Derby County with both sides having been founder members of the Football League in 1888.

As the history buffs will know, it was fitting that it was a local boy, Steve Bloomer, who scored the very first goal at the venue, albeit the Cradley-born striker was playing for Derby County. Thankfully, another local lad, Wednesbury-born Charlie “Chippy” Simmons squared things up for Albion to make the final score 1-1.

Bloomer was no stranger to Albion fans having scored for County on their visit to Stoney Lane in September 1898 and two in their 4-1 victory at the Baseball Ground in November 1899. He was also something of an England legend even then, setting a record of scoring in his first ten international matches, a record that still stands today for scoring in consecutive international appearances for England at any time, never mind from the start of a career. He actually scored 19 goals in those 10 games and he ended his England career in 1907 as his country’s record goalscorer at the time with 28 goals in 23 matches.

After retiring as a player, Bloomer went into coaching for Britannia Berlin 92 in July 1914 just a few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War. Unable to get out of the country, he was interned by the German authorities as a prisoner of war along with several other former professional footballers. He was held at the Ruhleben detention camp and played in a number of football and cricket tournaments with fellow detainees before being released to the Netherlands in March 1918.