Forty years ago: Cyrille Regis makes big impact on West Brom debut

The striker, who had been signed from non-league Hayes for an initial £5,000, replaced the injured Tony Brown in the starting line-up for a League Cup tie against Rotherham United.

Regis scored twice in a routine 4-0 win that also included goals from John Wile and Mick Martin, and the new signing was immediately granted cult hero status by the fans.

“I scored two goals, one of them was a penalty," recalled Regis today. "Back then I was in the reserves, Ronnie Allen was the manager, he said go home, you’re playing tonight.

“I walked in the dressing room with all the top pros, it was quite scary. I was apprehensive, it was a mixture of fear and excitement.

"I’d never played in front of 15,000 people before. The most I’d played in front of before was 500.

“The first half I ran around like you do, we scored a couple of goals. In the second half we were 2-0 up and we won a penalty.

"Tony Brown wasn’t playing, and for some reason the fans started singing ‘Cyrille, Cyrille’ and Willie Johnston offered me the ball.

“Fortunately, I scored. I don’t know why they started chanted, I really don’t know. But it was 5,000 Albion fans so Willie couldn’t say no.

“They just must have seen an eager player giving his all and, after missing a couple of chances in the first half, they wanted me to score.

“It worked out well but after the game, Ronnie Allen gave Willie a bollocking. It’s not the professional thing to do, especially at 2-0.

“Imagine if I’d have missed and Rotherham went down the other end and scored!

“But it was a dream debut, I got another one after that too, and it all came just two months after I was working on a building site.”

Regis went on to score 112 goals in 297 appearances for Albion.