West Brom fan collating images of supporters down the years for latest book

Dean Walton, who published ‘Born to be a Baggie’ last year, a book chronicling his 50-year obsession following the Albion, is now putting together an image-heavy second book for the series.

Titled ‘Proud to be a Baggie, the pictorial history of West Bromwich Albion fans’, Walton is gathering as many as photos as possible from as many different eras as possible. And he’s appealed to his fellow Baggies for help.

“I’ve got hundreds of photos that my dad took at different games in the 40s and 50s,” said Walton. “They’ve never been published. In the 70s and 80s I used to take an instamatic camera in my pocket.

“I’ve got a lot of good photos that show that moment in time, everyone’s got big flared trousers on and there are scarves everywhere.

“It’s the 60s that I really need, although I’ll welcome anything. The older and more unusual the better.

“I’ve already put out an appeal to a few people and had some crackers come back, people at Wembley in 1968 with top hats and rosettes.

“I like the ones of people setting off for Wembley when people go over the top with what they’re wearing.

“People have got them tucked away in photo albums and they’ve probably forgotten all about them.

“Provided they’re of reasonable quality, I’ll credit them in the book.”

Walton has sold more than 2,000 copies of ‘Born to be a Baggie’, and legendary striker Cyrille Regis has already agreed to do the foreword for his latest project.

Just like his first book, it’s the stories off the pitch, rather than on it, that Walton will be telling.

“I’ll mention why the game was significant, but it’s more about the fans,” he said. “There will be photos of the end-of-season themes, like the toga party at Bristol Rovers, the superheroes at QPR as well when we won the Championship.

“The one game I really want photos of is away at Oldham in 1976, when we won promotion. Nobody seems to have taken a camera there.

“Oldham’s average attendance was 4,000, we took 15,000 there and won 1-0. Tony Brown, who was born just down the road scored the winner and we got back into the First Division.”

Walton is also looking for photos from the Wembley trips in 1954, 1967, 1968 and 1970 as well as the European excursions from the 60s and 70s.

All photos need to be emailed to deanothebaggie@gmail.com and the owner will be credited in the book.