At least we’re now even in the own goals department. Our debts for the other disasters remain outstanding

“These things even themselves out over a season.” Words often said by football managers whose charges have benefited from a poor refereeing decision. It’s their way of saying, “yes it was a terrible decision, and I’d be furious if it had gone against me, but I refuse to feel bad about it because terrible decisions go against us the whole time and will do again soon”. Conversely, the manager of the other team will at this bleak moment have no faith in the notion that poor fortune will inevitably be followed by its footballing opposite – a correspondingly outrageous example of refereeing incompetence which happens to go his way.

As a fan, I feel this kind of thing very strongly. My team, West Bromwich Albion, have just played Wolverhampton Wanderers in a league game for the first time in more than five years. We are big rivals. When we meet it is known as the Black Country derby. While this is a geographical reference, the derby is certainly black in thought, deed and mood. Not a pleasant occasion.

Though Wolves have enjoyed much more success than us of late, having latterly enjoyed several seasons in the Premier League, over the past quarter of a century West Brom have inflicted much more misery upon them than they have against us. My enjoyment of these occasions has been tempered by the strongest feeling that Wolves will surely inflict similar horrors upon us to even things up.

Here, in reverse order, are the three cruellest things we’ve done to them. In third place, there were the League Championship play-off semi-finals of 2007. We won, although at least Wolves fans were able to console themselves with our misery when we went on to lose the subsequent play-off final, against Derby County. But I can’t shake the feeling that we still owe them a play-off semi-final victory. Wolves’ manager at that time was Mick McCarthy. Mick’s last match in the job came five years later when he presided over a 5-1 home defeat against us, the ignominy of which saw poor Mick dismissed. But that defeat was only the second worst thing we did to Wolves.

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