The Return of Mogga: Nostalgia and Romance in West Bromwich
As Tony Mowbray rejoins West Bromwich Albion as Head Coach, I take a trip down memory lane to ruminate on my memories of my favourite ever manager.
It’s Friday night. I’m sat on a wobbly train back from Cambridge to my native Midlands. There’s an overpriced beer in my hand and a tear in my eye.
Though the sight of me weeping on Cross Country trains isn’t unfamiliar, tonight it’s not the hideous lack of facilities that have sent me over an emotional precipice.
Tony Mowbray is once again Head Coach of West Bromwich Albion.
It’s an appointment that means so much on so many levels.
Most importantly, Mowbray’s return means that one of the game’s most popular figures is fit and healthy. It’s almost 11 months to the day since Mowbray had to step down from his post at Birmingham City to commence a battle with bowel cancer. In a recent interview with the BBC, Mowbray gave a stark insight into just how grave his condition became:
“I remember sitting in a hospital bed and my kids had tears in their eyes, not sure whether I'd get through it or not, to be honest. I was very, very ill…some days you were feeling great, and others I would collapse and black out and find myself on the kitchen floor.”
English football is glad to have one of its true gentlemen back in the thick of the action.
Widely respected for his stoic leadership, humility and much publicised love of chocolate, the outpouring of love in the wake of Mowbray’s re-appointment has highlighted how “Mogga” as one of the most universally adored figures in English football. But whilst Mowbray’s return to the dugout represents a universal feel good story, it has sparked a very particular reaction to those of Albion persuasion.
To those who take footballing communion outside a B71 postcode, it’s difficult to put into words just how much Tony Mowbray means to the Albion faithful.
No matter which way you slice it, Mowbray’s first stint at the Hawthorns between 2006-2009 was a roaring success – arguably the best spell of his career.
Taking over a bloated squad of aging, high-maintenance pros, Mowbray battled to get us to the Championship play-off final. A Wembley defeat to Derby – who would go on to get a record low points total in the Premier League the next season – turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Over the following summer, Mowbray stripped the dressing room of its toxic characters, and (re)built a talented, hungry and skilful squad who would blast their way to the Championship title season playing some of the most entertaining, swashbuckling football the Championship has ever seen.
That same season Albion were only denied a place in the FA Cup Final with a heart-rending semi-final defeat, beaten by an expensively assembled Portsmouth side whose controversial winner had more than a whiff of handball about it. Milan Baroš, Nwankwo Kanu, Harry Redknapp. I will never forgive you.
The following season Mowbray stuck to his guns, attacking the Premier League with the same vibrant football that had secured promotion. Exposed to a merciless, high-quality league without key players such as Kevin Phillips and Zoltan Gera, Mowbray’s idealistic approach ultimately saw Albion come unstuck – relegated bottom of the league but winning hearts and minds in the process.
Despite our relegation, Mowbray remained so popular with Albion fans that supporters took the unprecedented step of donning “Mogga masks” in the away end of our final game of the season away at Blackburn, as a message of solidarity and thanks.
Just weeks later, Mowbray would leave for Celtic – a club he’d captained as a player – thus closing a rollercoaster 30 months in the West Midlands. He has remained beloved by the Albion faithful ever since.
My Albion supporting life now spans two decades, a full 20 years since my first season ticket in 2004. In that time we’ve cycled through 16 permanent managers. That has included managers who are more fashionable, successful, high-profile and (arguably) important to the club’s history than Mowbray.
However, there is no period of my Albion supporting life which evokes more nostalgia than the glorious two and a half years we spent under Mogga. It’s that nostalgia which is driving the huge wave of excitement at his reappointment.
The news that Mowbray was coming back to the Hawthorns immediately transported me back to the magical 2007-2008 season, easily my favourite year supporting the club.
Mowbray’s Championship winning Albion side was a rogues gallery of my childhood heroes. There was aging, spring-heeled Dean Kiely in goal. The barely-contained aggression of Paul Robinson at left back. There was the “best midfield in the world”: captain fantastic Jonathan Greening, technical wizards Robert Koren and Felipe Teixeira, young upstarts Chris Brunt and Jimmy Morrison. Up front the energetic and physical Ishmael Miller and Roman Bednar played support act to one of the greatest strikers English football has ever seen: Super Kevin Phillips. And of course, there was the small matter of my favourite ever footballer, the magnificent Magyar Zoltan Gera.
This was one of the most gifted sets of players ever assembled at Championship level. But it was Mowbray’s vision and uncompromising commitment to expressive, attacking football that turned this team into one of Albion’s most loved.
As Chris Lepkowski brilliantly wrote in his brilliant blog The Far Post:
Mowbray brought an identity back to Black Country football.
On the day he was last unveiled, he promised to recreate the playing style of the late 1970s’ [Albion] side. He name-checked Cyrille Regis, he purred about Laurie Cunningham, he saluted Tony Brown, he spoke of his admiration for Bryan Robson – the very man he had just succeeded as manager.
Did the football live up to those lofty claims? Yes. And then some.
Perhaps no game summarises the unique vibe of Mowbray’s first tenure than a festive home fixture against Scunthorpe under the Hawthorns lights in 2007 [see the highlights below]. Albion won 5-0 that day, a not unexpectedly comfortable win against some of the division’s relegation fodder that season.
However, the manner in which we dismantled Scunthorpe that day remains one of the most beautiful, brutal displays of footballing prowess I’ve ever witnessed. Goals seemingly flew in from all angles and distances. Zoltan Gera volleyed from in from the corner of the box with his weak foot. Craig Beattie caressed a gorgeous curling effort into the top corner. The pick of the goals was Kevin Phillip’s outrageous second goal, an impudent flighted lob from the edge of the box only a truly goalscoring genius would have the temerity to attempt. I implore you to watch the highlights below:
West Bromwich Albion 5-0 Scunthorpe United - original video here (property of holmleighnyd on YouTube).
This was the Mowbray era in a nutshell. We weren’t just winning games, we were taking teams apart with a verve and beauty I hadn’t seen before. Mowbray – a bruising defender in his heyday – was an unlikely footballing missionary, transporting the joga bonito of 1970s Brazil to the adoring masses of the Black Country.
For Albion supporters of my generation, we were the perfect age to be transfixed by Mowbray’s magic. We were old enough to understand the game, but retained a childlike wonder at the magic of the football Albion were serving up on a weekly basis. As I would approach the East Stand turnstiles, there was less an expectation and more a safe knowledge that we were about to watch 90 minutes of thrilling entertainment.
I have never before or since experienced footballing ecstasy as watching Mowbray’s immaculate title-winning team.
But naturally, in the wake of Mowbray’s return, the gaze must turn to the present and chiefly onto the question can Mowbray’s return actually work?
My fellow lovers of Italian football will be aware of the expression ‘minestra riscaldata’ – ‘reheated soup is never as good’. Used widely in Italian football parlance, minestra riscaldata speaks to the received wisdom amongst football supporters that you should never go back. Indeed, from Keegan at Newcastle, Mourinho at Chelsea, Scolari with Brazil, football is filled with cautionary tales of managers returning to their old haunts and failing to recapture the magic of the first spell.
Of course Mowbray’s return to the Albion comes fraught with doubt.
Mowbray is no longer the footballing idealist that left the Hawthorns in 2009. His more recent successful spells at Blackburn and Sunderland have shown Mowbray’s ability to balance his instincts for expressive, attacking football with a more pragmatic edge.
Naturally, there is the gnawing fear Mowbray’s health battles may have compromised his ability to manage at the highest level. That brings with it the sad possibility of him tarnishing his superb legacy at Albion, and the even scarier possibility of a recurrence of his health concerns.
But if there’s one thing that Tony Mowbray’s time in charge of the Albion taught me – it’s that football at its best is also incredibly romantic.
The reason that Mowbray’s tenure looms so large in the imagination of Albion supporters is that he showed us just how beautiful this beautiful game of ours can be. His idealism gifted me and a generation of Albion supporters some of the most joyous moments of our footballing lives.
For that reason alone, an increasingly fraught and factional community of Albion supporters have united to match Mowbray’s idealistic adoration of football, collectively leaning into the nostalgia of his return.
Mowbray’s story with Albion is one of profound romance.
There was the romance of his wonderful, expressive football.
The romance of our remarkable FA Cup run.
The romance of his footballing idealism in the midst of Premier League struggle.
The romance of his deep connection with the Albion faithful.
Now, after recovering from the most hideous of illnesses, Tony Mowbray is giving Albion supporters an opportunity to dream again with romance anew.
There’s no telling if this remarkable story will have a fitting fairytale ending. But from where I’m sat, that doesn’t seem important right now.
With his return to the bosom of a football community who adore him, Mowbray has already given of an entire generation of Albion supporters my age the opportunity to relive their most cherished footballing memories.
Crack open the Revels. Mogga’s home.
Well done for this piece - thanks for the contribution! Enjoyed reading it.
Great piece, Josh. There are plenty of good reasons to be sceptical about a manager returning to the club where he was once successful, and our own experience as Baggies fans has been quite. Iced in that regard. But it feels so fitting that Tony Mowbray is back, after all he has been through, and all our club has been through (including nearly going out of business). Football needs an element of romance, and we are (nearly) all hoping that this appointment will bring the romance back to B71.