Masters Disaster

07 September 2003

Many of us have, without doubt, made some daft journeys to watch Albion over the years, but a round trip of over 400 miles to watch 16 minutes of football must rank among the daftest - because that's how long it took for Albion's first ever participation in the Football Masters tournament finals to come to an end.

After captaining and organising the side in the qualifying round, John Trewick's duties at Wolves' youth setup kept him away from the final, and a rather chubby Steve Mackenzie filled the gap he left.

Unfortunately, Albion's habit of starting badly in this tournament proved to be fatal in the knockout stage and they were dumped out 7-2 by Rangers, their consolation goals coming from Gary Strodder and Steve Mackenzie, who scored with the last kick of the game. Rangers, at least, went on to lose the final to Manchester City.

Still, we had beaten Villa, Blues and Wolves to get to the final, so our heads can remain high. You just can't win 'em all...

Albion team: Tony Lange, Gary Strodder, Gary Robson, Gary Hackett, Steve Mackenzie, Micky Forsyth, Richard Sneekes, Wayne Fereday, Nicky Cross and Ian Benjamin.