West Brom fan makes way into ‘behind closed doors’ friendly and gets match shirt from Dara O’Shea
Despite it being officially played behind closed doors a fan managed to get into the West Brom friendly win over Leyton Orient, according to Joe Chapman.
Goals from Conor Townsend and Zac Ashworth were enough to register a 2-1 victory in Portugal in the squad’s first game of the preseason on Monday (4 July).
New signings Jed Wallace and Jon Swift both featured as Steve Bruce changed the entire team at half-time, while Orient didn’t provide much of a threat until Cedric Kipre passed the ball into his own net for a consolation goal.
While the performance was generally a positive and the result not overly important at this stage of the summer, a supporter did manage to get in and see proceedings, and was rewarded with a souvenir.
Birmingham Live reporter Chapman wrote on his Twitter account during the game: “It’s ‘behind closed doors’ officially, but there is a young Albion fan who has made his way into the ground this evening and is now the beneficiary of Dara O’Shea’s match shirt!”
Positivity
It will be interesting to see how many young fans would still be willing to sneak into games behind closed doors to get shirts off players late in the new season.
As Bruce’s first campaign drew to a close the general apathy that had engulfed Albion as they stumbled to their worst league finish in two decades was significant.
Although there hasn’t been a great deal of money to spend to get fans back onside the strong free agent pick ups of Swift and Wallace have helped lift hopes.
Short-term fan-favourite Andy Carroll was let go but January signing Daryl Dike is finally back in the mix and big things are expected from him when the new campaign kicks off in earnest.
There were flashes of something coming together at times under Bruce after he replaced Valerien Ismael in February, but it was far too inconsistent.
The hope has to be that a full preseason with his team, with the new additions and returnees added in, can make all the difference at the Hawthorns in 2022/23.
Positive signs such as Dike getting some time, and Taylor Gardner-Hickman getting a run out at full-back are all very well in early July, but it will be the cold winter months back in England that will really show how much the squad has come on and whether a West Brom promotion push is on the cards.