First meeting with the Fishermen for the Baggies

Fleetwood Town v West Bromwich Albion; Highbury Stadium, Tuesday 13th August 2024, 7.45pm

It’s rare that a club with a rich history like the Baggies comes up against a club for the first time, but for the second time in two seasons, Albion have been drawn against brand new opposition in a cup competition. Having faced Aldershot Town for the first time ever in last season’s FA Cup Third Round, Carlos Corberán’s team travel to the Flyde coast to face Fleetwood Town at Highbury Stadium on Tuesday evening in the first round of the Carabao Cup.

The Fisherman have been in the Football League since 2012 and had been in League One for a decade before their relegation and the end of the last campaign despite winning three of their last four games. A run of twelve games without a win last winter saw them drop to the foot of the table and new boss, Charlie Adam, struggled to get them firing winning just three of his first nineteen games in charge.

They started this season positively with a 1-0 home win over Grimsby Town on Saturday thanks to a debut goal from Mark Helm who joined the club from Burton Albion in the summer. Goals could be an issue for Fleetwood this campaign having sold last season’s top scorer, Jayden Stockley, to Port Vale in June and no new strikers have yet come through the door. They may well be looking across the Irish Sea before the end of the month, however, with sister club, Waterford FC, the source of many of their new signings over the past few years.

The Baggies opened their season with an excellent 3-1 victory away to QPR that was something of a surprise to many Albion fans. I guess it shouldn’t have been too shocking given that, despite fourteen players having left the club since the end of the last campaign, only two of the eleven that started at Loftus Road weren’t at the club last season, a club that were in the top six for the vast majority of the campaign. Furthermore, the two that weren’t around last season, Karlan Grant and Torbjørn Heggem, both performed well while the returns of Jayson Molumby and Josh Maja from injury were both huge positives with Maja’s performance the obvious stand-out.

For this fixture, however, we are likely see a very different line up, potentially with even eleven changes. Joe Wildsmith is likely to make his debut in goal while I would also expect Devante Cole, Gianluca Fabrotta, Ousmane Diakité and Lewis Dobbin to be given their first starts having all made an appearance from the bench in west London. Caleb Taylor would seem certain to start while we are likely to see some of the youngsters such as Mo Faal, Harry Whitwell, Fenton Heard, Reyes Cleary and Reece Hall. In previous cup games, Corberán has tended to include a few senior pros but, with numbers in the squad fairly short, he may opt to keep them to a minimum ahead of the visit of Leeds United at the weekend.

Obviously, a full strength team should win this match comfortably but this is likely to be an inexperienced group who probably haven’t played together too much. Progression is more about providing further opportunities to give game time to squad players than about any real expectation of reaching the latter stages of the competition – much as I like a cup run, the league remains the strong priority.

However, losing to fourth tier opposition is never ideal, so hopefully Corberán can find the right balance to achieve the right result!

History

Tuesday evening will see the first ever meeting between Albion and Fleetwood Town and the Baggies’ first ever trip to Highbury Stadium, the one in Lancashire, that is!

For many people, the first they would have heard of Fleetwood Town was when Jamie Vardy became the first non-league player to command a fee of £1 million when he moved to Leicester City in 2012 – the Fishermen were actually promoted to the Football League that summer for the first time in their history.

The current club was formed in 1997 and is the fourth iteration of the club, the first having been formed as simply Fleetwood FC in 1908 and after nearly seven decades in non-league football, the club folded in 1976 due to financial difficulties. It was reformed a year later as Fleetwood Town and reached the FA Vase final in 1985, losing to Halesowen Town, but 11 years later, the club was once again in financial trouble and folded in 1996.

In 1997, the current club was formed, initially as Fleetwood Wanderers before being changed to Fleetwood Freeport as a result of a sponsorship deal. The name was changed to Fleetwood Town in 2002 and the following year, Andy Pilley became chairman and, thanks to his financial input, the club started to rise through the non-league pyramid. Having reached in the Football Conference in 2010, they lost in the promotion play-offs the following season before winning the Conference title a year later under the stewardship of former Baggies midfielder, Micky Mellon.

Mellon was sacked in late 2012 but The Fishermen continued their rise up the leagues under new boss, Graham Alexander, and were promoted to League One via the play-offs in 2014. After ten years in the third tier, finishing as high as fourth in 2017, Fleetwood were relegated last season with current boss, former Liverpool and Blackpool midfielder Charlie Adam, unable to save them having been appointed in December 2023.

Any Pilley resigned as chairman in May 2023 and was convicted for fraud three months later for matters unrelated to the football club. He received a 13 year sentence for fraud relating to corporate energy contracts during his time in charge at club shirt sponsor, BES Utilities. This summer, his son, Jamie, became the new owner.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

There have been no previous meetings between the clubs.