Many and varied are the pieces of memorabilia, art and paraphernalia that the football club has gathered about itself over the years. Over the next season or three, we are going to select some of these, in no particular order nor importance, to help tell a tale of Throstles down the years. It’s not a definitive history, might at times be apocryphal and at others completely fabricated, but these odd shafts of light will give you a sense of who we are and where we came from. Confused? You will be…
Episode Five
50TH NORTHERN IRELAND CAP PRESENTED TO CHRIS BRUNT, JUNE 2015
Just by taking the most cursory look at it, you can tell that this is no ordinary international cap but a rather special one for its recipient, Chris Brunt.
It was presented on the occasion of his 50th appearance for Northern Ireland, against Romania in June 2015, an impressive statistic in itself, but of significance to the Throstles too.
For of those 50 caps, 40 had been earned during his time at The Hawthorns, making Chris the first Albion man to that milestone, going past the previous record of 37 caps, posted by Zoltan Gera.
Ironically, just as cap number 50 came in a game against Romania in 2014/15, so too did Chris’ 48th for Northern Ireland, the one with which he overtook Gera’s Albion mark. That was a 2-0 defeat in Bucharest, but game number 50 was marked with a 0-0 draw in Belfast that proved critical in Northern Ireland topping their qualification group on the way to Euro 2016.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Chris also became the first Albion man to 50 international caps here in the autumn of 2017 before hanging up the international boots earlier this season.