I was reading this the morning:
The Guardian
The only certainty is Wolves hate us more than anyone
Adrian Chiles explains the complexities of the very bitter rivalry between West Brom and Wolves.
Guardian Unlimited
January 27, 2007 12:00 AM
I'm not sure how you measure the hatred between clubs but, put it like this, I'm not going to Molineux tomorrow. I'm not saying that my life would be in danger - I know a lot of Wolves fans and every single one of them is a decent person - but I'm recognisably an Albion fan in what will be a hostile environment. I couldn't face the stick if we lost when walking away from the ground and I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable there.
What makes local derbies like this more intense is when they become rare, which is what has happened with Wolves and Albion in recent times. Five years ago we were playing league games year in year out so, inevitably, there's no novelty value. Until this autumn (3-0 to us, since you ask) we had not met for four years so, although we've still hated each other throughout that period, we haven't had the chance to vent that hate in a derby. It's for the same reason that Birmingham v Villa was so apocalyptic when the Blues first got promoted.
West Midlands rivalries are quite complex. The only certainties are that Wolves hate us more than anyone and Blues hate the Villa more than anyone. We hate the Wolves but we also hate Villa. And there are Villa fans who hate us more than they hate the Blues. As for Blues and Albion, while we have had our dust-ups, you get the sense that we're rather fond of each other; perhaps united in hatred for a common foe. On survival Sunday in May 2005, when they announced at St Andrew's that Albion stayed up, a ripple of applause went round the ground. If they had announced Villa had been relegated there would have been street parties.
Derby County, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City are off the radar because we're so busy with our own enmities in the West Midlands that we don't really have time to worry about those clubs out east.
When Wolves were really struggling in the 1980s, when they were relegated to the old Fourth Division, I enjoyed their misery for a while but then it just got too serious. Schadenfreude is schadenfreude but I recall thinking: "This is getting a bit ridiculous, they're going to go out of business if we are not careful."
I'm not one of those people that will stand up when they sing "Stand up if you hate the Wolves" because I just don't care enough, although I've got to say that the 2001-02 season lives long in the memory. Many Wolves fans will go to their graves still traumatised by that season. They were 11 points ahead with two months to go and somehow we overtook them and went up at their expense. There's a lot of hurt festering there.
Then again we could argue that winning promotion that season was just repayment for us for 1954 when we won the FA Cup and finished runners-up in the league to Wolves. That hurt my dad and my grandad a lot but I still believe we are going to be made to suffer for what happened five years ago. It might be this season. Wolves owe us one - they haven't beaten us for ages - and they can have this one as long as they let us win in the league.
I've asked a few fans this and I haven't got a straight answer but I would swap a win against Wolves for three points against Plymouth on Wednesday. For some fans beating Wolves is more important than where we finish in the table but it's all about promotion for me.
Perhaps they'll beat us in the play-off final in May which, unlike losing tomorrow, doesn't bear thinking about.
So who do you most dislike? I can’t honestly say I know that many Villa fans who dislike any one more intensely than SHA