1,000 games milestone for Baggies superfan

Albion "superfan" David Watkin received VIP treatment from the Baggies after chalking up an amazing 1,000 consecutive matches.

The 63-year-old reached the milestone at Wednesday's Carling Cup match at Ipswich.

And he was treated like a king at Albion's Premier League game against Newcastle yesterday, where his heroes rewarded his loyalty with a win. The retired IT project manager received a signed Baggies' shirt and a commemorative shield from Hawthorns legend Bobby Hope.

"Bobby is my all-time favourite Albion player," said Mr Watkin, of Kingswinford.

"I saw him make his debut when he was 16 and he looked great then. He played for Albion during some of the great years, when we won the FA Cup in 1968 and were a really good team."

Mr Watkin, a married father-of-two, started his sequence of consecutive matches in 1991. They include games at home and abroad.

"I've always been to games on a regular basis, but in 1991 I went to all of the games at the end of the season when we got relegated to the Third Division, then I went to all of the games in the Third Division," he said.

"From then it carried on because I used to play football for the supporters' team against the opposition supporters on the morning of the matches.

"So if you didn't go, you would be letting down your team as well as missing a match.

"Having been to every game in that season and the next couple of seasons, we ended up playing in the Anglo-Italian Cup and I went to a match at Cosenza when Albion had already been knocked out and only 14 supporters went.

"So once you've done that you just carry on."

And Mr Watkin, who is a former Express & Star fan of the year, has built up a list of memorable matches during his unbroken run.

"There was the 1993 play-off final when we played Port Vale at Wembley," he said.

"There was the Bradford away game, which was the last-but-one game of the season, and we won it to be promoted instead of Wolves, and this season the win at Arsenal was obviously memorable."