Remembering West Brom's Wembley winners 25 years later

Donovan won all three of his visits to the national stadium, one with Albion and two with Grimsby, and scored two goals in play-off finals, one for either team.

“I get a bit of stick for that!” he laughs. “Not many people call me back after hearing that!”

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Donovan’s first visit to Wembley, when the Baggies swatted the 10 men of Port Vale aside 3-0 in the Second Division play-off final.

Donovan was only 21, but he set up the brilliant Nicky Reid for the second goal that day before rounding things off late on in injury time with one of his own.

“That was the first time I’d ever been to Wembley in my life,” he recalls, 25 years later. “I used to laugh with my dad and say the first time I went down there would be as a player, but it turned out to be the case.”

Donovan is now 46 and runs a weekend soccer school in Huddersfield while coaching at Kirklees College in the week.

His voicemail message is firmly tongue-in-cheek, because he recognises how ‘fortunate’ was to play at Wembley.

“I was quite young, I was only 21 years old, and seeing the massive iconic stadium for the first time, I just remember thinking ‘We’re really fortunate to be here. It could be first and last time for some of us’.

“I missed quite a few chances throughout the game which everybody reminds me about, but then I helped set up Nicky and then scoring at Wembley, there’s nothing like it.”

Albion have only spent two years out of the top two tiers in their 140-year history, and they haven’t returned to the third tier since that day under Ossie Ardiles in 1993.

But Donovan puts the victory down to the 42,300 Baggies who filled their end of the stadium. Port Vale, on the other hand, only took 11,000.

“I can just remember seeing thousands of Albion fans lining the streets for three or four miles before Wembley,” he recalled. “You just got a feeling from then on it was going to be our day.

“As we walked out, it was the sea of Baggies fans, and the empty seats at the Port Vale side.

“There was something about it, we just thought we were never going to get beat. Plus, we had a World Cup winner leading us out.”

Ossie Ardiles had taken over from Bobby Gould the season before and turned Albion into a team of entertainers. Nobody in the Second Division scored as many goals as the Baggies that season.

“He never changed the coaching one little bit for the final, which was quite unreal,” said Donovan.

He would have been happy to win 5-4 without (assistant) Keith (Burkinshaw) reining him in.

“He let you go and play with no fear, he didn’t put any extra pressure on the players, I think his words were express yourself, and enjoy it.

“For me, who didn’t have much defensive abilities at all, it was an absolute dream. He got me working, don’t get me wrong, I was never a tackler, but he made me close the opposition down.

“My one and only regret is I only spent one season under him, I would have loved him to stay for another three or four years. But when Spurs came calling, he was always going to go.”

Ardiles left Albion for Tottenham following promotion, but that team made sure the club’s stint in the third tier was short.

“After the final whistle, it was just massive relief,” said Donovan. “You’ve played 40 odd games, the whole season comes down to that game, the pressure is massive.

“The parties ensued afterwards, we did all the media work, went back into the dressing room for the usual shenanigans, followed by a brilliant coach party back to The Hawthorns.

“My memory’s a bit fuzzy, but we stopped off halfway through at some hotel, had a few drinks there, and then carried on back. It went on into the daylight hours.”