A4 BOOK - DUE TO BE PUBLISHED JULY 2022

The Author Laurie Rampling is an Essex boy ‘through and through’ but became an adopted son of the ‘Black Country’ after following his beloved West Bromwich Albion since he was a seven year old, watching Albion skipper Len Millard raise that prestigious piece of silverware in the air at Wembley in 1954.

Laurie will admit that not being able to attend his second home ‘The Hawthorns’ to snap ‘The Baggies’ due to the restrictive health and safety issues imposed by the Premier League and the EFL, was very depressing and on his many long walks around the Essex countryside, he decided on a ‘mission’ to turn his historical knowledge of the football club into a writing a book, something he had yearned to do for many years, about one of his personal favourite chapters of the club’s proud history, the 1976 Promotion from the Second Division to the First, under the guidance of the great John Giles, and at the same time, raise some much needed funds for the Albion Foundation, who were, like all charities’ at that difficult time, struggling for funds.

Subsequently his first ‘novel’ ‘1976 and all That’ was born, quickly followed by three further books covering the ‘Throstles’ success stories, “War, Peace and Promotion” the story of the 1948/49 return to the First Division. Followed by “1954-The Team of the Century,” recalling that great day at Wembley in May 1954, when Albion won the F.A Cup for the fourth time in their history, and of course came so close to achieving that sought after League and Cup ‘double’- and most recently “Throstles at the Double” a journey that followed the great Tommy Glidden’s All English ‘Throstles’ back to the First Division, via Wembley and yet another F.A Cup triumph in 1931. All Four books secured those much needed funds for the Albion Foundation and of course the Former Players Association, a cause which is also very close to Laurie’s heart.

This book, Laurie’s latest, moves in a slightly different direction, with the author following the life and times of his own football hero, Derek ‘The Tank’ Kevan, whose goal-scoring exploits, were a schoolboys dream, and dream Laurie did, of his hero, which led to the author’s first visit to the ‘Shrine’ on Boxing Day 1961, to see Kevan score in a one – one draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The rest as they say is history. A history that has captured decades of the ‘Throstles’ progress, and now gives you, the reader, an insight into the career of one of the ‘Black Country’s’ most favourite sons, albeit adopted, like Laurie, Derek being a proud Yorkshireman from Ripon, before his journey south to The Hawthorns from Bradford. The book is packed with photographs and memorabilia, that has never been seen before and you can follow Derek’s life from the YMCA at Ripon in the 1950’s, to the Albion All-Stars in the 1980’s, and beyond. A journey that made Derek Tennyson Kevan, one of the most loved footballers of a generation.