Ian Hart: Albion's season is mixed so far - and their ground-breaking video on suicide is more important than any result
Looking at some of Albion boss Fabian Hurzeler’s online detractors you could be mistaken for thinking we were five games out from the end of the season rather than five games in.
Yes, Tottenham’s late equaliser was a huge disappointment, but come on Albion fans – it’s not like it’s our first rodeo when it comes to these situations.
For old stagers like myself, who have watched the Albion at four different ‘home’ grounds, the list is long and still can hurt many years later.
Afternoons like Saturday do put me in mind of my dear old dad, who’s passed six years ago this week.
There was a sense of irony when the nursing home phoned me to tell me the sad news, I was on my way to a Boxing Writers’ Club committee meeting in London, and the exact time the call came in the train was at Hove Station and I looked across at the site of the old Goldstone Ground, where my dad had inflicted a lifetime of frustration and disappointment on me when he first took me on April 23, 1973.
I do sometimes wonder how my life would have panned out if he’d taken me fishing instead that day! But he didn’t, and quite honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Albion’s start isn’t ideal, but it could be far worse – look at some of the clubs near the bottom of the table.
And while I was never his biggest fan (mild understatement) the situation Graham Potter finds himself in at West Ham is now bordering on abuse – abuse that could clearly affect him and his family.
Whatever I may have thought about the former Albion boss, that is unacceptable – and I hope the situation resolves itself fairly quickly before things get totally out of hand.
Off the field the Albion released a ground-breaking and very thought-provoking suicide awareness video made in conjunction with The Samaritans. See it here or in the embedded X post in this article.
I’m proud that my club have been one of the first to address the ongoing mental health epidemic in this country.
On a personal note I was extremely buoyed by the feedback I received for my Ricky Hatton tribute last week.
There is an epidemic out there – one suicide is one too many, but until central government address the issue head on, it will continue to happen again and again.
So we all have to do what we can. Above all, in the words of the late Robin Williams, be kind… always.