West Brom legends take a trip down memory lane ahead of charity clash

The Hawthorns modern-day legends are raising money for The Albion Foundation with today’s Clash Of The Legends – which features scores of ex-Baggies heroes.

Former midfield colleagues Brunt and Morrison looked back at memories of some of those who will turn out and a couple who are absent.

Morrison said: “We always had a good spine. Ben Foster, who’s recently retired, it’ll be nice to see him and try and score past him. Gareth McAuley and Jonas (Olsson) were a solid pairing.”

Brunt explained: “Gareth was one of the big ones we couldn’t get him here because he works for Northern Ireland, but he was a big player for us right through from (Roy) Hodgson.”

Asked about driving standards in training sessions, the pair recalled memorable antics from defender Olsson and midfielder Claudio Yacob, who still plays in Peru and is not travelling.

“I think everybody trained well. And with that group if you weren’t, then you knew it because we’d be on your case,” Brunt said.

“Jonas, Claudio – if Claudio got a sniff he wasn’t playing on Saturday somebody was getting it in training, another midfielder was getting clobbered in training!”

Morrison smiled: “Another thing about Jonas is he was a psycho, wasn’t he?

“Any little decision or bad thing, he’d be losing his head. Some of the stuff he’d do, you’d be thinking...I’ve never seen anybody close.”

Brunt took up the tale: “He was like bipolar when he goes out on the pitch. The best guy ever off the pitch, on the pitch an absolute d***head.

“And you come across so many people that played against him who was like ‘I hate him’, ‘I can’t stand Jonas Olsson’, he’s the best lad ever but had some sort of mad switch in him, even in training.”

Morrison quipped: “I used to love winding him up.”

“We probably did (get on the wrong side) but I think he knew when it was coming from us it was probably with best intentions,” Brunt said.

“We say after a game ‘Jonas what you doing?’ and he’d say ‘sorry’.

“I always remember that time with (Luis) Suarez, saying ‘don’t get megged, don’t get megged, he nutmegs everybody’.

“Two seconds into the game he smashed Suarez, do you remember? He’s shouting at him on the floor.

“And then in the next two minutes Suarez got the ball, megged him and smashed it in the bottom corner, it was like ‘you should’ve left that one Jonas’. A great guy.”

Popular midfield pairing Youssouf Mulumbu – who has recently finished playing in his homeland of DR Congo – and Yacob racked up 386 games between them for the Baggies over the last decade, almost exclusively in the top flight. They are unable to make today’s showpiece.

“Youssouf (Mulumbu) and (Claudio) Yacob were great,” Morrison said. “Jonny Evans was a great player. Even in the early days, Jonathan Greening was a superb player. Super Kev scored a load of goals, (Romelu) Lukaku and (Peter) Odemwingie, both feet and pace.”

He added: “Some of those lads don’t really know each other, missed each other’s teams and generations.

“Goran Popov is going to be good, he was a bit mad.”

Brunt laughed: “He didn’t play a lot of games but he was a proper character. I don’t think Fumo in town will want to see him back though! I think he’s still barred!”