<P> West Bromwich Albion Football Club / ˈbrɒmɪtʃ /, also known as West Brom, The Baggies, The Throstles, Albion or simply WBA, is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands . The club was formed in 1878 and has played at its home ground, The Hawthorns, since 1900 . </P> <P> Albion were one of the founding members of the Football League in 1888 and have spent the majority of their existence in the top tier of English football . They have been champions of England once, in 1919--20, and have been runners - up twice but they have had more success in the FA Cup, winning it five times . The first came in 1888, the year the league was founded, and the most recent in 1968, their last major trophy . They also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966 . The club's longest consecutive period in the top division spanned twenty - four years between 1949 and 1973, and from 1986 to 2002 they spent their longest ever spell out of the top division . They currently play in the Premier League . </P> <P> The team has played in navy blue and white stripes for most of the club's history; and the club badge features a throstle perched on a hawthorn branch . Albion have a number of long - standing rivalries with other West Midlands clubs; their traditional rivals have always been Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers, the latter of whom they contest with in the Black Country derby . </P> <P> The club was founded as West Bromwich Strollers in 1878 by workers from George Salter's Spring Works in West Bromwich, in Staffordshire . They were renamed West Bromwich Albion in 1880, becoming the first team to adopt the Albion suffix; Albion was a district of West Bromwich where some of the players lived or worked, close to what is today Greets Green . The club joined the Birmingham & District Football Association in 1881 and became eligible for their first competition, the Birmingham Cup . They reached the quarter - finals, beating several longer - established clubs on the way . In 1883, Albion won their first trophy, the Staffordshire Cup . Albion joined the Football Association in the same year; this enabled them to enter the FA Cup for the first time in the 1883--84 season . In 1885 the club turned professional, and in 1886 they reached the FA Cup final for the first time, losing 2--0 to Blackburn Rovers in a replay . They reached the final again in 1887, but lost 2--0 to Aston Villa . In 1888 the team won the trophy for the first time, beating strong favourites Preston North End 2--1 in the final . As FA Cup winners, they qualified to play in a Football World Championship game against Scottish Cup winners Renton, which ended in a 4--1 defeat . </P>

What is the bird on the wba badge