Robson steers his side to history

West Brom 2 Portsmouth 0: Bryan Robson yesterday steered his side to Premiership history to become the first team to survive after occupying the bottom place on Christmas Day. It was done with the meagre total of 34 points; for once, the hackneyed brass-band strains of The Great Escape were not out of place.

"This is the best," said the former England captain, when asked to rank this among his career achievements. "When you're at Manchester United, you're expected to win championships and trophies; you're playing with great players. There's expectation here, but it was that everyone expected us to go down. When you go behind in the Premiership you're always playing a catch-up game."

The £25 million significance of West Bromwich's feat - at the expense of Norwich, Crystal Palace and, to the delight of the Portsmouth fans present, Southampton - was immediately recognised by some 25,000 incredulous West Bromwich supporters, who spilled onto the pitch to thank their heroes. Yet the Baggies' salvation had been the culmination of a remarkable sequence of events.

Between 3pm and 4.40pm, all four relegation-threatened teams had survival in their grasp. Norwich, who began the day as favourites to stay up, soon lost the advantage on the way to a 6-0 defeat at Fulham.

It was handed to Southampton, but they could not hold on to the prize as Manchester United's goals opened the door for Robson, their former inspiration.

Robson's own side still needed to win for anything to happen, however. "I always felt we had a chance because the away form of the other teams down there was not the best and Southampton had a tough game," said Robson. "I always felt that if we could win, we could stay up."

He was spectacularly right. For the best part of 60 minutes, though, Robson had been keeping a helpless vigil while his team's Premiership status was on its deathbed. Then, forced into a bold statement by the injury to a waning Jonathan Greening, Robson administered resuscitation. It came in the unlikely shape of Geoffrey Horsfield (31) .

Less than 20 seconds after his introduction as a substitute, Zoltan Gera's cross ricocheted off Dejan Stefanovic's head and into the path of the former hod-carrier, whose crisp volley fizzed under the Portsmouth goalkeeper Jamie Ashdown. So was the Horsfield substitution a managerial masterstroke? "Luck," conceded a grinning Robson.

That goal lifted West Brom out of the relegation places, but still it was not enough as Crystal Palace took the initiative. Andy Johnson's penalty put the Londoners in front after being a goal behind and The Hawthorns was stunned into silence. "We tried to concentrate on the game," said the captain Kevin Campbell.

"The fans made us aware of what was going on elsewhere. We knew something was going on, but the important thing was us getting a result. We knew that if the results had gone our way and we didn't get what we needed, it would be a disaster."

That it would not be Portsmouth to stand in their way had seemed the day's only racing certainty. Southampton followers must have sniffed a conspiracy from Pompey's performance.

Further debilitated by the absence of Patrik Berger and Yakubu Aiyegbeni - arguably Portsmouth's two best players, and who are set to leave Fratton Park this summer - Pompey put up little resistance, not that their fans minded. West Brom seemingly had nothing to fear but results elsewhere, especially after Kieran Richardson slotted a second goal past Ashdown.

The silence that met the goal told its own story, as, despite their best efforts, at that time Baggies were down. Then came the most bizarre of crowd reactions.

The fourth official held up the board to indicate that James Keene was to be replaced by Valery Mezague and pandemonium broke out in the home stands. Charlton, with an equaliser against Palace, had become West Bromwich's saviours.

"I said all along, why does the team who's bottom at Christmas have to go down? It was a motivational thing," said a champagne-soaked Robson.