Albion’s clash with Red Star Belgrade in Murska Sobota tonight is sure to have some Baggies fans reminiscing about glory days gone by.

The two clubs met in the quarter final of the Uefa Cup in March 1979 when Ron Atkinson’s Albion team, boasting Tony Brown, Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson thrilled The Hawthorns with their attacking football.

Albion reached the last eight by beating Turkish giants Galatasary 6-2 on aggregrate, followed by equally impressive wins against Portugal’s Sporting Braga (3-0) and Valencia (3-1) also over two legs.

An enormous crowd 95,300 then watched the Baggies go down 1-0 against Red Star in Belgrade in the first leg.

But overturning that deficit proved too much for Albion in the return as they were forced to settle for a 1-1 draw in front of 31,587 at The Hawthorns.

Red Star went on to reach the final only to lose to Borussia Monchengladbach.

They will now face the Baggies again as the first champions of Serbia, having previously won the FR Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montegnegro title four times this century.

Overall, they hold a record 25 national league titles in the Balkans, having also been Yugoslavian league champions 18 times since the club’s formation in 1945.

But Red Star’s finest hour came in 1991 when they lifted the European Champions Cup with victory on penalties over Marseille following a goalless draw.

They also won the Intercontinental Cup in Japan that year but lost the European Super Cup to Cup Winners Cup holders Manchester United with a side that featured household names including Robert Prosinecki, Dejan Savicevic, Sinisa Mihajlovic and Darko Pancev.

Kick-off tonight at the Fazanerija Stadium has been brought forward to 6pm local time – 5pm at home.