Kenya believe it? Albion mania sweeps through African village

Even though they don't have a television and have never seen the Baggies play a game, there's a community of impoverished children living in Kenyan slums who are massive Albion fans.

Caught on camera by volunteer Sallyann Wright, the young girls shout 'Baggies Baggies' every time someone off camera yells 'Boing Boing'.

It's the result of two spells in the Kenyan city of Nakuru looking after kids living on dump sites and helping out at a local maternity hospital.

Sallyann, a 39-year-old mum-of-three from Old Hill, signed up alongside 20 other volunteers to go out to Kenya with the Albion Foundation last year.

This year, four of them returned to continue the work they started.

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"Because it's the second time that we've been to that project they recognised us," said Sallyann, a season ticket holder in the Brummie Road End.

"They know us as the Baggies because we give them kit."

A student paediatric nurse at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, Sallyann goes to The Hawthorns with her two sons.

With children of her own, it was tough to see people so young living in slum conditions.

"It puts a whole new slant on the way you view things when you come back, you realise just how privileged you are," she said.

She knew that football was the way to connect to the children in Kenya, but was surprised by how much they took to the Albion.

"They love football, I suppose it's an international language," she said.

"The children we work with in the slums play football but they haven't got TVs so they don't know the Albion as well as other teams.

"But by the end of the week they were doing it [the Boing Boing] themselves.

"The policemen that were looking after us said there was a real buzz about the Baggies going round the whole of Nakuru!"

Although just four volunteers went out to Kenya this year, there's already 18 people signed up to go next summer.

If you'd like to get involved call Anny Pincher on 0871 271 9840.