Matt Maher: Welcome to the Black Country, home of football misery

Guessing the reaction if you’d also told them, despite the embarrassing return, their mood might actually be a smidgen brighter than that of an Albion fan is a little harder.

Heading into the final three-and-a-bit months of the season, the old rivals appear determined to outdo each other for who can serve up the worst campaign.

With Walsall fans also starting to feel a dreaded sense of deja vu as their club’s promotion challenge falters, it feels fair to ask if there is a more miserable place to be a football supporter right now than the Black Country?

Granted, in recent decades, the entire West Midlands region has hardly been a hotbed of success. Blues’ 2011 League win remains the only major trophy win in nearly 30 years.

But there has usually been something for those in the western side of the conurbation to cheer. Albion and Wolves have only played five seasons in the same division since 2002 such has been the tendency of one to step up while the other falters. Three times since then one has gone up to the Premier League as the other went down.

As recently as October, you wondered whether this campaign might become the fourth. At the same time Wolves were sacking Vitor Pereira, Albion sat fifth in the Championship, just five points off the top.

Instead, not quite four months on, there feels a very real danger that for just the second time since the foundation of the Football League in 1888, both clubs will be relegated in the same season.

The only previous occurrence was 1985-86, when Albion dropped out of the First Division and Wolves out of the Third. That is how historically bad this season is threatening to be.

Wolves, of course, still need four points to avoid being the worst team ever relegated from the Premier League. There’s also still a chance they become the division’s quickest-ever demotion.