Chris Hughton stands out from the crowd.
He has guided Albion to a club record 17 league games unbeaten.
They are part of an increasingly select group of clubs across Europe, including Bayern Munich and PSG, still undefeated after Real Madrid lost for the first time at Sevilla on Sunday evening.
This is not the only reason Hughton is conspicuous. He is also now the only manager out of 44 in the top two divisions of English football from a BME (black and minority ethnic) background.
Four remain in all four divisions following the sackings within hours of each hour last week of Chris Powell by Huddersfield and QPR's 1983 Albion FA Cup finalist Chris Ramsey.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Burton Albion) and Keith Curle (Carlisle United) will be the only ones left alongside Hughton if Notts County under Ricardo Moniz produce more performances like their abject exit from the FA Cup at Salford City.
Let's get one thing straight. Powell and Ramsey were not sacked because they are black. They were sacked because of results in an industry in which impatience does not discriminate.
The reason Powell's and Ramsey's departures were significant is that they highlighted the elephant in the room - football's institutional racism.
A report by Sports People’s Think Tank a year ago revealed that one in every four professional footballers are from BME groups. By contrast now, only one in around every 24 managers have BME backgrounds.
A perception, emphasised glibly last week across social media platforms, explains away this alarming disparity with simplistic ease. They are not good enough.
The Macpherson report, the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, defined institutional racism thus: "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin.
"It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."
The key part of the description in relation to football is "discrimintaion through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping".
Last New Year's Eve, Dave Whelan, the ex-Wigan chairman, was banned for six weeks and fined £50,000 by the FA for saying Jewish people "chase money" and insisting "Chink" was not an offensive term.
Whelan would have been in his early thirties when Love Thy Neighbour drew a large and enthusiastic audience on ITV.
In the sitcom about a white family with new black neighbours, phrases such as "Sambo", "Honky" and "Snowflake" were all part of the laughter. This was the world Whelan grew up in.
Ron Atkinson could not possibly have a racist bone in his body, could he? Think of the team when he was in charge of at West Brom - Cyrille Regis, Brendan Batson, Remi Moses, the late Laurie Cunningham.
The same Ron Atkinson who, at the age of 65, resigned from his role as a TV pundit after using racist language to criticise Chelsea defender Marcel Dessaily when he thought he was off air.
Why pick on isolated incidents involving Whelan and Atkinson?
Consider their ages and ethnicity. Now consider the profiles of boards of directors, administrative organisations and many decision-makers in English football.
Are they all like Dave Whelan and Ron Atkinson? Of course not but to pretend none are is to bury your head in the Sahara.
The first step is to acknowledge there is an issue to be dealt with, the second to tackle it more robustly.
The 'Rooney Rule', introduced in American football 12 years ago, is misunderstood by many who oppose it. The requirement on clubs is to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs, not to appoint them.
At least it gives them an opportunity to lay their credentials on the table. It might not be a perfect solution but it would demonstrate a will by English football to tackle the disparity in the numbers seriously and give hope to those with a disincentive to move into coaching or management when the playing field slopes so heavily against them.
Unless the game wakes up to the racism consciously, but more often than not sub-consciously, lurking within its ranks then Hughton will continue to stand out due to the colour of his skin, not just the quality of his performance.
Original article
He has guided Albion to a club record 17 league games unbeaten.
They are part of an increasingly select group of clubs across Europe, including Bayern Munich and PSG, still undefeated after Real Madrid lost for the first time at Sevilla on Sunday evening.
This is not the only reason Hughton is conspicuous. He is also now the only manager out of 44 in the top two divisions of English football from a BME (black and minority ethnic) background.
Four remain in all four divisions following the sackings within hours of each hour last week of Chris Powell by Huddersfield and QPR's 1983 Albion FA Cup finalist Chris Ramsey.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Burton Albion) and Keith Curle (Carlisle United) will be the only ones left alongside Hughton if Notts County under Ricardo Moniz produce more performances like their abject exit from the FA Cup at Salford City.
Let's get one thing straight. Powell and Ramsey were not sacked because they are black. They were sacked because of results in an industry in which impatience does not discriminate.
The reason Powell's and Ramsey's departures were significant is that they highlighted the elephant in the room - football's institutional racism.
A report by Sports People’s Think Tank a year ago revealed that one in every four professional footballers are from BME groups. By contrast now, only one in around every 24 managers have BME backgrounds.
A perception, emphasised glibly last week across social media platforms, explains away this alarming disparity with simplistic ease. They are not good enough.
The Macpherson report, the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, defined institutional racism thus: "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin.
"It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."
The key part of the description in relation to football is "discrimintaion through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping".
Last New Year's Eve, Dave Whelan, the ex-Wigan chairman, was banned for six weeks and fined £50,000 by the FA for saying Jewish people "chase money" and insisting "Chink" was not an offensive term.
Whelan would have been in his early thirties when Love Thy Neighbour drew a large and enthusiastic audience on ITV.
In the sitcom about a white family with new black neighbours, phrases such as "Sambo", "Honky" and "Snowflake" were all part of the laughter. This was the world Whelan grew up in.
Ron Atkinson could not possibly have a racist bone in his body, could he? Think of the team when he was in charge of at West Brom - Cyrille Regis, Brendan Batson, Remi Moses, the late Laurie Cunningham.
The same Ron Atkinson who, at the age of 65, resigned from his role as a TV pundit after using racist language to criticise Chelsea defender Marcel Dessaily when he thought he was off air.
Why pick on isolated incidents involving Whelan and Atkinson?
Consider their ages and ethnicity. Now consider the profiles of boards of directors, administrative organisations and many decision-makers in English football.
Are they all like Dave Whelan and Ron Atkinson? Of course not but to pretend none are is to bury your head in the Sahara.
The first step is to acknowledge there is an issue to be dealt with, the second to tackle it more robustly.
The 'Rooney Rule', introduced in American football 12 years ago, is misunderstood by many who oppose it. The requirement on clubs is to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs, not to appoint them.
At least it gives them an opportunity to lay their credentials on the table. It might not be a perfect solution but it would demonstrate a will by English football to tackle the disparity in the numbers seriously and give hope to those with a disincentive to move into coaching or management when the playing field slopes so heavily against them.
Unless the game wakes up to the racism consciously, but more often than not sub-consciously, lurking within its ranks then Hughton will continue to stand out due to the colour of his skin, not just the quality of his performance.
Original article