Batson the gamekeeper needs a poacher

He was a widely respected heir apparent to the highest-paid union leader in the country, but like many in football found the pull of his old club irresistible. In Brendon Batson's case that meant leaving the Professional Footballers' Association after 18 years to negotiate players' contracts from the other side of a desk as managing director of West Bromwich Albion.

And, yes, he has heard all the jibes about poachers and gamekeepers: "I was at a Premier League meeting when the newcomers got introduced and somebody yelled 'Poacher!' ''

A poacher, of course, is precisely what Albion have lacked in this first season at the highest level since 1986, which is one of the reasons that today's home game against West Ham United takes on such significance. The joint leading scorers have managed precisely three goals each and one of them, Jason Roberts – whose strike won the corresponding game at Upton Park in September – is suspended this afternoon. His probable replacement, Lee Hughes, scored for fun in the Nationwide League but has had no fun at all since returning from Coventry City as the club's record signing for £2.5m in August, and has yet to trouble the Premiership scorers.

Away to Fulham on Wednesday he looked like a player drained of all confidence, and as a vulnerable defence collapsed three times in five minutes, the manager, Gary Megson, was forced to admit: "The last 20 minutes was the first time we'd looked like a relegation outfit. They felt sorry for themselves, didn't have any leaders and that's not acceptable.''

While the amiable Megson lives every kick in leading from the touchline today – "it's not just ranting and raving, you're like the leader of an orchestra'' – Batson will be attempting to maintain the calm demeanour that marked his playing career as a cultured right-back. From the Waltham Forest Under-15 team in East London that won the English Schools Trophy he went to Arsenal and, deprived of significant opportunity by Pat Rice's consistency, to Cambridge United.

The boss there was a certain Ron Atkinson, taking his first swaggering steps in League management, who soon moved on to bigger things at West Brom and took Batson with him. With Bryan Robson in midfield and Laurie Cunningham on the wing supplying Cyrille Regis, a freewheeling Albion qualified for Europe three times in four years.

Ron was soon off again, to Manchester United, leaving behind Batson, who was forced to retire in 1984, having failed to recover from the loss of a second knee cartilage. Grateful as he was for a dozen years as a professional, enforced retirement emphasised the precarious nature of the career and informed much of his subsequent work for the PFA: "I'd been the union delegate at Cambridge and Albion and was invited on to the management committee in 1981. Then after I finished playing, Gordon Taylor approached me and I joined the union full-time.

"Last summer we'd just come out of a long dispute over television money and the PFA's future was secured with a long-term deal, then this offer came up. It was a new challenge and a club I hold dear to my heart. I'm still dealing with players, which is what I've always enjoyed, but in a different role.

"I'm not going to change my principles. I know that 75 per cent of players play outside the Premiership and the lower down the ladder you go, the greater the insecurity. The average career spans eight to 10 years and you're only one serious injury away from looking for alternative employment. Like any profession you're in, if you're the best in it, you expect to be paid the going rate, and it's the clubs who have to decide what's the going rate for them.''

As well as a good knowledge of players' contracts, union work in bailing out impoverished clubs and imprudent owners offered a useful insight into the economics of football. "Football doesn't think long-term'' was something he already knew. "But you have to try to structure the club in such a way that if things don't go as you hope, and there's a downturn, it doesn't destabilise your club for too long.''

That is a diplomatic way of saying that if West Bromwich Albion go down in three months' time, they hope to have more chance of heading back to the Premiership than following other relegated clubs into administration.

Prudence has been the policy ever since a summer of upheaval in the boardroom ushered in Batson as part of the new regime. Peace finally arrived – Jeremy Peace, the new chairman – but significant new signings were slow to follow, the best of them, Jason Koumas from Tranmere Rovers, not being secured until after three Premiership games had been lost.

''Because of the changeover we lost a bit of time,'' Batson admits. "I think we learnt that you have to set up the club and the squad before the season starts and then do a bit of tinkering if necessary during the transfer window.''

At least the supporters, who have been outstanding all season, will continue to do their bit. "They like people who give their all for the club,'' Batson says from his own experience. "They don't turn on players. They may turn on the board but they give fantastic support to players who pull on the Albion shirt.''

But for all the excellence of Koumas and the goalkeeper, Russell Hoult, are those players good enough as a group? "I think the fans were realistic about this season. That's not to say they're not ambitious, as we all are, but they appreciate that what we won't be doing is destabilise the club, so that if we don't stay in this division we won't spend however many years in the wilderness.''

"Eighteen years of nothing'' is how Megson describes it, while pointing out: "Not so long ago we were vying with Walsall to stay up [in the Nationwide First Division]. Now we're trying to compete with West Ham, Bolton, Sunderland and Birmingham to stay in the Premiership.

He admits to looking at the opposition's substitutes' bench on occasions and seeing "five players who would walk into our team''. In Koumas, he adds, "we've got one of the best young midfield players in the country, an exceptional talent. But we can't bring in 10 of them".

After two wins in 21 matches, what he desperately needs, starting this afternoon, is a poacher turned game-winner.