West Bromwich Albion U21

Penalties settled it in 2021–22, when the Baggies' academy side beat Burnley U21 to lift the Premier League Cup. Four decades earlier the same age bracket had already done something similar, taking the FA Youth Cup in 1975–76, and the current side has twice pushed back towards that level, reaching the FA Youth Cup semi-final in 2018–19 and the quarter-final in 2024–25 without going further.

The team plays in Premier League 2 Division One, with home fixtures split between The Hawthorns and the club's Palm Training Ground.

What the level is actually for shows up later, on senior team-sheets elsewhere. Leigh Downing now runs the side day to day, working within a framework the club formalised under the Elite Player Performance Plan in 2012, itself built on a reserve structure going back to the 1882–83 season, four years after West Bromwich Albion itself was founded in 1878.