THE Argus archive is full of fantastic pictures of the Albion through the years but it is a shame we don’t have an aerial version of this beautiful winter’s game snap from the 1952-53 season.

Without any modern technology or slow -motion replays it would be possible to see the runs and the off-the-ball movements of the players just by looking at the tracks they made in the thick snow covering the pitch.

Goodness knows how players, spectators or indeed the referee were supposed to be able to make out when the ball had gone out of play but perhaps we can just about make out a horizontal line across the image suggesting the pitch markings had been unearthed beneath the snowflakes before kick-off.

One thing this photo does seem to suggest is that the athletic Number 9 has a reasonable case of hand ball against the shocked defender, whose right arm is both well above his head and perilously close to the ball. Was this a penalty?

And what a ball that is. You can see in that image and in the photo of players racing out of the tunnel that this is a heavy leather 18-panelled football of the old school, more suited to going through defenders than around them.

Which might make you think that footballers would have to have been pretty fit to get the thing round the pitch.

The photo of three solid lads with their thick forearms crossed seems to bear this out.

The kit has certainly changed over the years – none of these chaps has the fashionable apeparance of Cristiano Ronaldo or David Beckham but no doubt they were worth just as much to their team-mates, regardless of the baggy shorts and thick shirts.

Elsewhere on the page we can see a crowd of people keen to be photographed with a huge trophy, but on closer inspection it looks to be a cardboard cut-out.

Was this done as a form of motivation – a carrot dangled in front of the team’s noses? Or was it made in celebration of success.

If you peer closely you can make it “Yeovil 4-1” and “Norwich 2-0” over the club name. Were these famous triumphs?