Last time Albion hosted Chelsea for a friendly, they were talking about Super Saturday.

And no wonder. Vicente dazzled, Bruno donned the stripes for the first time and the Champions League winners of three months previously were beaten 3-1.

That was back in August, 2012.

Eight years on, it might feel the same way should all go to plan when the teams meet before 2,500 spectators at the Amex.

Or even if some things do not go quite right and those involved are able to learn a valuable lesson from it.

A lesson to share with the government, the Premier League and other clubs.

Paul Barber makes no bones about it. Football clubs at all levels have to get fans back as quickly as they can. As safely as they can as well, of course.

But there can be no unnecessary hanging around or hesitation.

Time is money. Not just for the clubs themselves but, in many cases, for their own employees.

And certainly for companies who supply those clubs on matchdays.

That is why Barber has never shied away from the “it’s about the money” claim as football plotted its return from the Covid-enforced shutdown.

Yes, behind the top priority of health, it IS about money. Of course it is. About jobs too.

Barber, the club’s chief executive and deputy chairman said: “At this stage what we are keen to do is put our first tester steps forward.

“We want to breed some confidence that this can happen safely.

“It’s about getting people used to a different way, certainly in the near term, of going to football. Just as they have when they have gone to restaurants.

“From an economic viability point of view, we have got to move through the gears fairly quickly to ensure the viability of clubs up down the country, not just in the Premier League but particularly for the lower levels where gate money and matchday income is so important because the TV income isn’t so large.”

As progress continues and attendances increase, clubs will have to think carefully about how many people to let in.

They will have to assess the income they can receive for each stage of partial re-opening versus the outlay necessary to operate those parts of the stadium.

Barber said: “One of the challenges we and all clubs will have when these guidelines are being applied is that the capacities we are working with are going to be much smaller than what is ordinarily viable for us.

“We need to bring more fans back into the stadium as quickly as we can when it is allowed to do so.

“But the economics of running football clubs of this size - and we are by no means anywhere near the largest - is we need more fans to make it viable to open our doors.”

Tomorrow’s match has been weeks in the making.

Part of the process was consultation with season ticket holders via a Zoom webinar last week.

About 1,000 households took part in a question and answer session lasting 90 minutes.

Barber said those who got involved played their part in the process.

He told The Argus: “It was really important to have a consultation with fans for a couple of reasons.

“Firstly, we wanted to assess the appetite for fans to want to come back to football at this point.

“Secondly we wanted to test out some of our operational planning ideas for staging a test event.

“By putting them out there in advance of the meeting and during the meeting, we were able to gauge people’s response. We were able to fine-tune our plans.

“We then submitted our plans to the Premier League who, in turn, submitted them to the DCMS and to the Sports Ground Safety Authority.

“That’s why we are delighted to have the opportunity to stage a pilot event.

“We can test assumptions, plans, procedures.

“We can see if they how they work and, if they don’t work, why they didn’t work which will enable us to make better plans for future events which might be larger.

“At that point we would expect other clubs and other events to take on any learnings and to take on the baton towards getting back to ideally full stadiums as soon as we can.

“The government have been hugely supportive of us.

“They want us to get our businesses back to normal as quickly and as safely as possible.

“We are not opening up all areas of the stadium.

“We are managing this with a limited capacity.

“We also need to make sure we manage this event on as economically viable a basis as we possibly can.”

Back in 2012, it was very much Super Saturday as Vicente, Ashley Barnes and the returning Andrew Crofts got on the scoresheet for the Championship side.

Current Chelsea boss Frank Lampard started and scored for the visitors.

Petr Cech, Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, Michael Essien, Raul Meireles, Ramires, Eden Hazard and Fernando Torres were also in the Chelsea XI and David Luiz went on as sub.

Super Saturday? Admittedly that referred not Albion beating Chelsea but to medals won by Team GB at the London Olympics on the same day. But it was a very good day in Falmer too.

Capacity at the Amex was limited by the fact the newly-added East Upper was not quite ready to open.

Ironically, there WILL be fans up there this time.

It will be good to see them.