Albion manager Tony Mowbray is relishing the prospect of returning to Middlesbrough in Saturday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie.
Mowbray captained Boro for more than a decade and made 348 league appearances before moving to Celtic and then Ipswich.
Now he is hoping to plot their downfall and guide the Baggies, who are now lying second in the Coca-Cola Championship, into the quarter-finals.
Mowbray said: "My phone has been busy with calls from people in the north-east. I will be going home, even though I played my Boro career at Ayresome Park.
"I’ve been back before. I went back as a player with Ipswich and got a wonderful reception and went back as a coach.
"I’ve done all right on past trips to the Riverside. I won there twice with Ipswich. The omens are okay but Boro are a Premier League side with Premier League quality footballers - Yakubu, Woodgate, Viduka etc.
"They are formidable opposition for anybody as some of the bigger sides have found out at the Riverside this year with Chelsea being a prime example.
"But Middlesbrough is my team. It is where I was born and bred and brought up and I watched them for the formative years of my life. I played there for 12 years, captained them through liquidation and promotion to the top division and walked them out at Wembley in a cup final against Chelsea - the ZDS Trophy in 1988.
"I had some great days there. You don’t erase those memories."
