West Brom will never forgive themselves for allowing Wolverhampton Wanderers to steal all-time Molineux great for just £65k | OneFootball

When West Bromwich Albion sold a fringe striker to their bitter rivals, they didn't realise they were handing over a future great.

When West Bromwich Albion sold a fringe striker to their bitter rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in November 1986, they didn't realise that they were handing over a future Molineux great on a plate.

The mid-1980s were a desperate time for football in the Black Country.

West Bromwich Albion were relegated from the First Division in 1986 after ten years, and if anything, things were even worse just up the road at Molineux.

At the same time, Wolves had just been relegated for the third consecutive season, only narrowly avoiding complete extinction by a hair's breadth that summer.

In November 1986, however, a single transfer decision would come to change the trajectory of one of these two clubs, and it wasn't the Baggies...

West Brom's decision to sell Steve Bull to Wolves made perfect sense at the time

Steve Bull was a 21-year-old striker who'd made four appearances for Albion, but he was deemed surplus to requirements at The Hawthorns.

They received an offer of £65,000 for Bull and full-back Andy Thompson, a 19-year-old defender who'd played 24 times for them, from their local rivals, which they happily accepted.

It was a decision that made perfect sense at the time.

West Brom had just been relegated, football was in recession, crowds were plummeting, and getting some ready cash in was important.

But, it became a decision that the Baggies would come to repent at leisure ever since.

Bull became an all-time Wolverhampton Wanderers great when it was all said and done

Steve Bull spent 13 years at Molineux, running up over 500 appearances and 306 goals for the club.

He also made 13 appearances and scored four goals for England, despite only ever playing two top-flight games throughout his entire career - both for Albion, in April 1986 - and played for them at the 1990 World Cup finals, hitting the post in their second group match against the Netherlands.

Bull immediately struck up a lethal attacking partnership with Andy Mutch and two successive promotions followed in 1988 and 1989, with his muscular presence often giving him the look of an adult playing in a youth-team match.

Opposing teams knew what was coming when they were playing against him, but doing anything about him was a completely different matter.

Andy Thompson was no slouch in front of goal either, at least from the penalty spot. He became Wolves' spot-kick taker, scoring 45 goals for them himself over 14 years with the club.

Between the two of them, they made 1,012 appearances for the club in all competitions and scored 351 goals between them. That's £185 per goal and £64 per appearance.

Meanwhile, the involvement of Sir Jack Hayward, who bought the club in 1990, rebuilt Molineux from a crumbling wreck with only one stand open for safety reasons into one of the most modern in the country.

It would take them until 2003 to get into the Premier League, but by the early 1990s Wolves were transformed, compared to just a few years earlier. The sale of these two players didn't do West Bromwich Albion much good, either.

They were relegated to the third tier for the first - and still only - time in their history in 1991, meaning that Wolves, who'd been two divisions below them when Bull and Thompson were sold to them just five years earlier, were a division above them again; the first time this had been the case in a decade and a half.

Hindsight, of course, has 20:20 vision, and no-one at West Brom could have realised just how pivotal a player Steve Bull would be in the history of their bitterest rivals.

The decision to sell him to them, and for such a modest transfer fee, was one which they will still have had plenty of time to regret since.