The club was founded in 1878 as "West Bromwich Strollers" in West Bromwich, then in Staffordshire but now part of the West Midlands administrative county. The team played their first match on 23 November 1878, drawing 0–0 in a 12-a-side game against workers from Hudson's, a local soap factory. Most of the Strollers players worked at George Salter's Spring Works; many were keen cricketers and were looking for a sport to play during the winter months. The 'Strollers' name came about because there were no footballs on sale in West Bromwich, so a walk to nearby Wednesbury was necessary in order to buy one. They were renamed "West Bromwich Albion" in either 1879 or 1880, becoming the first team to adopt the "Albion" suffix. Albion was a district of West Bromwich where some of the players lived or worked, close to what is today Greets Green.