When a relatively unknown young manager named Ron Atkinson arrived at the club in 1978, he inherited a team that already included youth-team graduate Bryan Robson and Derek Statham, Ally Robertson as well as the black pair of Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis, both acquired inexpensively from lower divisions. Aware that he had the makings of a great team, Atkinson augmented it by bringing Brendan Batson from his former club Cambridge United F.C. Never before had an English team simultaneously fielded three black players, and the "Three Degrees", as they became known (in reference to the contemporary vocal trio of the same name), challenged the established racism of English football. Their success in the Albion side marked a watershed that allowed a generation of footballers to enter the game who would previously have been excluded by their ethnic background. Albion reached the 1978 FA Cup semi-final but lost to Ipswich Town.