Tag Archives: Birmingham City F.C.

Matchday rewind

The Leyland Daf Cup Final was a very significant game for me. It was the game that brought me back to Birmingham City. My dad took me to games when I was a child but I stopped going around 1959. However, I didn’t stop checking their results and continued to check them when I lived abroad. I attended one game in May 1982, when Birmingham beat Coventry with a goal by Mick Harford and avoided relegation. I was back in England with my American husband and wanted to give him a taste of British culture.

We went to Coventry cathedral in the morning and the game in the afternoon. He received more of a taste of British culture than I had planned as we saw fans tearing the backs off seats and police with dogs to escort them back to the railway station. I enjoyed the game but decided that I didn’t want to experience that sort of aggro again.

We were back in England again in 1991 and I didn’t even try to get a ticket for the game at Wembley because I knew I didn’t stand a chance, having not gone to any games since 1982. On the Wednesday before the game my husband said he was going to town and came back with a ticket to the game. He had talked someone at the club into selling him one of the few odd remaining tickets.

So I went to the game. On the way there I wondered if I was being foolish to go on my own to a game where there might be hooligans. But I sat among a really friendly group of men who remained good humoured even when Tranmere equalised. When Gayle scored the winning goal I stood up and yelled like everyone else and went home happy but exhausted. I started going to games again the next season.

The rewind of the game reminded me of what a good game it was. But it wasn’t the game that made me decide to start going again, it was the friendliness and good humour of the people around me. I felt I belonged with them.

Abide with us

Football after Covid-19

While nothing much is happening with Birmingham City, I have been reading some discussions on how football should change after Covid-19. An article by Mark Palios, the chairman of Tranmere Rovers, said, “The professional game cannot survive without fundamental reform in respect of its major cost: player wages.” Darragh MacAnthony, the owner of Peterborough, suggested factoring that would allow money due for the Sky TV rights to be paid to clubs earlier in exchange for paying a penalty. Parachute payments have also been mentioned. Over half of the money that the Premier League gave to the English Football League (EFL), £260m out of £400m, went to the nine clubs that were relegated in the previous three years.

For me, the main question is whether it is possible to get the richer clubs to share what they have. The Premier League was formed in 1992 so that it could do a deal with BskyB and get a bigger share of the TV money instead of having to share it out between all 92 clubs in the League. The raison d’être of the Premier League was to get more money so I don’t expect the top clubs to want to give any away.

I don’t understand football finance but it seems clear that something has got to change. Players at Premier League Chelsea have not yet managed to reach an agreement on pay cuts. Colchester United, in League 2, have released four first-team players due to financial pressure, including their club captain. There is a tremendous gulf between top and bottom Leagues.

In the early days of professional football there was some sharing of gate money so that the teams with big crowds didn’t have too great an advantage and the game remained competitive. Match gate receipts were shared between the home team and away team with the away side being guaranteed £15 a match in 1888. From 1919 to 1983 the away team was given 20% of the gate money. Now the home team gets all the money in League games so teams with big stadiums and large crowds have an advantage. The gate receipts from FA Cup games are still shared, with each team getting 45% and 10% going to a central pot.

I think that the game is getting less competitive at the top. In the 27 years since the start of the Premier League, 6 different teams have won it and 4 of those were in the top 6 for matchday income per match in 2018-19. In the previous 27 years, there were 9 different champions. My personal preference would be for the game to be as competitive as possible. I think the way to do that would be to reverse some of the changes made so that income from gate receipts and TV is shared more equally. I’m afraid that seems rather unlikely to happen.

Easter Saturday

It’s Easter Saturday and the weather is beautiful, it doesn’t seem right to be staying at home. But that’s what I’ll be doing. It’s what I’ve done for the last 3 weeks and what I’ll probably be doing for many more weeks to come. The Church of England prayer for today talks about crying to God from “the depths of our isolation” and seems very suitable for the present situation.

I miss the excitement of football and the way you never know what to expect. Performances can range from pathetic to peerless. I’m reading books during this time and there can be surprises in them. But finding out that the woman you thought was an evil interloper is really his daughter does not compare with watching your side score just after your goalie saved a penalty.

An EFL letter has been sent out, saying that this season, including playoffs, can be finished in 56 days. They also said that training should not start before May 16 but did not say when playing games might start. May 16 is 5 weeks from now, which seems a long time. But, of course, that date isn’t fixed; there are so many uncertainties. Richard Bevan, of the League Managers’ Association has said that football should only start again “once all players have been tested for coronavirus” and who know when that might be.

So I’ll continue to read books and miss football.

Strange but still good Friday

This has felt like a very strange Good Friday. On previous Good Fridays I have joined in with the prayer walk round Harborne and gone to the service on the High Street. This year I just walked on my own around the retirement apartment block where I live. We’ve been asked to stay within the building or gardens and I’m staying home as instructed and keeping 2 metres away from people I see.

What seems like ages ago, I had planned to do the prayer walk and then go to the game against Swansea. But today, neither will take place. Back in 2015 I wrote a post about going to a football game on a Good Friday and how I’d decided to go and remember the significance of the day in the quiet, reverence of the morning service and in the less reverent crowd in the afternoon, a crowd that probably had some similarities to those that watched and mocked as Jesus died. Watching the game and mocking the opposition is what football crowds do.

For me this day has still been good because of the significance it has for me. Whatever you believe and do this Easter, I hope you are safe and well.

Losing

Losing a game is not nice. Losing to Leicester didn’t feel too bad because we were playing a team that was third in the Premier League and the players and fans kept on to the end. I didn’t see any fans walking out when we went a goal down.

Losing to Reading felt terrible. I think the reason why it felt so bad was not just the performance on the pitch but the sight of fans streaming out of the ground before the game finished. We have a song that says we fight to the end and our players often do that, but we fans don’t always stay to the end if we are losing. Football clubs started out as clubs; they are now run as businesses. I complain that some club owners treat their fans as customers rather than supporters. When lots of us leave early because we don’t like what is happening on the pitch, then we are behaving like customers.

Rant over. It wasn’t all bad. Hogan scored again and we didn’t play too badly in the first half. It felt strange to see Morrison playing against us and I was glad to see him applauding our fans at the end. We are 8 points above the relegation zone.

Sad, proud and glad

I experienced a range of emotions at the FA Cup game with Leicester. I was sad that we conceded a goal and lost the game; I never like losing. I was proud of our players and the effort they put in. I was also proud of the support from the Birmingham City fans, who supplied all the noise in the stadium. I was glad that I’d gone to the game.

I had hesitated about buying a ticket. As I get older, I’m finding it harder to stand for 90 minutes at an away game and I don’t usually go to away games at night. But I’d been to the other cup games, against Blackburn and twice against Coventry. I thought it would be nice to go to all of them.

I also remembered an experience 9 years ago, when I almost didn’t go to a game. I had other commitments before and after the Blues game in Bruges so couldn’t spend a night there. My only option was to go on a coach that left Birmingham at 3 am on Thursday morning and arrived back at 5 am on Friday. I can remember standing in the queue waiting to buy a ticket, wondering if I was getting too old to cope with such a schedule. But I went and thoroughly enjoyed it. I decided then that age is just a number and I shouldn’t let it stop me doing things I enjoy.

The curse of constantly winning

As a Birmingham City fan, I don’t need to worry about the curse of constantly winning but I’ve been thinking about it since reading an article with the heading “Manchester City fans left unhappy by curse of constantly winning trophies”. The article says that fans of the top clubs expect victory and “anything else comes to seem like failure.” It also says, “The greatest triumphs, the ones that are longest remembered and most enjoyed, are those that are unexpected”.

That’s certainly true in my experience. Scoring a last gasp goal when time and hope has almost gone is much more exciting than an easy win. And it was what made Birmingham’s Carling Cup win in 2011 such a wonderful experience. Nobody expected us to win and we won with a goal right at the end. I have very fond memories of that day. I took a child to the game and on our way there I tried to tell him that we were probably going to lose. On our way back through London, fans from other London clubs saw his Blues shirt and came to congratulate us; it was like a triumphal procession.

Villa didn’t get a last gasp goal yesterday but went down fighting and weren’t disgraced. My impression from the radio commentary was that their fans applauded them at the end and didn’t exit from the stadium as quickly as the Arsenal fans did in 2011. I’m sure the Manchester City fans appreciated the result but probably not as much as the Villa fans would have enjoyed a win.

Sheffield Wednesday thoughts and photos

Hogan’s late equaliser was a great way to end the game and it sent me home happy. I thought Blues were better in the first half but not so good in the second so a draw seemed like a fair result. I always want Blues to win, whoever and whenever they play, but I can’t say that I wanted Garry Monk to lose. I remember how he kept us up in 2018 and feel grateful for that.

When Pep Clotet said that that he considered Hogan “a doubt” for the game, the only thing that seemed clear was that Clotet didn’t want the opposition to know whether or not he would play. I wasn’t surprised to see him in the starting line-up and was very glad he stayed on till the end.

In the 12 games we’ve played this year, we have only lost once, to Wigan on New Year’s Day, and we have only failed to score in the 0-0 draw with Coventry. That’s not a bad record. I am hoping our unbeaten run is continued at Millwall on Wednesday.

A few thoughts on the Brentford game

I went to the game with low expectations because of the rain and wind. It didn’t seem like the best weather for a game of football. The sight of a hole in the roof of a nearby building reinforced that opinion and the possibility of debris from the hole later led to closure of part of Coventry Road. This meant that the walk back down to the bus stop after the game involved a detour.

The first half was more interesting than expected, with some decent play, two goals and a different hairstyle for Lee Camp. The second half was scrappier; I think conditions had worsened and players were tired. But there were chances and saves for both sides.

A win would have been nicer but the draw kept our unbeaten run going. And if we can beat Sheffield Wednesday next week, we’ll go above them in the table as we are now level on points but behind on goal difference. I was glad I’d gone but it felt good to reach home and hot food afterwards.

Some notes on the squad and the cup game

I’ve just updated my list of current Birmingham City players. The differences in the squad lists on the back of the programmes for Birmingham City’s fourth round FA Cup game and the replay prompted me to do this. In Tuesday’s programme, David Stockdale, Agus Medina, Alvaro Gimenez, David Davis and Odin Bailey were dropped from the list on the back of the first programme. Moha Ramos, Scott Hogan, Caolan Boyd-Munce, Ryan Burke, Ryan Stirk, and Jack Concannon were added.

I’m assuming that people who read this will have seen the replay on Tuesday, read a report and/or watched the video highlights but I’d like to record a few thoughts on the game. The first half wasn’t good. Josh McEachran was carried off on a stretcher and the 0-0 half time score made me wonder if we were going to see a repeat of the stalemate we saw in the first game. I hoped that somebody would score and win it and that it wouldn’t extend to an extra 30 minutes and penalties. I don’t like penalty shoot-outs; they make me very nervous.

Coventry were leading by one goal at 90 minutes but 4 minutes of time were added on and Dean scored. The two men sitting by me, who had left at 90 minutes, had heard we’d equalised and came back to watch. Coventry scored again and we equalised again so it went to penalties. When it was clear they were going to be taken at the Tilton end, some Blues fans ran to get behind that goal and the stewards couldn’t stop them. And once Lee Camp had saved a penalty, I didn’t feel nervous anymore.

It was a great game to watch and I’m so glad I went.

Not according to plan

I had planned to spend the weekend in London but changed my plans and stayed just one night so that I could go to the FA cup game against Coventry.

Friday went well and according to plan. I had no trouble finding a seat on the train to London and I was able to check into my hotel room early. I spent the afternoon at Tate Britain, mainly to see the Year 3 exhibition of 3,128 class photos of London’s Year 3 children, over 76,000 children. A Guardian article described it as a portrait of “a city’s potential.” The smiling young faces in the photos left me feeling worried about the world in which they’re growing up. So I appreciated the laughs in the evening, when I went to see Frank Skinner putting on a masterful display of stand-up comedy at the Garrick Theatre.

On Saturday, my travel back to Birmingham and getting to the game went well but I don’t think the game went according to plan. Surely nobody would plan a goalless draw. It could have been worse; we would have lost if O’Hare hadn’t missed an opportunity to score right at the end. There was also some consolation in the novelty and the chants. The warmup before the game provided a first opportunity to see Moha Ramos, the substitute goalie, in action. And after the game, it was good to see Jude Bellingham giving his shirt away to a child. I was in row 4 of the lower Gil Merrick stand, which felt far too low down to get a decent view of the game but it gave me a renewed appreciation for the view from my seat in row 18 of the Kop.

I was disappointed that we didn’t score during the game but was glad I’d gone. It would have been a pity to miss seeing Birmingham City playing away at St Andrew’s.

Coventry in the Cup, gambling and Blues news

As the BBC website said in its report: “In front of a paltry St Andrew’s crowd of just 2,697 on a foul night, Coventry set up a first meeting with Birmingham since beating them 3-2 in the League Cup at the Ricoh Arena in August 2012.” And we’ll be playing as the away team in our own stadium. I went to the game and enjoyed it. I find watching football much less stressful when I have an interest in a game but no deep emotional attachment. I wanted Coventry to win so that Blues could play away at St Andrew’s but if Coventry had lost, I wouldn’t have felt as distressed as I do when Blues lose.

Gambling and football

On Sunday, there was an article on the Guardian website about the gamblification of football and the relationship between the Premier League’s income from media and gambling.

“The basis of the Premier League’s immense wealth is its media rights, sold to broadcasters and then on to viewers in packages costing as much as £50 a month. Manchester City versus Liverpool, of course, is a very easy sell, Norwich versus Bournemouth not so much. But a bet can turn an armchair viewer into a Canaries fan for 90 minutes and boost the audience for lesser matches, while the package prices might rise without the revenue from adverts in the breaks.”

The most recent issue of When Saturday Comes, Issue 395,included an editorial on the incongruity of Wayne Rooney’s video about his problems with gambling being produced by 32Red, the betting company that funded his arrival at Derby. It included the information that “16 of the Championship’s 24 clubs have gambling firms on their shirts”.

The good news is that using credit cards to gamble is going to be banned. A BBC article said that “there are examples of consumers who have accumulated tens of thousands of pounds of debt through gambling because of credit card availability.”

Blues news

Last weekend started well with a win against Luton. The timing was different to the Blackburn game but the events were repeated. Birmingham scored first, the opposition equalised with a penalty, then Birmingham scored again and Harlee Dean was sent off. Reports said that it wasn’t pretty and a tweet from Brian Dick said, “#bcfc have no need to apologise for that victory, substance over style is no bad thing. Hopefully the last two matches are a small acorn that will grow into something much more stable. Striker help so obviously needed, though.”

Blues Trust published a post designed to help readers decide if the sale and leaseback arrangement of St Andrew’s is a good or bad thing. It’s worth reading if you are interested in how the club is being run. Blues Trust’s view is that it would have been helpful if the club had been more open when the Trust asked about this in May and said, “major issues affecting the club need good communication and sometimes consultation”.

On Monday, an article on football finance included bad news on our financial situation but a nice tribute to our fans. “A shout out for the fans: ‘Despite their many issues, Blues have now seen their attendance rise 5 years in a row from the 15,457 low point in 2013/14, which reflects very well on their supporters. In fact, the 22,483 attendance last season was the highest since they were last in the Premier League in 2011.’”

Notes on the news

There was a lot of news about Birmingham City this week. On Monday, the draw for the FA Cup fourth round brought up the intriguing possibility of Blues being the away team at St Andrew’s if Coventry win the third round replay. The FA confirmed that Coventry would be the home team if the tie goes ahead. A club announcement said that the Middlesbrough game would be moved to Tuesday evening, 21 January.

On Tuesday, the accounts were published and revealed that “freehold land and buildings” had been sold to Birmingham City Stadium Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Birmingham Sports Holding Limited. This raised questions about the application to register St Andrew’s as an Asset of Community Value. A post on the Blues Trust website explained the timeline for this and said,

“The failure of the Club to tell the fans that the ground had been sold … is a continuing example of the unwillingness of Directors to engage with supporters. We understand that the EFL had known for some time that the ground had been sold, but because the sale value does not appear to have been inflated, the EFL had no issues with it. So why was this information withheld from Supporters by the club?”

Blues Trust also published a link to an article in the South China Morning Post, which included a reference to the Blues Trust statement.

A new group of Blues fans, 1875, set up a new website and sent a letter to Birmingham Sports Holdings Chairman Zhao Wenqing, requesting him to improve the situation at Blues. They believe that writing to the powers that be will be more effective than moaning on social media.

The Birmingham Mail published some articles about the EFL charge and other matters at the club. One had a large headline that said, “The fans deserve to know what’s going on at Blues.” I agree with that.

Amid all this disturbing news, there were some reassuring quotes from Pep Clotet. He said that Marc Roberts should be available for the Cardiff game, Blues’ next home fixture on 18 January. And, commenting on the EFL’s charge that the club had breached the imposed business plan, Clotet said the staff and players had been informed “there is nothing to worry about and what we need to do is focus on our job which is trying to win games.”

I hope that today they will try to win their game against Luton and will succeed in doing that.

Expectations

My expectations before a game affect how I react to what happens. I went to the Wigan game expecting Blues to win so their poor performance and loss left me feeling depressed. I went to the FA Cup game thinking we needed to win to restore some confidence in our players but not at all confident that we would.

The game started well with Crowley’s goal on 4 minutes. But on 60 minutes, Sunjic conceded a penalty and was sent off less than 2 minutes after coming on. It seemed unlikely we could win with 10 men so Bela’s late goal came as a pleasant surprise.

It wasn’t the best of games. The attendance was 7,330, which was our “lowest attendance for a competitive match at St. Andrews since 2016”. An Observer article on the game showed a picture of the empty Tilton and it’s hard to create a good atmosphere when the Tilton is empty. There were several times when Blackburn looked certain to score but didn’t. We were lucky but it is about time we had some good luck. Most pleasing of all was the way our players kept fighting until the end of the game. I went home happy.

Long long road

Thoughts on football, books, and life in general