There are different kinds of ownership. Coombs, Wheldon, the Kumar brothers, Sullivan and Yeung have all been owners of Birmingham City FC. They’ve controlled the board room and occupied the best seats. But it’s the fans that own the pride and the passion, and pass the memories on from one generation to the next. Continue reading
Tag Archives: World Cup
Summer reading
So what are you going to do now that the World Cup is over? I’m going to revert to my usual summer pattern of reading more books, going for more walks and generally trying to pay more attention to non-football matters. That means that my posts on this blog are going to be even more sporadic than usual. Continue reading
Saying sorry
There was an interesting article by Barney Ronay in the Guardian on Sunday. He disagreed with those who wanted the England players to apologise for their performance in the World Cup and said that we should be apologising to them. Continue reading
Costa Rica
I paid a brief visit to Costa Rica in 2004 and liked what I saw. It was the second stop on a cruise, as we headed for the Panama Canal.
Football on TV
My first experience of watching a football game on TV was not a happy one. It was the FA Cup Final in 1956, when Birmingham City was beaten by Manchester City. I’d seen Birmingham City lose before, of course, but it felt totally different and much worse than watching a defeat as part of a crowd. We didn’t have a TV at home so we watched it at Grandma’s house and that didn’t help. At home I could have moaned but that wouldn’t have seemed polite at her house. I had to put on a happy face and thank her for letting us come and watch our hopes being demolished. Watching the TV coverage of the World Cup in 1966 was a much happier experience. But I have always preferred being in the crowd to watching on TV. Continue reading
Deadly football
When fans describe football games as deadly, the word ‘deadly’ is usually being used in a figurative sense. Unfortunately football can at times be literally deadly. Continue reading
They say it’s very good
One of my uncles won a bit of money on the football pools in the mid 1950’s and used it to buy a television set. He wasn’t married and was living with his parents, my grandparents, so they watched it too. Continue reading
Something rotten
There is something rotten in the state of football in general. Birmingham City FC is in a sorry state but far worse things are going on elsewhere. The worst thing that could happen to us is that our club would go out of existence, which is bad enough, but in Qatar construction workers are dying as the country prepares for the 2022 World Cup. Continue reading