Bidding adieu to the Blues
Watching Birmingham City’s demotion to the less vaunted throes of the Coca Cola Championship last Sunday was one of those rare karmic events in modern football. Let’s be clear for a moment. Birmingham are, and have for some time been a championship outfit.
Success in the Carling Cup final earlier in the season was hardly fitting reward for a side who display such prosaic and uninspiring tactics that only a depressed sadist could truly justify supporting them. Hmm…Interesting that.
Alex McLeish and his charges were quick to bask in the glow of a “resilient” and improbable victory over Arsenal at Wembley. The reality however was something altogether more different. Birmingham’s first piece of notable silverware since 1963 was not won on the back of a wonderful, tactically astute defensive performance.
Moreover, it owed to the calamitously profligate nature of a brittle Arsenal side, who proved more fearful at the prospect of winning a trophy than McLeish’s assembled rabble of mediocrity.
It is an indictment of Wenger and his hugely flawed philosophy that Obafemi Martins poke at the end of that game should have yielded anything other than a consolation goal, much less a humiliating defeat. What we can definitively draw from that unlikely day in February, is that McLeish was afforded the opportunity to take credit that was not his due.
Charlie Nicholas shamelessly lamented the lack of support McLeish had received from the clubs’ board in the aftermath of that victory, arguing that McLeish should have been given the resources to strengthen the squad after such a success. It is difficult to imagine what the board could have done to strengthen the squad a full month after the transfer window had closed.
On that note, supporters may lament the broken promises and lack of investment from the Carson Yeung regime. Yet fans of Liverpool, West Ham, Newcastle and a litany of others will tell testify to the dangers of trusting owners who ride into town in a wave of optimism. Frequently the euphoria surrounding the possibility of new beginnings can leave fans and owners alike sensing a new era that may never dawn.
Football supporters believe what they want to believe, and in that sense must share responsibility in the eventual plight of their club.
Birmingham fans should placate their grievances safe in the knowledge that their squad, their manager and indeed their club will be playing at a level proportionate to what they offer English football. For the rest of us, we can take solace in the notion that negativity doesn’t pay. Even if we miss chuckling at Cameron Jerome’s misfiring antics each Saturday, it is a price worth paying!
