St Andrew's Day

No-one was more surprised than me when yesterday the big eck swapped the nation of St Andrews for the club based at St Andrews, where he will resume his cross-city rivalry with Martin O'Neill which previously took place in Glasgow.

Although he undeniably produced some fantastic results at Scotland, I am not convinced his managerial record is as good as it is reputed to be. Nonetheless, Alex McLeish signing for Birmingham City is a massive coup for both the club and the city.

Usi 9mm

There has been a lot of discussion recently about foreign takeovers of British football clubs. My opinion is that if football is a business, as we are constantly being told it is, it cannot protect itself from globalisation which is a natural part of free-markets. Having said that, we don't want any old Johnny Foreigner running our clubs. There must be a certain probity about the character of any potential investors.

I believe the two Birmingham clubs have done well here. I doubt any Villa fan would want to go back to the bad old days of Deadly Doug. Randy Lerner, as well as having a great name for a student of sex education, has humbly said he is a steward of the club and it appears that the club is finally moving in the right direction after many years of neglect. There are a few question marks over Carson Yeung, not least as to whether he will actually take over at St Andrew's, but he seems to have an understanding of the city and football and could be an important contact in the emerging superpower that is China, giving the city and the club access to the huge Premier League marketing potential available in the country..

Other cities have been less discerning however. Manchester City have allowed the former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Sinawatra with his questionable record on human rights to take over the club. Meanwhile in London, the probity of the Arsenal-owning hopeful Alisher Uzmanov has been questioned recently by quite a few blogs concerned at his recent efforts to silence certain online critics, which affected among others Tim Ireland and local councillor Bob Piper's fine weblogs.

Many club owners are now saying foreign investment is vital to be able to compete at the highest level. However, should we be more careful about the types of people who are taking over our national sport?

United Blitzed by Coventry

Coventry pulled of one of the biggest results in recent Midland's footballing history last night by beating the mighty Trafford Borough at the Theatre of American Dreams. Blues face them on Saturday in the league and so will need to be ready for the backlash, after going out of the Carling Cup last night to a Robbie Savage's new team, and beating Liverpool 0-0 at Anfield on Saturday.
Villa were also stunned by Martin O'Neill's former club Leicester, meaning that Coventry are probably the best chance of West Midlands success in the league cup this season.

It would be great to see the Sky Blues back in the top flight, and hopefully under Iain Dowie's leadership they will be making a return next season. Coventry used to be legendary at staying up. The 96-97 season epitomised this, with Coventry needing to win on the last day away to Tottenham, and Middlesbrough and Sunderland needing to lose. Somehow they pulled it off, and they finally went out of the top flight after 34 years in 2000/01 season after losing to the Villa.

As Ron Atkinson used to say, if the Titanic was built in Coventry, that wouldn't have gone down.

When Two Tribes Go to War

Birmingham did not win the Championship, but West Brom and Wolves both made the playoffs and will face each other in the semi-finals.

It was not all bad news last week however, as Manchester and London both failed to get representatives in the champions league final. As for us brummies, we are just happy to have two teams in the top flight.

As Birmingham is twinned with Milan, I claim we will have representation in the Champions League final. There is a growing breed of latte-drinking football fan who will claim I am being unpatriotic by not supporting English teams in Europe. It is a club competition. Every red-blooded working-class football fan understands that football is tribal, and we fight against other tribes in our country.

Like Wolves and West Brom. The loser will not wish the winner good luck and hope that the Black Country has some representation in the Premiership next season. They will cheer on the winner of Derby-Southampton, even though it will be to the detriment of West Midlands football.

However, I'm a Brummie first and then an Englishman. I hope at least one of them gets into the Premiership so that the West Midlands has something to shout about again.

Update 13/05: I should be shot for not mentioning Walsall's excellent League 2 Championship win. The appointment of Dicky Dough was truly on the money.

Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong

Former Blues striker Clinton Morrison helped Crystal Palace beat Derby which put the second-city Blues back in their rightful place in the top-flight. Hopefully Birmingham will seal the Championship next week (there is a sentence you do not get to write often!) Even sweeter: three London clubs might take our place in the second tier. Is this part of a general malaise that will require more lottery funding to improve sports facilities in our glorious capital?

In other news, the convicts won a hatrick of world cups in ludicrous conditions. I stand by my predictions that this is the beginning of the end.

I hope.

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

Phew! The World Cup series of posts took longer than expected (and I was actually planning to have a round-up of the groups and the progress of each participant which I have now shelved). This is mainly because of a mini-heatwave that is affecting Birmingham (and my computer) at the moment, making it among the hottest places in the country just a week ago. Among the news I have failed to comment on are the sale of Emile Heskey and Jermaine Pennant at Blues, the fact that they are favourites for the Championship in the fortcoming season with Albion second, and an exclusive from West Brom: I have from a reliable source that Mr Robson will have 10 games to turn the fortunes of the club round when the new season starts, otherwise he will be shown the door.

Meanwhile at Villa there are enough rumours going on for an entire article to be devoted to it. In summary, some newspaper reports suggested that Villa players were unhappy at the cost-cutting going on at the club (apparently a physio was not allowed to claim back the price of a cup of airport coffee from the company's expenses, the Villa players had to personally pay a masseuse after the club stopped funding them and a new training facility was scrapped). This story transmogrified into one player egged-on by Mr O'Leary. This led to an investigation and a "parting of company with the club on amicable terms". While the search for a new manager goes on three interested parties are attempting to buy the club: an American called Randy who owns the MBNA brand of credit cards, local Solihull business man Mr Neville, and Sven Goran Eriksson's agent. Maybe we will see Beckham in Brum after all...

Elsewhere in the city the Dubliner pub was burnt down in an apparent arson attack a couple of nights ago. Worldwide, Israel has gone over the top in attacking everything that moves in Lebanon as the result of a couple of soldiers being kidnapped, and as usual America and Britain haven't got the leadership to tell them to stop. Question marks over the Metropolitan Police have resurfaced - ridiculously, no-one will be charge over the Jean Charles de Menezes incident, although the Met will be charge under Health and Safety Legislation (because they shot the wrong man) and a BBC documentary claims a senior policeman involved in the initial investigation of the Stephen Lawrence murder was bribed by a relative of one of the suspects. And we thought the serious crime squad was bent.

Anyway hopefully normal service will soon be resumed.

A Gamble Too Far

Birmingham not making the final eight of the bid for the supercasino is hardly surprising. As I mentioned here, it is a particularly daft bid not least for the fact that the council backed site was not in Birmingham. The Con-LibDem Council (should that be shortened to ConDem?) seemed more interested in propping up the failing NEC than regenerating Birmingham. Either that or they support the Villa.

And I'm not the only one who is angry at this council's incompetence. Just read this post by PoliticalHackUK: Playing to lose to see some great quotes from Roger Godsiff ("How can we offer regeneration in Solihull, one of the richest boroughs in the country?") or Karen Brady's rant ("sadly we have to wonder if we have a council worthy of running our city as, slowly, their decisions drain us of our second city status." - worth reading in full here. I was no fan of the Labour administration, but after ten years I had forgotten just how incompetent the "natural party of power" are.

Blues for West Midlands Teams

Well it had to happen. The overpaid excuses of players that make up the current Birmingham City side got relegated a week ago today after failing to match Portsmouth's win over Wigan, a result which saw West Brom also go down leaving Villa as the only Midlands side in the top flight next season which is absolutely unprecedented (in fact it hasn't been a good season for the West Midlands teams generally; Blues, Albion and Walsall got relegated, Villa ended up with their lowest ever Premiership points tally, and Coventry and Wolves failed to reach the playoffs).

Yes, Portsmouth may have got the rub of the green with refereeing decisions. Blues may well have had a decent run recently. But when you start the season as badly as we did, there was only ever going to be one outcome - and it happened.

Sullivan has immediately blasted some of the players, saying that Jarosik, Sutton, Butt and Melchiot will not be returning to St. Andrews next season. Sutton apparently earned £1.2 million (at £45k-a-week) for playing in six or seven matches. In a meeting on Friday Bruce was spared from the sack, apparently showing he has the hunger to take Birmingham back to the top flight.

Sullivan thinks we need to replace the overpaid players with some young, hungry players.

The People's Republic couldn't agree more.

Villa Rise from the Dead

Villa took bragging rights in the Second City derby on Saturday with a 3-1 win over the Blues, plunging them deep into relegation trouble. Ignore the claims of foul and offside for the first two Villa goals - Birmingham have been playing rubbish all season.

The real scandal is (as a good Catholic) the match was played at 12pm on Easter Sunday meaning I had to miss it as I went to Mass. I know that there was trouble in the 2-0 victory three years ago on a Monday night, when supporters got tanked-up after work and fights broke out all over town, but are we condemned to Second City derbies at 12pm on Sundays for evermore? We have 24 hour licensing now, and it may be the case that it is still harder to find a pub open on Sunday than Saturday, but can we not have it on Saturday even once? Churches together in Aston were afraid that their Easter services would be affected by the timing, as older people feared to venture out with the footie fans, to which West Midlands Police replied they have asked the FA not to schedule the Brum derby on the Easter weekend again. The problem is not that it is on the Easter weekend - it is that you keep switching it to Sunday at 12pm, which always clashes with Church services.

Let us stop this discrimination against Brummie Christian footie fans.

Blues Win

After beating Bolton on Tuesday night, Birmingham City find themselves out of the relegation zone for the first time in six months.

I'm sure they will be back there soon.

Bruce Excuse

It is a week since the 7-0 drubbing in the FA Cup (which I was unfortunate enough to witness) and I'm not sure I've recovered yet. David Sullivan has been highly critical of the players, claiming he is sick of footballers. Steve Bruce on the other hand has been a bit too keen in defending them, publicly criticizing Sullivan's statements on more than one occasion.

Now if your the manager, and you don't like what the owner is saying, surely you do what the captain Kenny Cunningham did and ask to have a meeting with him in private? Is Bruce looking for a way out of Blues, preferably with a lucrative pay-off and without having the criticism leveled at him that he has walked out of another club?

The question is where does he go. Newcastle, who he has been linked with in the past, will not want him after this season's performance, and the same goes for the England job. Surely the best thing he can do for his career is to keep quiet and keep Blues up, or at the very least bring them back up from the Championship next season.

And who would replace Bruce. I can think of no-one except for coach Eric Black - but does he have enough experience. This season truly has profited no-one.

Gambling Brum's Future Away

It has not been a good week for the Second-City Blues. After losing to Tottenham 2-0 at home on Saturday, the council decided to back the NEC bid over the City of Birmingham stadium for the rights to hold the regional casino, and then they crashed out of the FA Cup to Liverpool losing 7-0, the worst defeat in 48 years.

Off the pitch I cannot understand the council's decision. Well actually I can - Birmingham City Council have a vested interest in the National Exhibition Centre. It is losing money hand-over-fist (particularly since it lost the International Motor Show) and they see the casino as a way of resurrecting the facility. They claim the decision was made because an out-of-town site would discourage addictive gambling - but Birmingham City Council backing a site in Solihull seems rather daft to me, particularly when you consider the opposition the Borough mustered when plans for a national stadium were to be developed there.

In any case these super-casinos were supposed to regenerate inner-city areas. Are the Government really going to give the licence to a site in the middle of suburbia? Birmingham was in need of a World Class stadium to rival the new Wembley and the two in Manchester, but the Cons-Lib council have bottled it again. I was never a fan of the old Labour administration, but some of the decisions made by the "odd-couple" seem to be based in fantasy rather than reality.

Brummies on a Cup Run

All-in-all, I think it was a good day in the FA Cup for Birmingham. City fortuitously reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 22 years after a jammy win over the old enemy Stoke, including two world-class saves from goalkeeper Maik Taylor to deny the Potteries side. Meanwhile across the city Villa almost pulled off a jammy win of there own, scoring against the run of play against Manchester City only to be denied by a last-minute goal from Richards, who is apparently a Brummie but sounded suspiciously like a Manc to me.

Especially after he swore in the post-match interview.

Footbal Fun 'n' Games

Birmingham's thumping 5-0 victory over the Portsmouth Pirates yesterday has brought back my love of football. There is just a chance we might stay up although it may unfortunately be at the expense of our neighbours West Brom, who gifted division whipping boys Sunderland a win increasing the Mackems points tally by a third - now they are halfway to breaking their record low points tally of 18.

Meanwhile in t'North of t'city Aston Villa have been having all kinds of fun and games. A consortium of Irish businessmen are in negotiations with Deadly Doug in a takeover bid (he must be going soft in his old age) but the funniest news came from the News of the World last week when fake sheik Mazhar Mahmood convinced England boss Sven Goran-Eriksson he was planning a takeover of the Second City sleeping giants, encouraging him to join him in a bid and getting him to admit he has the relationship with Mr Beckham to bring the England captain to the Midlands.

Meanwhile current manager O'Leary is fuming, claiming he has always given full support to the quiet Swede and that the England manager should not be commenting on joining clubs where there is already a manager. Perhaps if he'd been doing a better job as Villa manager, there wouldn't be so much speculation about his job?

Gotta love the Villains.

Another Successful Night for Midlands Football

Birmingham City scraped through to the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup last night by beating Millwall 4-3 on penalties, hardly an inspiring result given that the Londoners are currently bottom of the Championship. Meanwhile city rivals Villa lost 3-0 to the footballing might of Doncaster, the lowest positioned team left in the competition. Every cloud has a silver-lining however; they can now concentrate on their Premiership challenge. Their challenge being to stay in it.

With Chasetown losing 4-0 to Oldham in the replay last week it appears that the West Midlands sides have peaked too early. Time to go further afield, and support Worcester City in their televised home match against Huddersfield in the FA Cup 2nd round on Sunday.

Come on Chasetown!

It hasn't been a good start to the season for the West Midlands Premiership teams. With just over a quarter of the season gone, the West Midlands teams occupy three of the bottom four places, with only Sunderland providing some semblance of dignity for our local footballers. Add to this the recent defeat by Villa, and Robbie Savage smirking that his team are "above the bigger club in the league", it's enough for most Birmingham City fans to take up something less boring instead.

Thank God for Chasetown. They claim to have made £5000 from gate receipts last year, which is according to David Sullivan 1/18 of what Blues pay for their three main strikers (between them) each week. They made as much money from the match against Oldham Athletic as they earned in the last 15 years. A great performance yesterday saw them earn a replay against a team roughly a million places above them in the football league. Chasetown may have a hard time winning the replay, but at least it gives us something to be proud about.

Which is more than can be said for our Premiership clubs.

Critics of Women's Football Know Sweet F.A.

The women's European Championships which were taking place in the north-west of England finished today with Germany beating Norway 3-1 to take the trophy, making it the second time the Germans have won a version of the tournament on English soil in ten years.

I guess we'll just have to win the World Cup next year on German soil to even things up.

While it may have its critics, I have been impressed with the quality of the women's game. The quality of free kicks and set-pieces was particularly good; I saw one of the best corners I have ever seen from the Finnish in their game against the host nation, and if a Premiership footballer had been given the chance that Karen Carney beautifully placed in the last minute of the same game, it probably would have ended up in row Z. What the women lack in power, they more than make up for in accuracy. It was a refreshing change from the men's game in England, which relies too much on strength, brute force and physical presence.

The current England team brought back some memories as well. Faye White and Mary Phillip in defence reminded me another famous Arsenal centre-half combination, that of Tony Adams and Steve Bould. Eni Aluko burst on to the England scene in a similar way and with a similar style to Darius Vassell, and Karen Carney and Rachel Yankee are the best wing partnership Birmingham City have produced since Ricky Otto and Louie Donowa.

In any case, any kind of football where Birmingham City are the fourth best team in the land can't be that bad.

United, United now for sale

Malcolm Glazer has announced how he plans to make money out of his purchase of Manchester United. Among them are plans to raise ticket prices, cap transfer spending to £25 million a year, and to play a match in Tampa each year.

The People's Republic are not sure this will be enough to cover the debts made from the initial purchase of the club, so we offer Mr. Glazer the following advice free of charge (after all, we wouldn't want to bankrupt them). Firstly, to make maximum income from their yearly tour of the States and also to make sure they do not get sued for use of the term "football", we propose that they should rename the club "Soccer Club United's of Manchester" (or S.C.U.M. for short). Secondly, they should relocate to Birmingham, or perhaps even London where there will be a bigger natural fan base. Alternatively, big Mal could relocate them to Milton Keynes, exactly halfway between the two, so that they could play their new city rivals the MK Dons in a money-spinning match that would be known as "the franchise derby".

Manchester United fans may be upset over the purchase, and while the People's Republic sympathizes with the true fans that have supported the club man-and-boy for several decades, the truth is they have had it coming. Man United has been for sale ever since they put the club on the stock market in the early 90's. Their previous owner, Martin Edwards, continually attempted to make money out of the shares he inherited from his father, selling them again and again to anyone who offered a decent price and even at one point attempting to sell the club to the Devil's own company, Sky Sports. Add to this the merchandising tie-up with the New York Yankees, the summer tours to the Far-East and the U.S., and the infamous episode where they played in the World Club Championships instead of the oldest cup competition in the world, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Of course Mr Glazer turned around the fortunes of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who used to be the laughing stock of American football, but the difference is Man Utd are (were?) a successful club already.

If he wanted to turn around the laughing stock of English soccer, he should have taken over Birmingham City.

The Mother of all Comebacks

Well, it was an exciting night of football as Liverpool lifted the Champions League trophy for the fifth time (and this time, it's for keeps). Sure, there were some dodgy refereeing decisions along the way but to come back from three goals down and win a penalty shoot-out against all the odds leaves the People's Republic feeling that the victory was as great an achievement as West Bromwich Albion staying in the Premier League after being bottom at Christmas (and being thumped by Birmingham 4-0, Liverpool 5-0, and somehow score-drawing against Manchester City despite not having a shot on goal).

It will also not surprise the reader if we point out that Birmingham City have done the double over the newly crowned European Champions this season; and so that by our laws of pseudo-transitivity (Liverpool are this season's European Champions, Birmingham beat Liverpool twice this season, therefore Birmingham are the Champions of Europe), Birmingham have managed a cup double this season (see previous post), a great achievement for a club that had previously only won the League Cup in it's 125-odd year history.

A resounding vindication of our independence policy, and a categorical refutation to those who said the People's Republic wouldn't benefit the ordinary people of Birmingham.

A Finnish First and a Double Double.

Well, it's been an exciting weekend of sport. On Saturday, the FA Cup Final took place with the "Greater London derby" - Arsenal vs Man Utd, which the Gunners won on penalties leaving the Red Devils trophy-less this season. The People's Republic wonder just how long Alex Ferguson will keep his job - our belief is that he should have retired when he intended to, a couple of years ago when Man Utd were at the top of their game. With the advent of Mr. Mourinho, it is unlikely Manchester United will challenge for anything again, regardless of what Malcolm Glazer thinks. The People's Republic are unimpressed with both finalists however and with it being revealed that the Birmingham City chairman, David Gold, has just bought the oldest existing F.A. Cup for nearly £500,000 to keep it from the Germans, we recognise the "Second City Blues" as the rightful winners, making it a Blues League and Cup double (of sorts).

Who says you can't buy trophies?

In the first Monaco Grand Prix since Prince Ranier's death, "the iceman" Kimi Raikkonen romps home ahead of the rest. The People's Republic have long recognised Raikonnen as the rightful heir to Mika Hakkinen's crown and not just because he's Finnish. The press however have been going bananas over Alonso, presumably because of his passionate Latino marketability, but while acknowledging his driving talent the People's Republic are yet to be convinced. Meanwhile, at the scrag end of the points places, the 'second fiddle' clause in Barrichello's contract is invoked so that Michael Schumacher can finish seventh instead of eighth to keep Ferrari's title hopes alive. The People's Republic refuse to recognise Herr Schumacher as the current World Champion for the following simple reason:

Races should be won on the track, and not during contract negotiations.

Meanwhile, away from sport in the Ukraine, Greece do the Euro double by adding the Eurovision Song contest to their collection after surprisingly winning the European Championships last year. Javine Hylton fails to make a mark for the UK, but as well as the usual back-slapping and political voting that marks this competition, this year the bigger countries in Europe like Germany, Spain and France suffer particularly badly from the voting bias that tends to afflict them.

Despite its size and therefore chances, the People's Republic has ruled out entering the competition for the foreseeable future.