Blues Season Review – Part Two

The course of true love never runs true for the average Birmingham City fan and there were a number of moments this season when the Premiership seemed an impossible dream.

A few of the bad bits:

1. Norwich. The Canaries managed to turn themselves into a complete bogey team for Blues. Their visit to St Andrew’s in October nearly resulted in a P45 for Steve Bruce.

The dire 1-0 loss saw the home fans booing the team off, with some fans chanting for the manager’s head.

The return game at Carrow Road was no better and Birmingham a marvellous ‘nil points’ from Norwich during this campaign.

2. Red cards. Birmingham managed to clock up one of the worst disciplinary records in the league this season.

Cameron Jerome managed to get sent off within a few minutes of his debut, Bendtner notched up two completely senseless yellow cards for being tetchy and Damien Johnson’s red card at Elland Road probably cost Birmingham points from Leeds.

However, few Blues fans could resist a little snigger at Bruno N’Gotty decking Alan Lee when Ipswich paid a visit.

3. Throwing points away. This was probably the aspect of this season that made most fans reach for the Prozac. While Birmingham pulled in some impressive results against the teams near the top of the table, results against teams in the bottom eight were pretty lamentable.

Every team in the bottom eight took points of Blues at some point in the season, with some pretty dire performances thrown in for good measure.

Southend at home, Hull away and the Easter weekend games are seared into the memory as dreadful and if Birmingham hadn’t achieved automatic promotion these results would have been the source of many ‘if only’s’.

4. Shirt-throwing. Talking of throwing things, this little incident also sparked off a lot of ill-feeling.

Damien Johnson’s tantrum did a bit of damage to his reputation when he flung his shirt and captain’s armband on the floor when being substituted, although to be fair, he had assumed that the ironic boos were aimed at him and not Steve Bruce.

Johnson redeemed himself with interest during the local derby with West Brom by playing the last ten minutes of the game with a jaw broken in three places. Not to be sneezed at.

5. Bitching. Most football fans enjoy a good bitch about their team, owners or manager every now and then – in fact it’s positively de rigeur.

However, bitching took on a different aspect this season when both the manager and the board bit back.

Following his narrow escape from the sack in October, Steve Bruce couldn’t resist having a dig at those who had forecasted his demise.

Web commentators and forum users became ‘wicked people’ and this label still hasn’t entirely been shaken off.

David Sullivan added his voice to the fray later in the season by remarking that some of the fans didn’t deserve promotion as they didn’t attend games. This caused some considerable commotion and it will be interesting to see what his opinions are if gates don’t come up to his expectations next season!

Part 3 continues with the howlers that make supporting Birmingham City such a unique experience…..