Sometimes It’s Not Good To Talk

David Sullivan has turned his attention from former players and is now criticising the stay away fans.

Speaking to the press he said:

‘I have been disappointed to see a large section of the Birmingham public is still grumbling about the team and the club in general.

‘I want to make it clear I am in no way criticising the fans who were in the crowd on Saturday and I thank them all for their support but I still see a lot of people who were not there grumbling on the club notice boards.

‘Admittedly, we are not playing at our maximum capacity but there is not a club in the country who would be firing on all cylinders after having brought in virtually a new team over the summer.

‘The most important thing is we are back at the top of the table but even teams that win divisions have setbacks and, as the song says, it is a long and winding road. Unfortunately, some of our fans have fallen by the wayside early in the journey.

‘Every other team in this division would happily swap places with us. We are joint top of the league, we have the best team and the best back-up players.

‘I want everyone to take pride in our team once again. We have a great mixture of youth and experience and are joint top. What more does everyone want?’

I think Sully may believe he has his heart in the right place with his comments but he’s ignoring one important single thing.

When we were promoted a number of fans turned up who had never been at St Andrews before in their lives. It was the lure of Premiership football that brought in a good few extra thousand whilst at the same time a good number of the hardcore support who truly understand the significance of Keep Right On were priced out by disgraceful ticket hikes.

Those fair weather ‘fans’ who turned up to see Premiership opposition aren’t exactly excited by Ipswich, Cardiff and so on and have gone back to whatever they did before hand and the hard core support is still being priced out of attending regularly.

Yes the club brought in some sensible plans to reward those who had the cash to pay our Premiership level prices for a season, but how does that help others who simply can’t afford it?

How many fans do we all know who have dropped their season tickets the last few years and opted to pick and choose games? How many more now the prices didn’t change have done the same thing despite keeping the season ticket last year?

I remember Karen Brady last year, the year before in a veiled attack at the Vile calling us Blues fans salt of the earth, hard working, working class heros and not prawn sandwich subscribers. So why have the club forgotten this?

I can’t see Sullivan’s words achieving anything other than furthering the divide and adding to the antagonism the fanbase feels.