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- Sep 24, 2010
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How Birmingham bucked the Midlands slump against United
By Mike Walters in Mirror Football Blog
Published 22:28 28/12/10
All of a sudden, the Premier League table reads like a ransom note in the Midlands.
West Ham are no longer the only clots in claret and blue because their patent has been copied, and translated into French, by Aston Villa.
Wolves are rock-bottom, West Bromwich Albion are sinking and now one of the great unsolved mysteries is what Birmingham City - beaten at home only once in 15 months - are doing up to their waists in the quicksand.
Carling Cup semi-finalists after sorting out the noisy neighbours, amid the friendly fire of exchanging flares and flying seats, before Christmas, Brum have learned to defend their fortress resolutely when the big guns come to town under Alex McLeish.
Not since January 2008, when Chelsea's goalscorer was Claudio Pizarro, had they lost at home to one of the top four, and Manchester United found the Blues a reliably tough nut to crack again.
McLeish was an accountancy student, the life and soul of balance sheets, when an Aberdeen manager named Alex Ferguson persuaded him to give up number-crunching in 1978 and join his crusade at Pittodrie.
That was the year in which Birmingham last beat United, although the 5-1 win at St Andrews did them a fat lot of good: they were relegated at the end of that season anyway.
Big Eck could never have imagined, when he turned his back on spreadsheets and forged Scotland's finest central defensive double act with Willie Miller, that his adventure with the Dons would lead to breaking the Old Firm's stranglehold and glory in Europe against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
So it was a pity that the master and his apprentice could not generate more entertainment between them as they exchanged pleasantries in fluent Glaswegian - subtitles available from all good linguists on Sauchiehall Street - on the touchline last night.
The most enjoyable aspect of the opening 45 minutes was that the fog lifted enough to afford us a decent view of the game; the most disappointing aspect was that the shroud didn't fall again and spare us an unimpaired view of such impoverished scuffling.
As ever, a man called Fergie called the tune - but this time, it was not the godfather of purple noses but Birmingham's industrious midfielder Barry Ferguson in charge of the jukebox.
When the Blues are on song, Ferguson is usually at the heartbeat of their endeavours - and whatever the league table may say, he need have no inferiority complex.
Oh, one other unsolved mystery in the land of strangled vowels: Why was Phil Mitchell from EastEnders refereeing last night's game under the pseudonym Lee Mason?
By Mike Walters in Mirror Football Blog
Published 22:28 28/12/10
All of a sudden, the Premier League table reads like a ransom note in the Midlands.
West Ham are no longer the only clots in claret and blue because their patent has been copied, and translated into French, by Aston Villa.
Wolves are rock-bottom, West Bromwich Albion are sinking and now one of the great unsolved mysteries is what Birmingham City - beaten at home only once in 15 months - are doing up to their waists in the quicksand.
Carling Cup semi-finalists after sorting out the noisy neighbours, amid the friendly fire of exchanging flares and flying seats, before Christmas, Brum have learned to defend their fortress resolutely when the big guns come to town under Alex McLeish.
Not since January 2008, when Chelsea's goalscorer was Claudio Pizarro, had they lost at home to one of the top four, and Manchester United found the Blues a reliably tough nut to crack again.
McLeish was an accountancy student, the life and soul of balance sheets, when an Aberdeen manager named Alex Ferguson persuaded him to give up number-crunching in 1978 and join his crusade at Pittodrie.
That was the year in which Birmingham last beat United, although the 5-1 win at St Andrews did them a fat lot of good: they were relegated at the end of that season anyway.
Big Eck could never have imagined, when he turned his back on spreadsheets and forged Scotland's finest central defensive double act with Willie Miller, that his adventure with the Dons would lead to breaking the Old Firm's stranglehold and glory in Europe against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
So it was a pity that the master and his apprentice could not generate more entertainment between them as they exchanged pleasantries in fluent Glaswegian - subtitles available from all good linguists on Sauchiehall Street - on the touchline last night.
The most enjoyable aspect of the opening 45 minutes was that the fog lifted enough to afford us a decent view of the game; the most disappointing aspect was that the shroud didn't fall again and spare us an unimpaired view of such impoverished scuffling.
As ever, a man called Fergie called the tune - but this time, it was not the godfather of purple noses but Birmingham's industrious midfielder Barry Ferguson in charge of the jukebox.
When the Blues are on song, Ferguson is usually at the heartbeat of their endeavours - and whatever the league table may say, he need have no inferiority complex.
Oh, one other unsolved mystery in the land of strangled vowels: Why was Phil Mitchell from EastEnders refereeing last night's game under the pseudonym Lee Mason?