View from the South – Birmingham City versus Stoke City

Sorry for the delay with Bazza’s report. We seem to have had some gremlins in the e-mail system eating e-mails!

I met up with Will as usual in Guildford around about 10.30 to travel the familiar 130 miles to Birmingham via The Oak pub in Baginton. Like so many others, no doubt, we have been preoccupied with getting hold of our Wembley tickets for the forthcoming Carling Cup Final against Arsenal.

Will is very upset with the club at what he perceives to be very poor service in response to a request that he made the previous day to purchase six tickets for Wembley for six season ticket holders. The problem was that whilst three of the tickets were eligible yesterday the other three only became eligible on the Saturday morning. Will had tried to appeal to common sense and flexibility given that season ticket holders were guaranteed a Wembley final ticket anyway, there was only a matter of 24 hours with regard to three of the tickets from the point of view of eligibility but the main point was that as far-flung supporters it was very difficult to just pop along to the ticket office on the Saturday when it takes two and a half hours travelling time to get there in the first place. Will had spent over one and a half hours the previous day getting through on the phone, explaining the difficult circumstances, speaking to a senior person in customer support, being promised a response before the end of the day only to find after all that effort that no such response was forthcoming. It would appear that Birmingham City Football Club was going to stick rigidly to their policy regardless of circumstances such as ours come what may. I think one of the points that Will was making was that as all the tickets were eligible on Saturday in any event if they could be reserved following purchase they could be collected at the appropriate time so keeping within the club’s policies and inconveniencing long-distance and extremely loyal supporters in the process.

I have to say that I can see both sides of this particular argument; it is clearly very difficult for supporters who do not live in the town but from the club’s perspective, they have no doubt been inundated with requests for tickets from fans from all over the country and indeed abroad. Will was so angry and upset with the events of the previous 24 hours that he had resolved to not renew his season ticket next year, consider not going to the rest of this season and finally saying sod it to Wembley!

Will is by his own admission extremely stubborn and nothing I could say could persuade him that the club’s actions were anything else but wholly unreasonable and wrong. Will was in no mood to accept the fact that there was a loud noise which was the thud of his large nose falling into the well the car thereby spiting his face. This conversation took up much of the journey time and we found that we were virtually at Baginton by the time there was any mention of the match against Stoke.

The team news when it eventually arrived revealed an unchanged goalkeeper and back four, Sebastian Larsson was brought in on the right with Bentley on the left in a midfield quartet that included Ferguson and Gardner. Both Obafemi Martins and Nikola Zigic started up front in what appeared to be an attacking formation. My personal feeling about this game was that it was going to be very tight one but provided that we defended properly against the inevitable aerial bombardment from a big and physical Stoke City team, that Birmingham could edge the game by the odd goal. Will was a little more optimistic for once than me and thought that we could perhaps win 2-0.

We set off for St Andrews a little earlier than usual taking along with us Adrian, a Walsall fan in place of the missing Jonny who had been out to a party the night before with his mates and had failed to arrive home in time to join me. My younger son, Ben had been up all night working and understandably couldn’t face the trip. I therefore found myself with a spare ticket and Will was going to join me whilst Adrian sat with Chris in the Gil Merrick stand. We arrived at The George where I was more than ready to do justice to a pork bap and a pint. Despite the fact that the Manchester derby was on the television in the pub the topic of conversation seemed to be about Wembley tickets and the difficulties that many people were having in obtaining them despite being long-standing season-ticket holders. It clearly does not augur well for those hoping to get a ticket when they go on general sale.

Well, the time has come to talk about the match about which there is little to say apart from the events of the last 30 seconds of so. Stoke City’s game plan appeared to be fairly simple. They are a big, strong, well organised and uncompromising team. They are set up to prevent the opposition scoring and to launch the ball whether it be from a long throw in, set piece or from out wide following work down the channels into the box as often as possible. They then scrap for the knockdowns and with the personnel in their squad, they are very good at what they do. It is a credit to Tony Pulis and he is to be greatly commended on forging a side that is now becoming a respected and established Premier League outfit. It was clearly going to be no easy task to overcome these opponents.

Stoke City also set up 4-4-2 and largely the teams cancelled each other out. Nevertheless, Ridgewell nearly scored early on with a header that was well saved by Begovic. Jermaine Pennant back on the familiar surrounds of St Andrews came within a whisker of scoring as he bent a 25-yard free-kick over the Blues wall with the ball bouncing inches past Foster’s right-hand post. Begovic had to be on his toes to field a long distance shot from Gardner following a good run from the halfway line. A similar shot at the opposite end from Kenwyne Jones was saved low down by Foster. David Bentley curled in a shot just before the break that drifted a couple of yards wide.

The stalemate continued during the opening exchanges of the second period but it was Blues doing all the attacking. Gardner produced a magnificent fifty yard cross-field ball which Larsson took in his stride before racing to the edge of the box and unleashing a shot that veered only a yard or so past the post. Carew went close for Stoke with a right-footed curler from the left edge of the area. Visiting fans thought their team had scored when the net rippled and I have to confess so did I but Robert Huth’s shot had in fact struck the stanchion behind the goal and it was a relief to see Ben Foster running round behind the net to retrieve the ball. A David Bentley volley just after this was clearly blocked by Huth’s hand in the box. The big German defender then fell to the ground holding his nose like he had been shot trying to make out that the ball had hit him in the face when all around knew otherwise. He managed to con the referee and so from the perspective of a professional footballer it was job done. This sort of behaviour has become part and parcel of the game; they all do it including our lot but it doesn’t change the fact that where I was brought up it’s called cheating!

McLeish replaced Martins who on his debut I felt had shown good movement and nice touches and as he grows into the team I think he will add a lot more goal threat over the coming weeks. Cameron Jerome came on in his stead fourteen minutes from time. His first contribution was a shot well wide from the edge of the area following an exciting run that left at least three defenders trailing in his wake. Will has been saying for several weeks that Cameron Jerome is a far better impact player than a starter and the evidence on show would suggest that he was absolutely right in this assessment. Jerome was certainly proving a handful for the tiring Stoke defence that had been largely on the back foot for most of the game. At one stage Roger Johnson actually played a cute one-two with Jerome just outside the box but the big defender’s shot was all too typical for a centre half and was screwed well wide.

The match moved deep into added-on time and most of us had resigned ourselves to another 0-0 draw against Stoke with ninety-two and a half minutes on the clock. Bentley then smacked a fierce shot goalwards which Begovic fumbled. Cameron Jerome was sharp and alert and first to the loose ball taking it away from the keeper turning quickly and chipping the ball back across goal. Begovic desperately tried to claw the ball away but succeeded in only flicking it upwards for incoming Zigic to get between the Stoke defenders and head the ball over the line from just a yard out. A winning goal that didn’t look like coming was greeted by a delighted roar from the Blues faithful who were at this stage in slumber mode. The previous turgid hour and a half could now be forgotten and the celebrations could begin. This match will not be one that lingers long in the memory but it represents an absolutely vital win that puts us on 30 points and up to 14th in the table, and as Chris later pointed out, above Aston Villa on goal difference with two games in hand; sweet!

Another three points on Tuesday against Newcastle United would be most welcome. It would mean that we would have gleaned 10 points out of the last 12 and a huge stride towards our goal of safety. 

The Good: The winning goal thirty seconds from time; a great time to score as it gave Stoke no time to retrieve the situation. One has to spare a thought for their fans as it is a horrible feeling to get done like that and heaven knows it is a feeling that we have all experienced so many times! On balance though Blues did try and win the game and Stoke didn’t; they had clearly settled for and were happy with a 0-0 draw which they nearly achieved. It arguable on that fact alone that Birmingham just deserved to edge it; they certainly dominated possession and much of the play.

The Bad: The refereeing. Mr Halsey had a shocker. There was nothing really contentious but there were too many minor decisions for both sides given the wrong way. In the second period there was a whole string of examples. He missed the clear hand ball by Huth and his antics afterwards.

The Ugly: The match overall; it was to be honest stultifyingly boring for the most part.

Birmingham City:
Ben Foster 7, Stephen Carr 7, Liam Ridgewell 6, Roger Johnson 7, Martin Jiranek 7, Seb Larsson 8, Barry Ferguson 7, Craig Gardner 6, David Bentley 7, Obafemi Martins 7 (Cameron Jerome 76, 7), Nikola Zigic 8.
Subs (not used): Colin Doyle, Lee Bowyer, Kevin Phillips, Keith Fahey, Jean Beausejour, Curtis Davies.
Goals: Zigic (90 + 3)
Bookings: Jiranek (74)

Stoke City:
Asmir Begovic 7, Dean Whitehead 7, Robert Huth 7, Ryan Shawcross 7, Danny Pugh 7, Marc Wilson 6, Rory Delap 7, Jermaine Pennant 6 (Glenn Whelan 79, N/A), Jon Walters 6, Kenwyne Jones 6 (Ricardo Fuller 81, N/A), John Carew 6.
Subs (not used): Thomas Sorenson, Danny Higginbotham, Danny Collins, Salif Diao, Andy Wilkinson.
Goals: None
Bookings: None

Attendance: 23,660 (2,102 away fans)
Referee; Mark Halsey (Lancashire) 4:
KRO SOTV

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Don’t forget to download Sir Harry Lauder’s original Keep Right On to get him in the charts for final week!

Details explained in my blog here. Download the song here.