The sick man of the Championship 

Nat Peters returns to J&S with this guest article, his take on the present situation at Blues.

From the late 1960s and pretty much throughout the whole of the 1970s, Britain was often referred to as the “sick man of Europe”. The nation, by any metric, was seemingly in a state of terminal decline. Short-term, medium-term, long-term; throughout this period the prospects for the country looked perennially gloomy.

The more frustrating thing was though, that no matter what tinkering was done by those in power during this period things never seemed to get better. The Labour Government (in office for much of this period) seemed powerless to instigate fundamental change in the country. Even when the Conservative Party came into power for a brief period in the early 1970s, that Government ended up spending most of its time trying to make the failed policies of their political rivals work which resulted in predictably dire consequences. It was only at the end of the 1970s, when Margaret Thatcher came into power and led a Government who instigated real change that there was a prolonged upturn in the country’s fortunes.

And the parallels between this country and Birmingham City of the past few years are easy to find. No matter how many players we have signed, no matter how many managers we have hired and fired and no matter how much tinkering has gone on generally we’ve consistently struggled even to tread water in the second tier of English football. This season looks like being no exception to the four that came before it. Away from the first-team, the club generally seems to be in a constant state of flux and chaos. Birmingham City, by however you look at it, seems to be a club in a state of terminal decline. Truly the sick man of the Championship, the sick man of the EFL even.

Ultimately, as 1978 turned into 1979 it was the Winter of Discontent which was the final straw which broke the back of the hapless Labour Government. The striking workers, the shut down industries, the hospitals unable to care for patients and the unburied bodies and undisposed garbage piling up. As unedifying as these things were, it was the straw that broke the back of that hapless Labour Government. It led to a change of Government and the Monetarist medicine being administered to the country which, whilst initially painful, eventually meant that the Sick Man of Europe became healthy again.

There is a school of thought that this horrendous run of form the side is on this winter could lead to a relegation that might be a blessing in disguise. That whilst initially painful, this wretched form the side is on will lead us to finally taking the medicine of League One football may be the thing to lead to a revitalisation of the sick man of the EFL.

It is not a theory that holds all that much water though, not in terms of relegation automatically leading to change anyway. Relegation won’t simply lead to the club’s owners giving up the ghost and walking away from the club or the club suddenly falling into a ruinous financial state which would see those who own the club forced to relinquish control. No matter how many bad decisions have been made in the last few years, it is crystal clear that plenty of money has been invested in the process. People don’t just walk away from that dough because a team goes down a division (and especially when ownership of the football club impacts on things such as stock exchange listings).

Calling for the owners of the club to sell up, ‘eff off etc is futile. For a sale of any business to happen, business owners have to be willing sellers and there has to be a willing buyer with the financial wherewithal and general willpower to take the club over. For a whole range of reasons, hoping for a sale of the club any time soon seems totally fanciful.

How can we as fans even attempt to affect any change though? It is a question that becomes even more tricky to answer when you consider that, unlike the people of Britain eventually were able to in the late ‘70s, we are unable to vote for change. As fans, right now we can’t even vote with our feet or make our voices heard inside the ground because nobody is allowed inside the ground right now. Any protestations the fans of Birmingham City may want to extol have to be sustained and have to be directed at the right people with the right message.

Fire is being turned on our Manager, as much as it can be anyway, via social media and other platforms. To save the side from relegation in the short-term a change is probably necessary. There were a relative few in the summer who were openly sceptical about Aitor Karanka’s appointment. He didn’t seem to be the pragmatist the club needed ahead of what was always going to be an incredibly tricky season; at that stage we needed a Lee Bowyer, a Nigel Clough, a Steve Evans. It was naïve to appoint a man with a sexy background simply to make the footballing hipsters of this world happy. We are now in a dire situation in the league and he just doesn’t seem up for the fight.

As stated though, whether Karanka stays or goes there will be little fundamental change in the medium to long-term at Blues. Just like Britain swapping Ministers and Prime Ministers throughout the 1970s, little changed until there was a determined and ideological shift that came at the end of that decade.

Ren Xuandong has been defended by some who claim that if he went he could be replaced by somebody even worse; quite how the last dismal few years for the club could have been made worse by another CEO being in place is mystifying. He’s been defended by others who claim that he is not to blame for the overall decision making of recent years, that he is an employee mainly carrying out the wishes of his bosses; even if that is the case, at best you could only call then Ren a patsy. If his influence extends beyond this, then he has proven time and again that he is dangerously incompetent at running this football club as it regresses at pretty much any level you could name. However you look at it, you’d have to be as thick as sausage meat to be a Birmingham City fan, seen what has happened over the past few years and truly believe that Ren Xuandong is the man to lead the club forward.

Dong’s exit is something that can’t really be influenced either. It is clear, from the fact that he is now systematically blocking on social media anybody who dares to criticise him (or in my case is simply tagged in any post criticising him), that the criticism he is coming in for is starting to sting. There can be no real sympathy for him facing this criticism either, however vitriolic; he ultimately tried to use social media earlier this summer to establish some kind of reconnection with the fans and to rehabilitate his reputation. To some extent he was successful, but ultimately if he is going to use social media to portray himself in a positive light he should not be surprised when that light stays firmly upon him when things go awry again.

To be quite frank, he has to have it made perfectly clear to him that he is no longer wanted at the club. He has to feel the heat. It seems clear that the vast majority of Birmingham City fans would be very much glad to see the back of him, but that now has to be the message consistently put in front of him by whatever legal means possible. Be it a message conveyed remotely whilst we are locked down or in person once we are allowed it is a message that must be sent en masse and a message that be sustained. Put simply, he has to be made to feel that his position is totally untenable.

There has to be a second prong to any approach made by fans to establish change at the club though. As some have pointed out, there is no point in Dong going if somebody just as incompetent succeeded him. It has to be made clear to the club’s owners that they can’t simply put a patsy in charge of the club from their circle of trust – for the football club to have any chance of moving forward, there has to be a CEO in place with the experience and business wherewithal to implement real change, a real strategy going forward. Simply swapping one stooge for another to take his place whilst continuing in the same failed manner as Britain did with those men in power in the 1970s won’t improve anything in the long run.

Influencing this kind of change has been achievable for the supporters of other football clubs. Blackburn Rovers fans spent years trying to force the Venky’s out, as that club in the early part of the last decade regressed with strikingly similar hallmarks to Blues’ struggles in the last few years. Their protests didn’t succeed in a transfer of ownership but the Venky’s now leave all day-to-day management of the football club to those with experience in the game and business in this country and things now look pretty hopeful at Ewood Park.  Just one example of how forcing that change is possible, even when the ultimate decision makers for the football club are thousands of miles away and retain ownership of the club. From a sporting point of view and from a business point of view, the necessities of such a change need to be spelled out in black and white for our owners by any means possible.

As it stands, we go into the weekend’s fixtures second from bottom in the division. The real concern has to be that unlike in years gone by where we have voraciously circled the plughole without going right down it the quality of the teams around us in the table right now is probably a lot stronger than previously. Relegation or no relegation though, this wretched run of form won’t automatically lead to a rejuvenation unless the fans start making waves and making waves in the right direction. The Winter of Discontent in 1979 led to the people of Britain forcing the issue and voting for change in the Spring. Blues fans must find a way of forcing the issue ourselves, even without the handy tool that is the ballot box, if the football club is ever to take the medicine necessary to cure its status as being the sick man of the Championship.

Nat Peters