Birmingham City board must take blame for disarray

May 13 2008 By Pat Murphy

In the space of just 30 minutes a fortnight ago, Birmingham City’s fate was sealed. Five points swung Fulham’s way from the Birmingham end, as Blues threw away a two-goal lead over Liverpool and Fulham completed an astonishing comeback win at Manchester City from being two-nil down.

So Swing Saturday led to Black Sunday last weekend.

Scapegoats will be sought. Alex McLeish, appointed in late November presided over 24 league games, winning five of them.

His detractors will say he had enough time to turn it around, but he bought well, albeit sparingly, in the January transfer window. And it’s not his fault that Gary Cahill, who would have strengthened the central defence, chose to go to Bolton instead at the last gasp.

No clean sheet since Boxing Day and just two away victories all season are highly relevant. So are the home points dropped against Sunderland, Reading, Fulham and Derby, who have all been struggling along with Blues down in the basement area.

McLeish has conducted himself with dignity in a torrid introduction to English club management. His distinguished work with Rangers and Scotland suggests he will make his mark with Birmingham. A former top-class international defender himself, he must have railed inwardly at the various defensive howlers on his watch, but commendably he never hung his players out to dry when invited to by the media.

A lack of experience in key areas was McLeish’s problem. Of regular players, only Damien Johnson, Maik Taylor and Mikael Forssell remained from previous successful battles against relegation by Blues. In the end, damaging mistakes kept being made and you wondered would they never learn?

Blues fans of my acquaintance are split on the legacy left by Steve Bruce after his acrimonious departure last November. Some feel he left behind a callow unit after an uninspired summer’s transfer dealings.

David Sullivan has lost little opportunity to point out that the club gained a better manager in McLeish, while also picking up £3 million in compensation from Wigan. Sullivan’s hyperbolic lauding of McLeish when he signed him did the manager no favours, raising expectations unreasonably, and smacked of damning Bruce on faulty evidence.

After spending five years and eleven months grappling with the unique challenges in managing Birmingham City, it was probably time for Bruce to seek pastures new. But he’s in credit for his time at St. Andrew’s…

* His transfer dealings in each of his six years worked out at a net spend of about £3 million – with £33 million coming in and £55 million forked out.

* In 2004, he took them to their highest league place – 10th – in 31 years.

* In his time at St Andrew’s, Bruce landed promotion twice and finishes of 13th, 10th and 12th in the Premiership, finishing with relegation in 2006.

* Like all managers he made errors in the transfer market. But he bought Matt Upson for £1.5million, sold him for £6 million, Robbie Savage for £1 million and made £2 million profit on him, Jermaine Pennant for £1 million and made £5 million profit on him within eighteen months. Emile Heskey’s departure brought in another million in profit. Stephen Kelly, who’s played every minute of every league game for Blues this season, cost just £750,000 from Tottenham.

* The promotion in 2007, after parting with eighteen players in the previous summer, was an achievement that hasn’t received the credit it deserved. Bruce got Blues back up at the first time of asking with a young, revamped squad, with the fans on his back right from the start and the board less than fulsome in its public support for him. To be fair, Karren Brady’s close relationship with Arsenal that led to the loan deals involving Seb Larssen, Fabrice Muamba and Nicolas Bendtner was a key factor in promotion.

You could make a strong case for Steve Bruce to be Birmingham City’s best-ever manager on results (won 102 league games, lost 100), and on those two promotions, without breaking the bank in the process. And he’s hardly languished since going to Wigan, reviving them impressively, banishing the genuine relegation fears of December.

But Bruce’s status around St Andrew’s is like those Russian Presidents who suddenly become ‘persona non grata’ and their statues are whisked away from Red Square at dead of night.

It wasn’t Bruce who dallied disastrously with Carson Yeung for months, taking his millions in exchange for a 29.9 per cent stake in the club, leading to a destabilisation which damaged Blues’ season. Bruce was a victim of that boardroom miscalculation. He felt he was being hung out to dry, the players were affected by the uncertainty and the club just drifted for too long in the autumn.

In the seven matches before Bruce left, six were lost. And the whispering campaign against him from Sullivan hasn’t really stopped. Perhaps that’s a diversionary tactic to shift attention away from the board’s lack of overall strategy. Maybe Sullivan’s desire to get out with a decent profit allowed Carson Yeung to string the directors along for too many months.

They had no Plan B when it all went down the pan in December.

We’re led to believe that the key players on Birmingham’s board are sharp cookies who drive the hardest of bargains. Well they caught a cold with Carson Yeung. Wouldn’t it be droll if Yeung took on an influential role after being castigated up hill and down dale by Messrs Sullivan and Gold?

Even by Birmingham City’s standards, this looks like being a summer of turmoil. Only Alex McLeish can look the dissidents straight in the eye, because he is entitled to more than six months in the job before the tumbril is wheeled on. He deserves a full season, no matter what happens on the field.

Sunday’s gate of 26,668 should tell the directors all they need to know. On a day when the club expected a capacity gate, it was down by 2,500 from the last home game against Liverpool and surpassed five times earlier this season. On six other occasions, the crowd was within a thousand of Sunday’s figure.

And yet St Andrew’s should have been bursting at the seams last Sunday.

Apathy is now the major problem for the Blues’ board. David Gold, visibly shaken by the demonstration in front of him during the second half, wants to know just how representative it was of what all the fans feel.

He should have been tapping into the blogs of both the Post and the Birmingham Mail this season to get a sense of the creeping disillusionment. And reading the fanzines. Sunday’s demonstration in front of the directors’ box was just a public manifestation, long overdue. It had been festering since season ticket sales stayed at the same price after relegation two years ago.

David Sullivan in particular is happy to dish out the brickbats when it suits him – whether in the direction of Bruce, greedy footballers or ungrateful fans. Threatening to flounce out of St Andrew’s because he feels unloved has become tiresome.

You can’t keep threatening to take the bat and ball home because some don’t like you…