The Blues

Image by awshots via Flickr - for those in the parallel universe.

Image by eddiemcfish via Flickr Sports Argus 1931 Cup Final Special Edition.

Image via Wikipedia  Blues v Man. Citeh.

Image via Wikipedia Chris Hughton

 With apologies to my two regular readers the time has come to talk about football, and more specifically, about Birmingham City. Basically we are a ship adrift without a paddle or perhaps more graphically, as ever, up the creek and Singing the Blues . Our owner is about to stand trial in Hong Kong for money laundering, we have sold most of our saleable players and now have a gang of free transfer players who, although they play with spirit and determination, will not see us return to the Premier League this season. Actually this is a good thing because we would be slaughtered in that league, which incidentally although much hyped, is not the best in the world as the recent exits from the European Champions league of the two Manchester's has demonstrated.

 There is much talk of administration, with all of the resultant penalties (no pun intended), and our new manager Chris Hughton has been dealt a bad deal, which to be fair he was fully aware of, but he is a competent and respected man and will do well to keep us in The Championship this season. He has given us an exciting time in the Europa League (soon to be joined by Manure and Manshitty), and we still have an outside chance of qualifying for the later stages.

 Some poor demented and hopelessly optimistic souls on Small Heath Alliance still get very bolshie at the very mention of us not achieving promotion this season but some of them live in a parallel universe which hardened and long term Blues supporters know is not out there.

 As for modern day professional footballers I have no time for any of them, as they and their fellow parasites  bleed the game dry, and The F*** A** has dismally failed in its remit to regulate the game and promote it at grass roots level. To see just how much the game has changed then look no further than Eddie Brown and the example that he  has set, with his lifetime devotion to the game.

 Another thing that has disappeared at Blues are the massive crowds and the passion and atmosphere that existed when I was a boy, over fifty years ago now,  and even as late as the seventies when we had fabulous players like Bob Hatton, Roger Hynd, Gordon Taylor, the incomparable Trevor Francis, Kenny Burns, Bob Latchford and a host of other fine players. But as ever we Keep Right On and I for one will be there at the end of the road. Blues are not just any team they are my team and my lifetime love and commitment to them will endure, in the same way that it does for those supporters in the lower divisions and in the non-league and village sides scattered around the land. There is more to life than a corrupt and bloated Premier League, where most of the clubs are heavily in debt and those that aren't are run by crooks and murderers.