[theo_luddite]

 V 

Birmingham City v Huddersfield Town

Saturday 5th December 2015

St. Andrews Stadium, Birmingham

Kick-off 3:00 pm

(this 3 o'clock Saturday lark is catching on. Even Man Utd. are giving it a whirl this weekend). 

 ............

Town fans gather in your masses,

Down in Brum you lads 'n' lasses.

Raise the drink that's in your glasses,

Come and cheer Town's thousand passes.

We wanna hear the Town fans cheerin',

Before the match, gettin' the beer in.

During the game let's cheer the loudest,

Show one and all of who we're proudest.

We need some points and with no messing,

From Wagner's game of gegenpressing.

Let's make Brum struggle at St. Andrews,

If Town crack-on we should win not lose.

So come on all you Town supporters,

Bring along your sons and daughters.

Friends and family, all are welcome,

Make St. Andrews sound like Bedlam.

.......... 

OK - in case you need some help with the tune ... War Pigs - Sabbath

With apologies to legendary Heavy Metal Brummies, Messers Iommi, Osborne, Ward and Butler - especially for the lines that don't scan properly. Gonna show my ignorance and say I think more of them are Villa fans than Bluenoses so I might get away with it. Mr. Iommi was a guest at the Bluenoses Anniversary dinner - so I might not.

link to Toni Iommi with a Carrott look-a-like

(Their version goes on a bit longer than mine too.)

Tickets are only £20, what you waiting for? Christmas?

Stats - cos we know Mirf loves stats (you've gone quiet again Mirf, are you up for this one?).

All stats as always begged, stolen or borrowed from www.Statto.com - they do a cracking job on that site.

Brum - Current Form.

In their 140th year, Brum, having set off like a Bluenosed steam train out of New Street Station, have come off the rails a bit since winning four on the trot in September-October. Wins against Brentford, Leeds, QPR and Bolton have been followed with only one win in 6 since then. An impressive 5-2 result at Fulham that signalled Fulham to join the Manager sacking merry-go-round again. Their home form has also dipped with only a scoreless draw against Blackburn and no goals in home defeats to Wolves and Charlton in the last three. Shades of the form they showed under Wor Lee at home seem to be returning. Manager Gary Rowett has certainly transformed them since taking over in October last year, taking them to top six from bottom three and leading to clubs such as QPR, Fulham and others 'Darn the Smoke' apparently, sniffing round him this week. He doesn't have some of the baggage to carry around that Wor Lee was saddled with but he hasn't been given a gold mine to spend with either.

They are 6th in the league and we are third from bottom, but they are third bottom of the current 6 game form league, not that we've owt to shout about as we are rock bottom of it and also need to get back on the rails pdq. 

We need our high octane gegenpressing game to turn from outright possession into a few goals though, otherwise teams will just let us run around like headless chickens until we run out of steam and then nick a couple of goals on the break at the end. Boro's keeper made some good saves on Saturday but really we missed at least three sitters in front of goal that any or all should have found their way into the onion bag in the first half.

Get your Football Club's 'ere.

Like everyone else down here, Brum are up for sale. It's been dragging on that long though it can't be a distraction to the players anymore as long as they continue to get paid. I was expecting to see a Black Friday buy-one-get-one free offer for the Midlands Clubs to appear on eBay, but nothing materialised.

Head to Head.

Although they held the upper hand in the old Division One, Brum are in no way our least favourite club to visit. With two wins and one draw in the last three visits, St. Andrews doesn't really hold any major traumas in recent times - as long as Bob Latchford isn't playing. He breaks goalies legs he does.

Players to watch

To be honest, pretty much all of them on their day. They've already beat some useful sides in this league and as mentioned above, the last time they went postal they stuck five up Fulham. Tomasz Kuszczak has been around the top two divisions for long enough to show he's no mug between the sticks. Clayton Donaldson is their current top scorer with 5, Paul Robinson has enough experience to fill everyone's Christmas stockings, David Cotterill has an annoying habit of scoring against us from free 

kicks, Jon-Miquel Toral - is a kid on loan from Arsenal and we all know how good they can be - and Demarai Gray who has been the subject of more bids from Bournmuff than Christie's get for the average Old Masters painting. He can be a very tricky customer with the ball at his feet.

Oh aye - soon to be former Town player James Vaughan has rocked up there on loan too - doubtful he'll be playing though. Injuries and loan agreements usually combine to prevent that. I wonder how he's getting on the with traffic on the M6?

Around Brum - aka - stuff that might or might not get in the way of the football

New Street Station.

Now fully open again and clad in bright and shiny polished stainless steel. They've upgraded the shopping area, cut a big hole in the roof to let some light in and renamed the shopping area as Grand Central. Don't expect Grand Central Trains to run anything through here anytime soon though. 

Despite all that work and gajillions of pounds spent, it's still a dark depressing dump at platform level, which is what most people still see on arriving in Brum and complain about, even though they've painted almost everything white that they can safely reach with a roller on a long pole.

Local Trains

Snow Hill or Moor Street to Bordesley is a £2.10 return fare and will save you most of the legwork to the ground, though only a 2-5 minute ride. Note 6 trains run to Bordesley, between about 13:40 - 14:30, 5 trains return @ 16:56 - 17:48. The trains for Bordesley run to Dorridge, Whitlocks End or Stratford upon Avon before the game.

If you are driving - 

try this for parking info - Football Ground Guide

The Frankfurt Christmas Market

This annual event is on again in the New Street Shopping Precinct and is usually wall to wall ram-jam full of folk all the way from The Bull Ring/Rotunda to Victoria Square, the Floozy in the Jacuzzi and beyond. 

 

All present might be just looking for something sort of Germanish to buy for their nearest and dearest or just trying to get to the Bier and Bretzel stalls up on the Square, but in reality they will all just get in the bloody way. So the usual 10 minute stroll to Moor Street from the pubs on Bennett's Hill could easily take twice as long or more. Snow Hill might or might not be a better option.

Reason being that just to add to the melee, The Baggies are at Home to Spurs on Saturday, so there will be more than a slack handful of their supporters in town too and heading Snow Hill way for a train/tram to The Hawthorns.

Heavy Metal

Yeh, yeh, I know, I covered this in depth the last time. Brum without a doubt is the home of this genre, but recently The Telegraph and others that I heard on the radio while in Canada a week or so back have pontificated as to which song/riff may have been the original inspiration behind it all. This (Was Hevay Rock born 50 years ago) piece is their take on it and apparently current favourite. (The Kinks - You Really Got Me).

I'll leave you to ponder that while some of the professional footballers on show around the country this weekend get on with pulling their "frilly nylon panties right up tight" being the "dedicated followers of fashion" that they seem to be. I wonder if our own delicate little "flower to be looked at" is still getting in a tizzy about driving home in rush hour traffic?

The Canals

If you really feel like belting out "Just one Cornetto" in your loved one's lug-'ole while cruising the canals as he or she licks on an ice cream that is melting down their coat front and into their lap, you've come to the right place. Dodging the shopping trolleys, dead dogs and rusty old bikes round Digbeth in December might not quite be as scenic or romantic as The Grand Canal in Venice in July, but it's the thought that counts eh folks? 

Summary

Punkte Herr Wagner, punkte bitte. 

Our arse is now in the bottom three and we want out of there, schnell, schnell !!! 

Bier, bretzel, vieleicht ein oder zwei bratwurst und Status Quo after the gegenpressing for me on Saturday. 

Looking forward to a reet bostin day out.  

If you're bored or want more stuff to read about Brum - go read last season's thread.