[theo_luddite]

  V

aka - The Recycled Yam Yams Thread

Birmingham City v Play-off bound Town

St Andrews Ground,
Birmingham
B9 4RL
3:00 pm 29th April 2014

Wur um that then?

Just Ee'ast of The Big Roondaboo'at in Bowardesleyyy or
Just No'wath of ToysRUs. It's kinda big un bloo. Aw roight?  
Y'al noo you'm thur wun ya get the smell of burga's from all the burga van's up ya nose.

Aerial view of St. Andrews

Pitch looks a bit bumpy and there's corner flags and sand all over t'place. Which stand are we in then?

Middle England teams eh? You only see 1 in months then like the bloody buses 5 of the buggers all turn up at once in the same month.

We've had little joy out of the 3 games against the clubs straddling the M1/A38 on the east side of the rump end of the Pennines so here's to a grandstand finish with the second of two trips to the clubs down here in my midden. £3 went in my kitty on Tuesday night, those starving kids will be looking for another donation for their breakfast club. So will those helicopter chaps.

As I've made you all aware previously (like you didn't know anyway) all the 4 clubs down here have been taken away (sorry, bought) by Chinese "Investors", all of whom think they will all be the next biggest thing in China after some some big long wall and some zoo's full of pandas. Well if they can see each other for the smog then maybe. So, as a Chinese (in this case Hong Kong) investor with more brass than brains or knowledge of the English football scene than is good for you, how do you protect your investment? Well you could follow the West Brom model, take some sensible advice from the previous owner and go for continuity and help your side to the highest position they are likely to achieve in years, even if some fans are not the greatest fans of Pulis's methods, or you could go the other way. The Chinese take-away method as favoured by the new owners of The Yam Yams and The Brummies and The Vanilla.

First of all take away the previous owners, well to be honest you didn't need to take them away, the Hong Kong authorities did that when they jailed Carson Yeung for 6 years in 2014 for being a naughty boy and washing his money 4 or 5 times in Mr. Woo's laundry.

So who's in charge now?

Brum were run more or less by administrators as they tried to unravel where all the shares were and then sold to Trillion Trophy Asia Ltd fronted by Hong Kong businessman Paul Suen in October 2016. The current board of directors according to Brum's very own website is
Panos Pavlakis, Director
Shui Cheong Ma, Director
Wenqing Zhao, Director
Chun Kong Yiu, Director
Kai Zhu, Director
Gannan Zheng, Director
Yao Wang, Director

So given a lack of continuity there what does Mr. Suen and his board do?
Well first of all he gets the local paper to refer to Trillion Trphy Asia because nobody in Brum can pronounce all those other names properly, especially the Chinese community who own so, so, so many of the local take-aways.

Well you could also ask Adam Faith if you were really stuck  

What do you want if you don't want money
What do you want if you don't want gold
Say what you want and I'll give it you darling
Wish you wanted my club baby  

Sorry Budgie. (Ask yer mum).

Second, get yourself an advisor, well he probably signed one up when he was looking to take over the club to be honest. Now here's where the problems start. Advisors in Football are like sharks in a feeding frenzy when there's a sniff of some silly money being thrown around. You and me know these sharks as agents and they have one agenda and only one agnda. Line their own pockets. Strange that 'appy 'arry isn't an agent - oh 'ang on, 'e's now The Manager.

Standard Modus Operandi.
1. Ditch the current manager for a foreign "trophy manager" who is known the world over for his playing ability. He's maybe learned his coaching/managerial trade with struggling European clubs that haven't won half a dozen games, let alone trophies, between them, but he can grow this club with his forward thinking methods. The current chap doesn't have the contacts to bring in better and preferably foreign players and doesn't have the dozen or so hangers on that this lad needs to make things happen either.

Translation - The current fella? He's not on my book's and he doesn't want to talk to me about signing players who are that could further improve my bank balance. So get rid, pay him off, put my lad in charge and bob's your uncle. (Meaning - I trouser more of your cash).

If this sounds a bit like the farce we had when Barry Rubery sacked Jacko and brought Brucey in, well it's pretty close.

2. Having installed the trophy manager, here's a few players that will improve your team and help you quickly move on to the promised land of unbelievable riches, aka the Prima Donna League where I can help you (sorry me) to even greater riches.

Translation. Spend another £1-2 million on this lad 'ere and that lad there including wages, my fee is only £1/2 million. What can possibly go wrong bruv?

So, the net result of all this investment is:

Enter Gianfranco Zola, one of the best footballers ever to grace the play grounds of the Prima Donna League, who took no more than a few games to turn them around into a side playing occassionally very pretty football that was as ineffective as it gets when it comes to getting points. Brum, despite spending not many more millions than Town, are now sat with their backsides on the relegation trap door and only 2 points above Blackburn with an inferior goal difference.

Trophy manager Gianfranco Zola then sacked himself after 24 games as it all went pear shaped. For all that investment Wolves Brum are sat with their arses on to the trap door rather than the door to the Prima Donna League where they were in December. Don't panic Trillion, you don't have to pay him off. Plan B is I've found an out of work British manager for you who has maybe a bit of a clue what he's doing and he knows some good foreign players too. Pity he can't sign any just now. (Translation - I've just signed him up onto my books, he's yours for a fee - oh hang on - he said he doeesn't want one, just pay his eye wateringly expensive hotel bill. Do his dogs really eat stuff that's so expensive?).

Trillion - "Does he know any of these actual foreign players you talked about?"
He will Trillion, he will.



To be honest, they didn't really spend that much more than us or by the standards of some clubs in this division.

Let's also be honest, sacking Gary Rowett when he had Brum off to a relative flier and sat fairly comfortably in or around the top 6 was one of the most baffling of baffling sacking's ever to an outsider. Maybe the football wasn't pretty, but it was pretty effective at getting results.

There's more than a few Town fans with memories of a certain end of season game in 2001 and the songs of their fans that wouldn't shed a tear if they fell through it. A run of 2 wins (in February v Fulham    and at Wolves), a few draws and a shed full of defeats since beating Ipswich in December quickly put paid to Zola when he sacked himself at Easter.

Enter 'appy 'arry Redknapp stage left claiming he won't get paid if they go down but he'll get a nice bonus if he keeps them up. Translation - "don't put me pay through the books chaps, just put some cash where my two dogs Rosie and Buster can sniff it out and they'll transfer it to their bank accounts in Monaco." First up he lost the derby match up the road at Aston Vanilla 1-0 last weekend. Good start 'arry, keep it up.

Maybe these 4 lasses can help to sort it all out.



OK you got the idea? Ok maybe not, but you could forgive The Bluenoses for asking that question many times in recent years. No quite as clueless as L666s have been, but appearing to knock on the door to join the same dumb private members club at times.

The Skinny
There was a time, when this was the old First Division, that for a short time Town couldn't buy a win against Brum - culminating in THAT game I mentioned above. In more recent seasons we've had the upper hand, with only 2 defeats in the last 9 times we've played each other and those were at ours. Town should at least be optomisitic of completing another double coming into this one. 'appy 'arry has been getting the low down on who to pick from two very reliable sources - Gary Rowett and nippin' darn the pub for a chat with the locals.

Head2Head

Note my usual stats buddy Statto.com has become as much use as a Cadburys Dairy Milk chocolate fire guard for the Chamionship. They seem to be totally unable to put the results in for games that were postponed and played later. They still haven't put Town's result in from Tuesday and there are games missing for Reading, Fulham, Cardiff and Brighton that were played ages ago. So there's a bit of a mix from footstats.co.uk, The Beeb and wherever in here.





Town haven't been ripping up trees this last few weeks though we secured our play-off place up the road at Wolves on Tuesday night, The Blues have a bigger battle on their hands to avoid relegation.





So the takeaway order for Saturday afternoon if you are listening at home is either
3, 56, 53, 81 or
21, 42, 64, 47.

Throw in some prawn crackers, egg fried rice, a few pancakes and some soy sauce and the job's a good'un.  
(If it helps, that's position, goals for, goals against, points - try it Saturday night after you've been down the pub. Don't look at the menu just surprise yourself and the missus when you get home).



On the Form front - we've moved into mid-table obscurity, however Brum are worse than Rotherham, but you've got to laugh at who is bottom.    No surprise really who is on top form either.



Getting here (and back) - Nightmares  
The roads are a bit of of a bugger locally and nationally to be honest.

First of all, the M6 has lanes closed as you exit at Junction 6 - aka Spaghetti Junction - onto the A38/A38M and the same coming back out. North of there, heading towards Walsall, they are still messing around turning the M6 into something they call "Smart". There's likely no good reeason whey they will fanny around with the speed limit signs on the bit's of "Smart" motorway that they've finished, but it's just as likely they will because they can.

Other than that, the never ending nightmare that is the M60/M62 with added bits by the M6 Junction is still in full 50 mph flow. The good news is that the new dual carriageway that bypasses the old A556 from the M56 to Junction 19 at Knutsford is now open. Your satnav will love you for driving down there as you float from field to field. The M6 nightmare from Knutsford now extends all the way down to Jct 16 at Stoke (A500) and don't be surprised if they shut bits of either the M6 or the M60/M62 on your way back, making your 2 hour journey last anything up to 4. There's also a short stretch just south of Keele Services where they seem to be fixing a bridge. They still appear to be messing around on the M1 south of the M6 junction down to Milton Keynes(ish).  Probably stuff going on down by Junction 10 if you are heading north too, just because there always is. The M40 might be a better bet.


Pubs and grubs - loads of places.
Personal favourites, pretty much anywhere up Bennetts Hill (north of New Street Station), with The Wellington (16 hand pulls on tap, bring your own butties) being a favourite haunt of mine and it so appears, The Southern Section. There's also a 'Spoons (The Briar Rose) and The Sun on the Hill (not vey many hand pulls in here) up there. Nearer to New Street there's a Nicholson's pub, The Shakespeare.

Near to the ground they are probably worth avoiding on match day.

More of this stuff in here - http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leagu...ar-parking

To save your legs a bit on the long walk to and from the city centre and the ground, Bordesley Station opens on match days only. Trains run to/from Birmingham Snow Hill or Moor Street for £2.20 return (buy at either station) from 13:37 to 14:28 (Snow Hill - every 10 minutes, from Moor Street a couple of minutes later) and returning between 16:56 to 17:48 again every 10 minutes. The station is close to Bordesley Green Roundabout. 5 minute ride from Snow Hill, 2-3 minutes from Moor Street, saves about 15-20 minutes of leg work.

Who to look out for in the Brum Squad.


Some lad called Mark Smith (remember him going off to a better club? ) scored Town's winning goal in this one.

Well they have spent a bob or two more than us, but not much more this season. Top scorers are:



So for a start there's multimillion pound man Kerim Frei from Besitkas, Che Adams who they got from The Blunts and our old friend Useless Lucas who is top scorer with 12 goals. Clayton Donaldson also chipped in with a few but our old nemesis David Cotterill was shipped out to Brizzle City in January where we all know he turned up to inflict more damage on us.

With more money likely to be lining their advisors pockets I'd expect a bit more investment from Trillion in the summer but what damage 'appy 'arry will be allowed to inflict on the clubs finances may well be dictated by the division they are playing in. This season - they really will have to "Keep Right on to the end of the Road" if they are going to try and  ".... beat the Town Today".



Under promise - over deliver.

Hey look, just come down and have some fun. If you can't make it Saturday, see you all next Sunday at home. The locals like a bit of banter but keep your eyes out for the odd numpty. We've all got a few sadly. The Baggies are also at home on Saturday to Leicester so there might be a few of their fans having a pint in town too.Aw right?  

Streams and TV
Apart from being on the usual Radio L666s stuff, it's not on any TV feed or channel worldwide that I can find. There might be some of our foreign fans helping out on Mixlr with radio feeds.

If your looking for somethig else to do in Brum this weekend as well as the match - go on, knock yourself out - http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on...ns-7240426 or get yourself down to the Balti Triangle for a top notch curry.

[Lord Snooty]

Excellent bit of recycling Mr Luddite.

And yes it still rankles from way back when and yes I would love it, love it, if we sent them down. Them or Blackburn going down. Happy days!

[theo_luddite]

Now with the full title

[WakeyTerrier]

I haven't forgot that day they sent us down...come on Town lets get revenge and plunge them into the mire.
Meanwhile Fat boy Bruce takes Villa to Blackburn who are just below Brum, Villa are taking 6000 who will all be praying that Villa feck up and Blackburn take all three points.

[Jeebers]

I remember that day so well Wakey, I remember that big nose xxxx Francis bleating on how he didn't care about Huddersfield, only that Brum finished as high as they could in the league, God I hope we have a hand in sending them down

[Lord Snooty]

Kachunga still injured and won't be playing again until the play offs.

---

Smith is fit.
Wagz says every one in the squad will get a run out in the next two games.

[theo_luddite]

Pre - match comments

Wagbo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051f23c

Scanz
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051dxn8

Potted higlights
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051f3jm

[theo_luddite]

Apparently about 1600 coming round for a curry tomorrow. That's nearly a grand more than saw us where I get off the bus on Tuesday and not as many as we had at Vanilla. Then again, we'd a whole season to look forward to when The Heff got his arse on the end of that clearance, now we are jockeying for position. Keep right on to the end of the season chaps. Loads of visits down here this month, season cards, Easter, kids off for half term, holiday deposits to pay for the Summer and some barstuards that don't support Town are having a go? We'll see'em in the play off's, oh, hang on a minute. Have they got their refunds yet?

[Lord Snooty]

Blues were seventh, two points behind fourth-placed Huddersfield when Gary Rowett was sacked on 14 December. They go into Saturday's game in 21st, 18 places and 34 points behind the Terriers.

                                                 

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Send the buggers down.