Huddersfield Town v Birmingham City
The Sky Bet Championship
Saturday November 9th - 3:00 ko
at The John Smith's Stadium
Huddersfield Town welcome Birmingham City to the John Smith's Stadium on Saturday. The two teams met last season in January when they played out a 1-1 draw. Adam Hammill scoring the equaliser in injury time in what would've been his last kick in a Huddersfield Town shirt had he not re-signed for us in the summer. Earlier in the season, Town won 1-0 at St Andrews with a goal from Jermaine Beckford.
This match, played on Remembrance weekend, will give honour to the armed forces before the match. Soldiers from the 4th Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment will flag bear around the pitch, while the Yorkshire Band of the Royal British Legion’s Bugler will sound the ‘Last Post’ ahead of a minute’s silence prior to kick-off. Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson MBE, who suffered serious injuries while on duty in Afghanistan in 2006 has been invited to the match as the Club’s Guest of Honour.
The players’ home shirts will be unique for the match and feature the poppy emblem. The shirts will be auctioned after the game to raise funds for the Royal British Legion.
A brief history of Birmingham City: Founded as Small Heath Alliance in 1875, they didn't become known as Birmingham FC until 1905 when they moved into the 75,000 capacity St Andrew's ground. They struggled initially as a 2nd division club, but were eventually successful in 1920/21 gaining promotion as Division Two champions.
They stayed in the top flight for 18 seasons without troubling the trophy engravers. However they did reach their first FA Cup Final in 1931, losing 2-1 to local rivals, West Bromwich Albion. Relegation came in the last season before the second world war and during that time, worse was to come.
St Andrew's got bombed by the Luftwaffe and the stand burnt down when some numpty poured petrol on the flames instead of water!
They adopted their current name of Birmingham City FC in 1943 and won promotion to the First Division again as champions in 1947. Soon to be relegated again and promoted back in 1955, they reached the FA Cup Final once more in 1956, losing this time to Manchester City 3-1 in the match famous for Bert Trautmann playing on with a broken neck.
It was during this FA Cup campaign, in which all Birmingham's games had been away from home, that Harry Lauder's Keep right on to the end of the road was adopted as the fans' anthem.
St Andrew's in 1955
And then finally, they won something. It was the 1963 League Cup. A major trophy, yes, but back then it was taken very lightly by the big clubs, some of whom didn't even bother to enter. Not like today's League Cup, eh? It wasn't even a Wembley final. They beat Aston Villa 3-1 on aggregate in a two legged job.
And a couple of years later, they were relegated again. As a 2nd division club, they reached the semi finals of the FA Cup, knocking out 1st division Huddersfield Town in the quarter finals. Thus becoming the last team to knock Town out of the Cup at the quarter final stage. They then added insult to injury by replacing us in Division One as we got relegated and they went up.
They yoyoed for a while between the top two divisions until 1989 when they were relegated to the 3rd division for the first time in their history. During this period though, they did have their biggest trophy win, beating Carlisle United at Wembley to lift the 1995 Auto Windscreens Trophy. That same season, they won promotion back to the 2nd division by winning at the MacAlpine Stadium on the last day of the season. That stopped us going up automatically, but we did join them in promotion by winning the play offs.
A few years passed and then in 2001 they took former player, Steve Bruce on as manager. This was just a year after the fat headed buffoon had got us relegated to the 3rd division, but he went to Birmingham and got them into what had now become known as the Premier League, for the first time in 16 years.
Bruce kept them up quite successfully until he left to join Wigan in 2007. Like with Town, jumping ship before relegation. They bounced straight back again though under Alex McLeish and reached the League Cup Final in 2011, beating Arsenal to lift the trophy for the second time. However at the end of the season they got relegated again and now we are once more in the same league.
Won the cup and then got relegated lol
Head to Head
Town lead the overall head to head by 38 wins to 35, with 28 draws. That's in all competitions. In league matches it's 34 Town wins to City's 33, with 27 draws.
We haven't beaten them at home in the league since 1996 when goals from Rob Edwards, Marcus Stewart and Paul Dalton gave us a 3-0 win.
They relegated us on the final day of the 2000/01 season. Curtis Woodhouse, who is now a professional boxer, scored both goals for the Blues as Town went down with a whimper.
Way before that, way back in the mists of time, back in the first season of our Football League existence, we beat Birmingham 7-1.
Classic match - Huddersfield Town v Birmingham City, FA Cup 3rd Round, 05/01/2008
This was Birmingham's first return to the Galpharm Stadium since that awful day back in 2001. We owed them one! And by God, they were gonna get it! Oo-er!
Town had plumbed the depths of the Football League since then, whereas Birmingham were now a well established mid table Premier League club, managed by Alex McLeish. Town had Andy Ritchie in charge and had won the previous two rounds of the cup at Accrington Stanley (3-2 after being 2-0 down) and at home to Grimsby (3-0, super Phil Jevons bagged a brace). Luke Beckett had scored in both those games but wasn't first choice and was unceremoniously being shown the door by Rich Tea, so it was a surprise to see his name in the starting XI.
It was a cracking choice though as he turned in a man of the match performance and opened the scoring in as soon as the 4th minute, following good work from Danny Schofield, who's jinking run and shot was spilled by the keeper for Beckett to tap home.
The Brummies equalised in the 20th minute when Daniel de Ridder shrugged off Robbie Williams, got in a shot which was saved by Matt Glennon only for Garry O'Conner to slot home the rebound.
Town came close to taking the lead again before half time when the inspirational Malvin Kamara won a free kick from which diminutive Chris Brandon rose above the Birmingham defence to send a header just wide.
In the second half, City came close again through O'Connor again and Gary McSheffrey but it was Town who got the winner.
Beckett ran into space down the right wing in the 81st minute. Michael Collins sent a long pass out to him which drew the defence wide. It didn't look like Beckett would reach it but just before the ball went out he managed to get his foot around it and sent over a cross to the far post wher Brandon met it on the volley to send the crowd wild as the players ran to celebrate at the corner flag with Terry the Terrier.
Birmingham pressed for an equaliser but Town's defence held tight to earn a 4th round tie at Oldham, where Beckett scored again in a 1-0 win before going out in the 5th round down at Chelsea by 3 goals to 1.
Final score Huddersfield Town 2-1 Birmingham City
Town: Glennon, Sinclair, Mirfin, Berrett, Williams (Skarz 46), Kamara (Jevons 79), Holdsworth, Collins, Brandon, Beckett, Schofield.
Subs Not Used: Smithies, Young, Killock.
City: Maik Taylor, Kelly, Queudrue, Ridgewell, Jaidi, McSheffrey, Muamba (Doyle 66), De Ridder, Larsson, O'Connor, Forssell (Jerome 62).
Subs Not Used: Sadler, Parnaby, Mutch.
Att: 13,410
Chrissy Brandon is a blue
So what have modern day Birmingham got?
They come here on the back of a 0-1 defeat at home to Charlton which saw them drop in to the bottom three. Managed these days by Lee Clark, the former Town boss. Whilst at Huddersfield he managed the team to a record breaking unbeaten run of league matches. That was 43 games without a loss, but it still wasn't good enough to get us promoted and he was sensationally sacked and replaced by a Leeds fan.
This season at St Andrews, he has overseen Birmingham's worst start to a league season for 25 years.
Lee Clark after the Bournemouth triumph
Who has Clark been playing in his first XI?
His selected first XI in the last match was.....
01 Darren Randolph - 26 year old Irish goalkeeper. Signed from Motherwell in the summer. Was named in the Scottish PFA team of the year last season.
31 Paul Caddis - Scottish right back, originally with Celtic, but signed for City in the summer, having spent the previous season on loan from Swindon.
04 Paul Robinson - Club captain. Played in the Premier League with Watford, WBA and Bolton before his career started a downward spiral with a loan spell at Leeds United. Signed for Birmingham in 2012.
17 Callum Reilly - 20 year old Irish midfielder who has come through the junior ranks to first team level.
05 Kyle Bartley - Defender on loan from Swansea, for whom he has only played twice. Has had loan spells with Sheffield Utd and Rangers.
06 Dan Burn - Defender on loan from Fulham, for whom he hasn't yet played at first team level. Has had loans with Darlington and Yeovil.
33 Demarai Gray - 17 year old winger. Came through the Academy and only made his debut last month as a sub in the 4-0 win over Millwall.
24 Tom Adeyemi - Midfielder signed from Norwich in the summer. Has had loan spells with Bradford City, Oldham and Brentford.
19 Nikola Žigić - 33 year old Serbian international who got sent off last season at St Andrews for a shocking high tackle on Calum Woods. Made his name at Red Star Belgrade before moving to Spain with Racing Santander and Valencia. He has 136 club career goals and 20 international goals, but has yet to score this season.
12 Lee Novak - Never heard of him, but according to Wikipedia he used to play for Newcastle Blue Star and Gateshead.
07 Chris Burke - Tricky winger who Town were linked with in the January transfer window. Born in Glasgow, he came through the Rangers youth system playing 96 times for them before they started their new life as opponents for Albion Rovers and Cowdenbeath. Went to Cardiff in 2009 and then to Birmingham in 2011. Was player of the season last year.
Substitutes
08 Hayden Mullins - Ex Palace, West Ham and Pompey.
11 Peter Løvenkrands - Danish international. Ex Rangers and Newcastle.
13 Colin Doyle - Reserve goalkeeper.
20 Olly Lee - Midfielder. Ex Dag & Red, Gillingham and Barnet.
22 Andrew Shinnie - Signed in the summer from Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Was on the shortlist for SPL Player of the Season.
27 Shane Ferguson - Winger on loan from Newcastle.
29 Reece Brown - 17 year old midfielder. One appearance to date.
Wade Elliott was suspended and still is, after being sent off against Stoke. Neal Eardley, Darren Ambrose, Jonathan Spector and leading scorer Jesse Lingard weren't in the squad for the Charlton match.
Lingard is on loan from Man Utd. He spent part of last season on loan at Leicester, but was hopeful of breaking into the first team at Old Trafford this season, especially after scoring the first goal of the David Moyes era in a friendly match against the A-League All Stars in Sydney. The breakthrough didn't come though and he made an immediate impact on his Blues loan spell, scoring four times on his debut at home to the Sheffield Wendys. He extended his loan to December, but hasn't played (don't know why) since the defeat at Bellend Road.
Clark has also signed Polish midfielder, Dariusz Dudka, on a short term contract in the last week. He has been capped 65 times by his country and played at the World Cup and European Championships. He was released by Spanish top-flight side Levante in the summer.
Leading scorer - Jesse Lingard with 5 goals.
Recent form - Last six games:
Wigan 2-1 Town
Town 3-2 Leeds
Leicester 2-1 Town
Town 1-2 Watford
Middlesbrough 1-1 Town
Town 1-1 Blackpool
Birmingham 0-1 Charlton
Birmingham 4-4 Stoke (League Cup) (lost 2-4 on pens)
Derby 1-1 Birmingham
Leeds 4-0 Birmingham
Birmingham 1-2 Bolton
Birmingham 4-0 Millwall
City are 22nd in the league with 11 points, that's 6 less than we have. Town are 14th on 17 points.
Club connections:
Lee Novak of the current Birmingham squad played recently for Town. He was a big hit at Town with his duracell bunny style running around and chasing lost causes. Scored his fair share of goals too, but according to some, he was crap. He scored 42 goals for Town since his move from Gateshead, but he's only scored twice since his summer move to Birmingham. He scored at Derby with his first touch after coming on as a sub. His first goal for them was a mazy dribble from the halfway line, beating all 10 men on route to goal and then dribbling around the stranded goalie before slamming the ball into the back of the net. That was an equalising goal in extra time at Yeovil in the Capitol One Cup, which the Blues went on to win on penalties.
De de de der.... Super Novak
Ian Bennett played 287 times for Birmingham, including that match in 2001 which saw us relegated. One particular save from Andy Booth in the second half summed up Town's day and it was Town's current reserve keeper who we can now say caused us to play lower league football for eleven years.
Alex Bruce, son of Steve, has all the attributes to be a hate figure of Huddersfield Town fans. He played six matches for daddy at Birmingham. Daddy kept sending him out on loan though and he played a game here in 2005 whilst on loan at Sheffield Wednesday and was so wound up by the fans in the Kilner Bank stand that he made a lunging tackle that ended up with him being shown a red card. He also played for Leeds, from where he came on loan to us in 2011, but only lasted for three games. After Leeds he went to join daddy again at Hull and was once more sent off against Town. It was last season's match at the KC stadium after the final whistle when he reacted to Alan Lee elbowing him in the face and was once more shown the red card.
Neil Danns signed for Birmingham in 2004 for half a million quid from Colchester. He played a couple of seasons for them. Of course last season he was at Town and scored his first goal for us in the 2-1 win at Bellend Road.
Barry Horne became a Town legend as part of the Peter Jackson Great Escape team, but was most famous for scoring the goal that kept Everton in the Premier League in 1994. It was a 30 yard screamer which earned them a point against Wimbledon at Goodison Park which stopped the Toffeemen dropping to the second division for the first time since the 1950s. After leaving Everton, he played 33 games for Birmingham before coming to Town.
Damien Johnson was captain of Birmingham during his spell there after joining them from Blackburn. He has been injury prone during his career. When he came to Town he only managed 34 games in two seasons. He missed the Play Off Final at Old Trafford, but played the following year at Wembley, missing one of the penalties in the shoot out against Sheffield Utd.
Dave Mangnall is a Town legend from the old days. He holds the record for most league and cup goals in a season (42 in season 1931/32), which Jordan Rhodes almost beat the other year. He bagged a total of 73 in 90 games in his Town career before being transferred to Birmingham City.
Chris Marsden played for Town in the years when we were garbage, the late 80s/early 90s. He was one of the few shining lights from those days. Later in his career he played for Birmingham, but it wasn't until he'd reached the age of 30 that he became a Premier League player when he went to Southampton. Whilst with the Saints he captained them to the FA Cup Final in 2003, which they lost 1-0 to the Arsenal.
Peter Ndlovu played over a hundred games for Birmingham and whilst there he came on loan to Town in 2000. He scored 4 goals for us in 6 games. Unfortunately we didn't sign him permanently and he left to join Sheffield Utd. Last year he was involved in a fatal car crash which killed his brother Adam. Peter was charged with culpable homicide, but was acquitted due to lack of evidence that it was his fault.
Phil Summerill played for Birmingham in the late 60s/early 70s and helped them win promotion in 1972. A year later he joined Town, who were in freefall through the leagues and his time at Leeds Road wasn't a very good one, being relegated to the 3rd division before he left to join Millwall.
Nico Vaesen, another Town legend to play for Birmingham as well. He was sent off in his first and last English Football League matches. Dismissed after only 9 minutes of his Town debut at Bury and then at Manchester City in his last game for Birmingham. At Town though, he recovered from his debut disaster to become player of the year. Signed by Jacko during a good period for Town, unfortunately his last game for us was in the match that saw us relegated by Birmingham in 2001.
Mark Ward, a scouser, played for Everton in the Premier League after spells with Oldham, West Ham and Man City. He then went to Birmingham and eventually to Town where he didn't stay long and got himself sent off for fighting with a team mate (can't remember who). Then in stereotypical scouse mode, went to prison for being a drug dealer.
Peter Withe came to Town as assistant manager to Eoin Hand in 1989. He played 38 matches for us, mainly as a centre back after playing most of his career at centre forward. He has the distinction of scoring the goal which won the European Cup for Aston Villa in 1982, but when he came to Leeds Road he was 38 years old and not very good. 14 years previously, he'd made 35 appearances for Birmingham City.
The most famous one though would be Frank Worthington. He played for 24 different clubs in his career, but Town and Birmingham were his first and fifth, so we had him in his prime. Frank is many people's greatest Town player of all time and he scored in my first match at Leeds Road back in 1967 and was one of the reasons that I got hooked on this great football club. His goals helped us get promoted to Division One in 1970 and he had a brilliantly flamboyant style of play. He was a bit of a playboy and his big money move to Liverpool fell through due to "high blood pressure", but the story is that Bill Shankly refused to sign "anybody with syphilis". Following Town's drop to the second division, he signed for Leicester instead where his playboy days became notorious, many of these stories get recalled on the after dinner speaking circuit these days. During this time he made his only England appearances under the caretaker management of Joe Mercer. He'd been shunned by Sir Alf Ramsey and later Don Revie, who picked crap like Allan Clarke of Leeds instead.
Frank joined Birmingham City in 1979 where he scored 29 goals in 75 games, but his copy book was blotted beyond recognition in 1982 when he left St Andrews to join Leeds Utd. Unforgiveable, but he did play in the Leeds team that were famously beaten 1-0 in the League Cup at Bellend Road by 3rd division Huddersfield Town.
He managed Tranmere in the 1980s, as a player/manager, but his career wound up when he joined Halifax Town as player/manager at the age of 44. That didn't work out and he retired from the game. He still lives locally, up there in Outlane.
Any more? Steve Bruce and Lou Macari have managed both clubs and Clark's backroom staff are the same people he had here, Terry McDermott et al.
Famous ex players and fans
Trevor Francis: Played 8 years at Birmingham. Was known to be a really good footballer, scoring 119 goals in 280 matches and gained the first of his 52 England caps during this spell. It wasn't until Brian Clough got hold of him though that his career really took off. Famously became the first one million pound transfer fee when Cloughie signed him for Nottingham Forest.
First million pound footballer
He won the European Cup with Forest in his first season, scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 win over Swedish side Malmö. The match was played in Munich's Olympic Stadium and his goal was a diving header, from which when he landed, he landed on the concrete of the shot put circle behind the touchline, as you can see in the picture. Can't imagine Health & Safety allowing that today, can you?
The next season, Forest reached the European Cup Final again, but Francis missed the match due to injury.
Later he had spells playing for Manchester City, Sampdoria, Atalanta, Rangers, QPR and Sheffield Wednesday.
He became manager at Hillsborough, taking them to League Cup and FA Cup Finals in 1993. But then in 1996, his career came full circle and he returned to his boyhood club, Birmingham City as manager.
It was a period of close but no cigar for him and The Blues as they reached the Play Offs but didn't go up and also the League Cup Final of 2001, losing on penalties to Liverpool.
He had a short spell as manager of Crystal Palace before concentrating on his current job, a Sky Sports pundit.
Jasper Carrott: Born and raised in the Acocks Green area of Birmingham, Carrott first came to prominence with the release of the novelty song Funky Moped in 1975. A surprise hit, made such probably by the BBC banning playing the B side of the record Magic Roundabout.
His comedy style was a forerunner of today's comedians, more anecdotal than the usual telling jokes, as was the form of the day. Often his anecdotes were about following Birmingham City in the 70s. One particular memorable one was a trip to Old Trafford. In this era, the punters at Manchester United were not the prawn sandwich eaters of today. They were more like neanderthal men.
I'm sure we've all been in situations similar, particularly back then before crowds were segregated, of being surrounded by thuggish looking supporters of the other side and not wanting to speak unless they spotted your accent. On this occasion, Carrott's mate bawled out in a thick brummie accent; "Oy, Carrott. What kind of a ground is this? They've got no cowin' bovril."
Sounds dull now, but back then it was absolutely hilarious.
Later on in life, he became a director at St Andrews and his career dipped to an all time low recently when he presented the crappest of game shows Goldenballs. But he was very good in the 70s.
Golden Bollocks!
Other Championship fixtures this weekend:
Saturday:
Reading v QPR [12:15]
Barnsley v Doncaster
Blackpool v Ipswich
Bolton v Millwall
Brighton v Blackburn
Burnley v Bournemouth
Charlton v Leeds
Derby v Sheff Wed
Leicester v Nottm Forest
Middlesbrough v Watford
Sunday:
Yeovil v Wigan
Town team news: Town's leading scorer, Birmingham born James Vaughan, sits out the third and final match of his ban for being sent off at Leicester.
Martin Paterson is still out. He's been having some kind of surgery on his arm injury, mysteriously picked up in training before the Leeds match.
Adam Clayton, allegedly involved in that training ground incident, has been completely out of the squad since. Will he be back in?
And Anthony Gerrard has been missing too. Will we ever get to know the truth?
Snooty's prediction: 3-1 to Town.
Snooty's Town line-up:
Latest betting odds:
Huddersfield to win: 11/10
Birmingham to win: 23/10
Draw: 23/10
Town to win by:
1-0: 7/1
2-0: 10/1
2-1: 9/1
3-0: 18/1
3-1: 16/1
Blues to win by:
1-0: 10/1
2-0: 14/1
2-1: 11/1
3-0: 33/1
3-1: 25/1
"There ya go, you slaaaags. 'Ave a bang on that!"
Over to you then:
Some talking points for you.
Lee Clark. Town legend or geordie numpty?
Lee Novak. Town legend or geordie numpty?
What are your recollections of that awful day in 2001 when the Blues relegated us?
What about the pre match remembrance stuff? Good or bad idea?
What's your team selection for the match?
Do we stick with Steady up front?
Will Jesse Lingard play for Birmingham? Is he injured?