This is a letter I’ve sent to Tom Wagner, chairman of Birmingham City FC:
The questions on every Blues fan’s lips today are, how did this happen and what happens next?
You may find these questions impertinent from someone you don’t know so here’s a bit of background.
I’m 74, approaching 75, and spent my early years living on Cattell Road, not a stone’s throw from St Andrew’s and sat on my front step 70 years ago watching the first set of floodlights being erected by the steeplejacks. Naturally therefore, I’m a lifetime Bluenose through and through.
My dad said when I asked for money to go to the match, “take them serious and they’ll break your heart”, how right he was. “Joys & Sorrows” as the song goes, with many more of the latter.
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Following Blues is, and never has been, for the fickle fan. We’ve had ups and downs too numerous to remember, we’ve had good days too and, as the old joke goes, I remember them both!
When you and your partners bought the club all fans raised a glass to a better future for us after years of struggle languishing at the lower end of the division, struggling to stay up after a string of broken promises by previous owners and now relegation has happened, the joy has turned to sorrow once more.
Whilst talk of a new stadium is great to hear I believe I speak for nine out of 10 fans when I say I’d prefer to stand on a dung heap to watch a winning team with a modicum of success whilst the new stadium plans sit on the back burner for a while.
All efforts should be targeted at putting out a team of winners. After all we are a football club first and foremost. Ten thousand fans inside a 60,000-seat arena would just be a monument to failure.
I strongly believe a great opportunity has been spurned this season to steady the ship, most fans would have given the thumbs up to a mid-table finish but no, instead, chasing ‘no fear football’, it’s been an unmitigated disaster.
The reason why in my opinion is plain and simple, it started with the sacking of John Eustace, chasing a dream, running before we could walk. Poor player recruitment both at the start of the season and again during the transfer window in January was the major factor, the inability of numerous managers to get a tune out of the players is testament to this. Ask any fan what we needed first and foremost and they’d all say another big striker to help Jay Stansfield out. Did we get one? Emphatically no. Have the under-21s got anyone to step up? It appears not.
On top of this, without mentioning names, we’ve taken on players that have failed to step up to the plate sufficiently to affect matches to any degree, players that have never lived up to their potential at numerous clubs but we sign them, why? Then we have players so called “injury prone”, who spend more time on the treatment table than on the pitch. To top it all we let a “Steady Eddie” centre half leave the club mid-season, why?
Lastly, we’ve ignored the golden rule when it comes to signing players, you recruit better than what you’ve already got.
Too many of this current squad seem not to have the other ingredients beyond footballing skills needed for success at this level, such as stamina, resilience, pace, physicality, drive, and the desire to win at all costs in a Blues shirt.
We need a clear-out of the players who don’t exhibit these attributes and whoever oversees future recruitment must get these factors right.
The question also needs asking have we got the right person in place to do this, because if not it will just result in more failure.
As Einstein once said, doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result is madness!
I hope you receive this letter in the spirit in which it has been sent. I’m just a fan who’d love to see BCFC thrive in every vision you have for the future of my club but believe we must get the football right first.
We’re down but not out. This is not the time to cry in our beer, the work needed to be done to get us back up I hope has already started, but firstly and without doubt we need to sort out who is going to manage the club without delay as next season will be upon us before we know it.
Terry Coates, Kings Norton
