This part covers the Birmingham and Brentford away games - with dodgy refereeing decisions just as bad as last night's at Bury.

Friday 27th August 2010

I’m now back at work the day after Birmingham v Rochdale. Work has virtually dried up so I can reflect at leisure on the big match. The bare facts? It finished Birmingham City 3 Rochdale 2. Dale took the lead in the 25th minute. Blues equalised three minutes later with a penalty so it was 1-1 at half time. By the 58th minute Blues were 3-1 up. Dale pulled one back in the 78th minute, so there you go, a 3-2 home win. Oh and believe me these minute times are correct as I’ve watched the goals on Sky replay a few dozen times already.

The real story? Dale lost but can claim a moral victory by outplaying and outpassing Blues for long periods of the game. They bossed the first half and there were 4 individual stellar performances. Chris O’Grady was head and shoulders the best striker on the pitch, demonstrating the kind of imagination, power, speed of thought and touch that Birmingham’s lumbering attacking dinosaurs Gary O’Connor and Nikola Zigic could only dream of possessing. Gary Jones surged forward from midfield to score twice, rounding off 2 moves of slick passing that were described by Chris Kamara on Sky as being “classy, really classy”. Craig Dawson was immense at centre half and Scott Wiseman broke from the back and glided down the right wing at will. The other 7 Dale players were merely good. Neutrals watching on Sky would surely have concluded that Dale looked much more like the Premier League side.

Unfortunately, nobody much was watching. The match felt eerily invisible. My perfect match of a lifetime and only 6,431 could be arsed to turn up. The whole experience and the outcome meant something to the 593 Dale fans who were there, made a racket and generally enjoyed themselves. The rest of the Blues fans were probably just there out of habit. Die hards but disengaged, arrogantly expecting a regulation 3-0 home win with the minimum of fuss, then into the hat for the next round and the chance of a bit of glamour against a team who are not 20,000 leagues beneath them in the footballing food chain.

Actually that’s moderately unfair. The Blues fans present are the wrong target. Lets get priorities right and go for the Blues management, players and web site report writers first. Birmingham manager Alec McLeish descended into full-on patronising mode in his post-match interview where he proclaimed that Rochdale “played out of their skins in the first half”. The match day programme went one better, containing an interview with Blues left-back David Murphy, where he predicted that “it will be a very physical game, but if we win the battle then our superior passing will see us through”. Then the Blues website had a banner headline referring to the “plucky minnows” of Rochdale.

Hmmm, please allow me to dissect this collective and delusional arrogance further. Firstly, if McLeish had bothered to do any scouting on Dale, he would surely have realised that far from playing out of their skins, this was actually a typical Dale performance, passing the ball, dominating possession and generally playing football the right way with attacking intent. Contrast this with the pragmatic Birmingham game plan for the last 20 years of pressing, battling, harrying, more pressing, working your socks off, dogged defence and grimly hanging on to what you’ve got. The archetypal dour Scot, McLeish has been more than complicit in carrying on this depressing tradition. He talks a good game of Blues evolving to embrace the alien concept of passing, but the evidence of change is negligible. Try looking inwardly mate.

Secondly, where to start with David Murphy’s quote. How wrong can you possibly be David? Invert what you’ve ignorantly said and you’ll be nearer to the truth. Dale games aren’t overtly physical, Blues games are. Blues may be adept at winning the battle but I’ll be an old man by the time they win a game through their superior passing. Dale by contrast are 9 times out of 10 aesthetically pleasing on the eye with their neat passing triangles, usually marred only by a lack of cutting edge. God knows I’ve seen enough of both teams to know the truth of these descriptions. I’ll forgive him though, most likely the whole interview was ghost-written by the same joker who described Dale as “plucky minnows”.

The match was also notable for the obligatory soft penalty for Blues as the bigger team playing at home. Merely 3 minutes after Dale had taken their fully deserved lead, the assistant linesman spotted an imaginary nudge on Matt Derbyshire by Marcus Holness and changed his initial decision from corner to penalty. Well done mate, just another official hell bent on preserving the footballing status quo. All the TV pundits including injured Blues striker Kevin Phillips were unanimous in their verdict that it was “never a penalty”. Oh well, at least it’s a full legitimate hard luck story for me to dine out on in the curry house with my Blues mates.

Then there was the saga of Jake’s coat. On a miserable cold and rainy night, Jake was adamant that his thick school number was unnecessary. Cue an obligatory and equally unnecessary flare up with his mother at the point of departure. Jake has yet to master the art of female psychology. Knowing that Lyd is ambivalent at best towards his general attendance at football matches (due to the real and perceived exposure to swearing and bad behaviour) and is definitely not keen on him going to evening matches, Jake risked a permanent veto by arguing the toss over the need to wear a coat in near monsoon conditions. Fabulous tactics.

Sunday 29th August 2010

Ha, ha, ha, ha. Birmingham surrender a 2 goal lead away at Bolton, which includes what Alex McLeish describes huffily as a “soft” penalty. I think that’s called poetic justice, especially after refusing to concede that he’d even seen the farcically soft one Blues were awarded against Dale. My bitterness towards Blues knows no bounds, I must psycho-analyse this properly sometime. Not now though, the main event of the weekend was Dale winning 3-1 away at Brentford, their first win outside the fourth division since I was 3 years old. I was there to witness it and I’m feeling immensely proud.

The Brentford away experience is very good. You can park nice and near the ground, there’s friendly-ish pubs full of harmless Chirpy Cockney types on every corner, and the seats in the away end give you a fabulous view, overhanging the pitch and perched just above the crossbar. It offers intimacy and a sense of involvement, the two key spectator ingredients in the football mix in my humble opinion. The programme is also unusually interesting, containing an in-depth look at Brentford’s promotion chasing rivalry with Birmingham way back in 1992/93. I remember it well, the days when Kevin Francis, all 6 feet 7 inches of him, led the attack for Blues. He just had to be a better basketball player than a footballer.

I digress. Griffin Park is all very quirky in a quintessentially English sort of way. If you’re a plane spotter it’s even better as you can watch the constant aerial procession of incoming flights. Now if only they’d remembered to provide leg room that caters for anyone slightly larger than Oompah Loompahs then everything’s alright forever.

The match ebbed and flowed pleasingly with both teams having their little 5 or 10 minute attacking spells. Dale cashed in on more of theirs, especially in a second half purple patch that appropriately matched the colour of their snazzy new “Get the Label” away shirts. Jake managed to miss Brentford’s first half equaliser right beneath us due to an inopportunely timed visit to the toilet. Strangely, he didn’t seem remotely bothered. A goal missed at a live match? I would have been mortified.

The third goal was a landmark moment, the first ever Dale goal for the world’s oldest looking 23 year old, cultured midfielder Jason Kennedy. His lack of goals the previous season had become a bit of a standing joke at Spotland, especially as he arrived with good scoring credentials including a screamer for Darlington against Dale in the 2007/08 Play Off semi-final. One miss away at Chesterfield towards the end of last season when he shot straight at the only defender on the line had to be seen to be believed. Therefore, it was quite understandable that Kennedy chose to share his special moment by throwing himself into a small cluster of enthusiastic Dale fans at the front of the terrace. His reward from the killjoy referee was to be sent off for over-celebrating. Joker.

JumeirahDale added 13:28 - Mar 11 Very much enjoying this - thanks for sharing!
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