Here is the first article from Adrian, (or DOH! as he is known on the forum).

—————————————————————————————–

This comment on the forum, (from Aff, our resident master of understatement) caught my eye yesterday:

There’s nothing worse than middle of the road when it comes to supporting your club, is there?

Is there? I thought about it for several seconds before I came to the conclusion that, throughout my relatively long association with my beloved Blues, that’s all I’ve ever known. Let me expand…..

(Bear with me here, I may have to issue a ‘rambling alert….’)

I have a couple of early football memories: firstly my Dad taking me to watch Alvechurch when I was only 4 or 5 (I must have been; I remember it in black-and-white) because he didn’t think I was ready for the rough-and-tumble at Stans! A particular highlight of this period was watching night matches as I got to stay up REALLY late. I’ve absolutely
loved night games ever since, I think the atmosphere is totally different under lights.

The other thing I recall is having to beg my Mum to let me get up in the middle of the night – probably about 11pm – to watch England on the TV. This must have been in the ’70 World Cup? Either that, or Blues’ great European adventure around the same time…….nah!

My point here is that neither Alvechurch or England were setting the world alight then (even though the latter were World Champions, they were ‘in decline’) but I simply loved watching football.

However, back to Blues. Dad eventually decided (well, I suspect Mum gave in) that I was ready to go to watch Blues. He’d been a lifelong supporter, and he was always telling me how, having been to every game in our ’56 FA cup run, he was unable to get a Wembley Final ticket. I was in awe of this because every game had been away and I had yet to visit another ground, Alvechurch excepted.

There are many, and I could go on all day, but I know you’re getting bored. So, just a few of my Blues highlights over the years to  illustrate what I’m getting at:

Against Hull on a dank Tuesday night. 0-0; the closest we came to scoring was when Bob Latchford jumped in front of their goalie as he kicked the ball, which bounced off Bob’s back and rolled three feet wide of the net.

Against Forest (again a night match) when my hero Frank Worthington scored all eight goals in a 4-1 win.

Against Brizzle City when we lost 0-4. The worst I have ever seen Blues play. And that’s saying something.

An aggro-Italian game against…….some Italian second division outfit. The game was delayed by both a floodlight failure and several bouts of fisticuffs on the pitch. Handbags as well if Dean Peer was playing. Score? Dunno, but I was royally entertained! I remember that the match finished about midnight. We didn’t win that particular competition
either.

My point is, that for as long as I can remember, we have been ‘middle of the road’. Yes, we’ve won a couple of Mickey-Mouse cups, and they were great days out, I was there for both with my Dad, who sadly will never get to see us win anything meaningful. But we’ve been relegated and promoted more times that Kev’s been on the radio, Nat’s had a haircut and Guest has put up a sensible post put together.

But as of this week, all this may change. A(nother) brand new era dawns; we’ve seen it all before and because we are all cynics by nature (or more likely nurture) most of us are afraid, very afraid. But what exactly are we afraid of? Success?….Failure?……or simply that we just might not be ‘middle of the road’ any longer?