Dublin Supporters Club Talk to Joys and Sorrows

November 30, 2009 by KevB8ll · 7 Comments
Filed under: Blues News, Blues Supporters Clubs / Websites, Kev's Ramblings

As you know, Aylesburyblue and I attended the new supporters forum before the Fulham game. We met a lot of great people who are either running websites or supporters clubs.

Well we want to do our bit to help by telling you about them. It may be that you live nearby one of these supporters clubs, but been unaware of their existance. So let me introduce to you our first one, the Irish Blues.

The bloke who runs it is called Richard Tyrrell and here is the information he has sent us.

My name is Richard, known as dublinbrummie on sites.

Richard Tyrrell

I’ve been in charge of the Irish Blues since 2003 and have been going to watch the Blues since 1990 – after watching all 3 clubs in Birmingham. Blues was the best craic. I moved back to Dublin in 1994 and only met up with Irish Blues after the 3-0 win over Villa.

My favourite Blues game has to be the Duggary show vs Southampton. This season my hopes for the Blues, was simply to stay up - but now it’s shooting for top 10 finish!

I work in construction, but not as much as I’d like at the moment!

Any bluenose in Ireland can join our club by just logging on our site as we dont charge anything. We usually have a few members coming over for games, but it’s always an early start in the morning about 4 ish to fly over.

Some pubs in Dublin, have shown nearly every game this season. So if you’re in Dublin on a Saturday, check out our site before hand and I’ll have the information up if our game is on.

to contact us go to our site and you can drop me an e-mail from there.

Richard.

If you are involved in a supporters club anywhere in the world and would like Joys and Sorrows to give you a plug, contact Kev via the contact page.

Tags: Birmingham City, Dublin, Premier League, Supporters, Supporters Club

Wolves v Blues Post Match Brief Thoughts

November 29, 2009 by KevB8ll · 4 Comments
Filed under: Blues News, Kev's Ramblings, Match reports, Matches

I’m sure there will be a more detailed match report, but I thought I’d put down my brief thoughts after watching the game on TV.

Bowyer scored in successive games to give us successive 1-0 victories and successive Premier League wins – the 1st time since 2004. Last weekend we struggled to our 3 points, this week for most of the match I felt we were in control.

At half time we had recorded 5 shots on target compared to Wolves o shots on goal. The Wolves fans got more and more frustrated with their team’s apparent lack of commitment. Blues, however, were committed throughout the game, and were 1st to most of the 2nd balls. Jerome, Larsson and McFadden all had decent chances to increase our lead through the game.

Wolves did come back into things in the 2nd half and there were a few panicky moments in the 2nd half – but to be honest I wasn’t worried. (Much!)

Another fantastic performance by Johnson and Dann – and Bowyer, what on earth has he been eating!

A great way for Alex to celebrate his 2 years at the club.

Kev

Tags: Birmingham City, Lee Bowyer, Match, Premier League, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wolves

Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Birmingham City – Preview

November 27, 2009 by Aylesburyblue · 1 Comment
Filed under: Aylesburyblue Articles, Blues News

Team News

Blues have no new injury worries so will only be missing the long term absentees O’Connor, Murphy and Parnaby. It will be interesting to see if there are any tactical changes after last weeks’ slightly tired looking performance. Ridgewell has looked a little shaky at left back so maybe Vignal will get a chance.

Wolves will bring Kevin Doyle back into the team in a return to 4-4-2. Mick McCarthy has said that Michael Kightly is not yet ready for action so he is unlikely to feature.

Last Meeting

Our last meeting was a 2-0 victory at the beginning of April that gave us all hope that we would be able to take the Championship title. That hope only lasted a few days as we failed to win either of our games over Easter. O’Connor and Jerome got the goals in what was a comfortable victory despite Lee Carsley getting sent off. The last meeting at Molineux ended 1-1 almost a year to the day.

Recent Form

Blues go into this game enjoying their best run of form all season and unbeaten in four games. We have only one away win but have scored more away from home and have not failed to score on our travels since Old Trafford in August.

Wolves on the other hand have picked up just three points from their last six games and have not won since 20th September. After playing us their next game is at home to Bolton so this is a crucial period if they are to climb up from their current 19th place.

Outlook

This game marks the start of a run of relegation six pointers with Wigan, West Ham and Blackburn to follow. Maybe it’s too pessimistic to use the term “relegation” but anyway there are points to be gained on the run up to Christmas. Wolves will see this as a must win game but a draw would be OK for us as it would keep our five point advantage over them (Effectively six with goal difference).

I expect Wolves to come at us big time from the off so the key will be how well we weather this and push on ourselves. With their solid but slow defence there should be opportunities on the break to use the pace of Benitez and Jerome. I believe our defence will be able to keep their front two quiet for most of the game so I’m not expecting too many goals although a repeat of the 3-2 win in 2007 would be great. As often happens the early Sunday kick-off may keep things quieter than you would expect from a derby. Of course there’s that word “Derby”. Although this is not the biggest game for both sides there will still be local bragging rights for grabs and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been bantering with a Dingle all week. It would be great to go to work on Monday morning on the back of a convincing victory at their place. Having said that I’d quite like Wolves to stay up as well.

My prediction. 1-1.

Enjoy the game, I think there’s a few tickets left if you want to go.

Tags: Birmingham City, Cameron Jerome, Christian Benitez, Match, Preview, Wolves

A Wolves Blogger Speaks to Joys and Sorrows

November 25, 2009 by KevB8ll · 4 Comments
Filed under: Blues News, By Other Supporters, Kev's Ramblings

We have linked up with Tom, who runs the Wolves blog called Wolves Blog

We have both answered similar questions of each others sides. Below are Toms answers and you can find my answers on Tom’s blog here.

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1. What is your view of how things are going on the pitch at the Blues?
Undoubtedly, Birmingham have started the season incredibly well, which I’m not at all surprised by. You’re strong at the back, which gives you a great platform to build on in matches and means you’ll be competitive in the majority of games you play, as we’ve already seen at Man Utd and Liverpool.

You’re also picking off the lesser sides by the odd goal, which will continue to keep you away from the bottom if you can keep it up. And if injuries don’t cause you problems at the back, I don’t see any reason you can’t continue as you have been.

2. Where do you think we need to strengthen?
As stated, I think you’re already pretty well equipped defensively, but perhaps could do with a bit more quality going forward (couldn’t we all). Benitez looks a useful player, but I’d imagine Mcleish will be looking for more firepower up front and more creativity in midfield come January.

3. Do you think we will survive the drop?
It’s a difficult question to answer, given the tight nature of the league at present and with January transfer madness to come. You’re sitting nicely in mid-table as we speak, but defeat on Sunday would leave you only two points ahead of Wolves. I think for Blues, it’s just a case of carrying on what they’ve been doing; grinding out the wins against the lesser sides and trying to grab the odd point off the bigger boys.

If I had to put money on it right now, I’d back you to stay up, although I don’t think you’ll be too far north of the bottom three.

4. Which player(s) do you think are our danger man/men in regard of sunday’s game?
I’d be a fool not to highlight Cameron Jerome as a danger, given the fact that he seems to love playing against Wolves. Benitez also looks like he’s on the brink of really doing the business for you and I just hope that potential isn’t fully realised on Sunday. McFadden is also match winner on his day and definitely one to keep an eye on.

5. Wolves fans must be a little disappointed with the start to the season so far – where is it going wrong at the moment?
The big problem for Wolves is that they haven’t done a good enough job of taking points against the teams in and around us. Losing at home to Pompey and West Ham, whilst only taking a point off Hull isn’t good enough. Credible draws against Everton, Stoke and Villa (all games we could have won) show that we have the potential to compete in the Premiership, but you need to compliment those kind of results with wins against the bottom sides, particularly at home.

Also, our best players from last season have yet to find their feet, which is disappointing. The likes of Kightly, Iwelumo, Ebanks-Blake and Foley have all had injuries and are struggling to get back into form, which has undoubtedly contributed to our current position.

6. Do you think McCarthy is the right man for the job, reason why yes or no.
Since I’ve been following the Wolves (20 or so years) Mick McCarthy is the best manager we’ve had. Not that there’s much competition of course.

The club got blown apart when Hoddle left and the money dried up, so the job Mick has done to rebuild everything from scratch is unbelievable. There’s a great spirit in the squad at the moment. The players all want to play for Mick and if we got rid of him, the wheels would almost certainly start to come off. Results haven’t been great up to this point, but I still believe he’s the man for the job. Even if we do go down, I have faith he’d bring us straight back up.

7. Do you think the side is stronger than the last time you were in the Prem?
Yes, definitely.

We had better quality in some areas of the pitch back in 2003, but just didn’t have the legs to compete. Most of our players were over 30 and it really showed at times, particularly towards the end of games.This time around, we’ve got a young side, which perhaps lacks a bit of know-how at this level, but I believe there’s enough in the squad to keep us up. I didn’t have that belief the last time.I still think Ebanks-Blake and Doyle will get us the goals we need and star players from last season like Kightly and Foley will come good to give us that bit extra. In saying that, I’d like to see reinforcements in January, particularly in defence.

8. What should I have asked and what is your answer?
You should have asked: What was your favourite ever Wolves match against the Blues?

To which I would have answered: 3-2 to Wolves at Molineux in the 1995/96 season. Blues went 2-1 up thanks to the most farcical penalty decision I’ve ever seen when Kevin Francis kicked thin air. Andy Thompson equalised from the spot and who else but Bully slid home the winner in the dying seconds. If you still had Michael Johnson playing at the back and we still had Bully playing up front, I’d have no doubt in mind that we’d score. He always gave him a torrid time.

9. What do you think the result will be?
I have to say that Wolves will win because any other result just doesn’t bear thinking about. We’re long overdue a league win against the Blues and it’s crucial that we finally get one. Saying that, we must get the first goal or I think we’re in big trouble. But it’s about time Ebanks-Blake starting firing this season, so I’m going for a narrow 2-1 win for Wolves and SEB to score both.

Tell us a little bit about yourself Tom, what do you do and how long have you been running your blog?
I’m 25 year young, born and raised a Wolves fan and have had a season ticket since I can remember.
I’m actually a professional writer and website marketer, so it’s been long-held desire of mine to do a blog about my beloved team. Unfortunately, time and a serious lack of motivation prevented me from starting, until a burst of enthusiasm got me going at the start of this season (probably still on a high from last year).

Since kicking-off the blog, I’ve been lucky enough to recruit a top bloke called Ben to help me run the site. We’ve also got a great community of followers, who can share opposing views and throw around some banter without getting personal. It’s a really fun thing to do and I can’t see myself giving it up anytime soon, even if it becomes a Championship blog next season (which it won’t)!

Tags: Birmingham City, Fans, Premier League, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wolves