Jay is one of our forum regulars. Here is an article by him looking at our season so far.

At the beginning of the Premier League season, nobody would have been able to image that Birmingham City would have been challenging for the Europa League come the season’s end, they also wouldn’t of expected them to of been a game away from a visit to Wembley, or in fact, growing numbers of people from across the country backing the modest Scot at the help, Alex McLeish, to be awarded manager of the year – Well unless he resigned and took over one of the ‘Big Four’.

When the season kicked off in mid-August, Birmingham City were clear favourites for relegation come the summer, they have an ageing squad, and where there was youth, it was from the lower leagues or too inexperienced. The back four on the opening day at Old Trafford consisted of an out-of-retirement full back, a free transfer and two young defenders drafted in from average Championship clubs, albeit, large fish in small ponds.
But even with this lowly-rated defence, an ex-bad boy in Lee Bowyer, an already failed Premier League player in Barry Ferguson, and a striker who supposedly couldn’t hit a barn door in Cameron Jerome, there was still a mysterious air of optimism swirling around St. Andrews, nobody could quite put their finger on it, but after that narrow defeat at champions, Manchester United, something seemed to happen, the general pessimism around the place began to lift ever so slightly.

As the games drew on, defeats against bitter rivals Aston Villa and disappointing displays against similar sides such as Burnley and Bolton followed, and the pessimism that had deviously followed this club for years, well for as long as many a travelled fan can remember, seemed to yet again over-shadow the football club – Until something strange happened.

Around mid-November, a flamboyant Chinese man, not very well liked around the industrialised Birmingham, swanned into a press-conference with words and figures the fans of Birmingham City had never heard of before, £40 million, big club, challengers, ambition, all these things began to excite the Birmingham City fans, well the ones that were spoken too, or who cared to voice an opinion,

Soon after this, another strange thing happened, the team just were not losing games, and it seemed to stretch, and stretch, hitting the immense heights of fifteen games, twelve in the league, something never done before at the football club, and suddenly, the optimism that had avoided Birmingham all this time, decided to cast it’s spell over the club. Unable to avoid the new light shining over the club, Birmingham sit in the lofty heights of the top half of the Premier League table, challenging for a European place and already becoming excited at the players they could see plying their trade down St. Andrews come August 2010.

The only obstacle to stands in the way of this club, and pushing onto the next level, is keeping up with the Jones’, spending what is required, and doing it wisely. If the plea made by Mr Yeung is kept, the light of optimism could soon blind Birmingham.

Jay