Remaining A Constant

There aren’t many constants at a football club. Manager, players, boards, even fans leave. Even, as Cardiff City have found recently, your club colours and badge may change given certain, unwanted, circumstances.

Today, twelve months since our last manager left, Chris Hughton departed for Premier League Norwich City. There is a certain irony about the team we beat in the play-off final a decade ago have poached our manager, and left us in the lurch to some extent.

It was one whirlwind of a season and I’d like to thank Chris Hughton for that. His enthusiasm, his excellent man management and his motivation we’re a constant, not to mention bringing the attacking football to St. Andrew’s that we’ve craved for so long, and for that I thank him. But now it’s onwards and upwards; we need a new manager, but the question is: who would want to come to us? We’ve been linked with Ian Holloway – but we’d need to pay money for him, money that we can’t afford to spend – we’ve also been linked with the likes of Gianfranco Zola, Lee Clark (the favourite to take over) and Mick McCarthy to name but a few.

Laying it our bare, we are a club in turmoil. A thread bare squad that Premier League teams may look to poach from (Hughton will definitely be looking at players like Curtis Davies), a transfer embargo (that may well be lifted in the coming days/weeks but at present is still weighing us down), corrupt owners who, to put it plainly, don’t have a pot to do their business in, and to top that little mess off; an owner facing money laundering charges.

It sounds bleak, and I don’t know how many more times we can rise above the controversy, like a phoenix out the ashes, and overcome the adversity. One thing us as fans can do though is make sure we support the team, and support the club. The thing we can all agree on is that we are being run extremely poorly and as fans we don’t deserve to be treated like this – no one does. But we’ve survived many a kick in the teeth before yet we stand back up, ready for the next sucker punch, because that’s what we’re used to and that’s what we’ll do, for the love of our club.

Out of all of this, we need to make sure that we are the one thing that remains a constant: managers depart, players leave, but the fans – the loyal fans – are there forever. It may be hard to pledge yourself to a club where you don’t know where you money is going, but in times of adversity sticking together and pulling through is the best thing, and the only thing, us as fans can do.

A New Beginning

After a short period of uncertainty, there is now an optimistic feeling amongst Blues fans and those associated with the club after this afternoon’s announcement that Chris Hughton has been named the manager of Birmingham City.

From the perspective of a young fan like myself, I am more than happy with the choice to appoint Hughton who I thought did a brilliant job at Newcastle before being unjustly sacked by the controversial Mike Ashley. Turning around Newcastle so soon after they got relegated; contributing to one of their best starts to a league season ever and gaining promotion at the first time of asking was a great achievement and something he can hopefully replicate in his first season at Birmingham.

Hughton then began Premier League life by successfully guiding Newcastle to mid-table safety in the first few months, before he was somewhat controversially sacked in December, shortly after a 3-1 defeat to West Brom whilst the club were eleventh in the table. This sent shockwaves throughout the Newcastle fans whom had taken to Chris Hughton and admired him as a manager. This was just another decision by Mike Ashley which further dampened his relationship with fans who weren’t too delighted with him beforehand.

Since then he has been out of work however when Alex McLeish resigned from his post at Blues almost two weeks ago, Chris Hughton was one of the first names mentioned amongst the Blues faithful, and was the first to be interviewed by acting chairman Peter Pannu for the vacant managers position.

Apparently impressing with his ideas and vision about attacking football in his meeting with Pannu, it seems as though the future may be a bit brighter for Birmingham City than we first thought. The appointment of Hughton has obviously pleased the majoirty of fans, but it will hopefully been a positive for the players too, as Hughton has previously been described as manager whom has a great releationship with his players.

Now is the time to forget the past with McLeish and relegation, and look to the future with a new manager in Chris Hughton at the helm who can hopefully bring a positive attitude and a much more pleasant style of attacking football to St. Andrews. Let’s hope that Hughton can repeat his successes at Newcastle here at Blues so we can get back to playing Premier League football as soon as possible.

Welcome To Birmingham City, Chris Hughton.