Birmingham Promoted!!

Super Kevin Philips

Blues are back where they belong- in the Premier League!! Ultimately they could’ve drawn and still been promoted, but it was still a nervy SIX minutes of stoppage time waiting for the final whistle. Blues had gone ahead thanks to a calmitous piece of goalkeeping from the Reading keeper, with Keith Fahey benefitting. Then Super Kev put us two up with a well taken goal, before Reading went straight down the other end, pulling one back and leaving half an hour of nervy pacing around. But we hung on, and are promoted in second place.

GOALS: Fahey (19), Philips (60), Matejovsky (61)

Congratulations to the Blues!! Bring on the Premier League- we’re back, and I’ll be back (probably) for a lot of the games.

Steve’s Weekend Update

It’s monday morning- two classes today, and a large amount of free time due to exam preparation. So here’s an update from my weekend!

Birmingham One Win Away From The Prem

After Burnley’s 1-0 victory against Sheffield United last night, my team Birmingham City are only one win away from joining Park Ji-Sung and a myriad of other players in the English Premier League.

Next weekend sees us take on Preston North End, with kick off at 5.20pm- 1.20am Korean time. I’ll be watching (unless Sheffield United lose to Swansea earlier in the day- then we’ll be promoted regardless of our result).

Come on Blues!

Enough Of The Baseball- How About The Footie?

I’ve got so caught up in the start of the

Doom and Despair in the City of Dreams

If only I could be as ebullient about the Blues latest efforts as I am about Hanshins (see below for Hanshin News and Pictures!). Alas it looks like we’re going down- condemned to another spell in the Championship. D-day came on May 3rd, as the Blues faced Fulham in a “winner-takes-almost-all” battle for survival against Bolton and Reading. Suffice to say the Blues took nothing, giving Fulham an unlikely chance to save themselves from the drop, while Bolton secured Premiership survival by beating Sunderland 2-0 at home.

One Game To Go

With one game to go, we need a miracle…

17: Fulham , -23GD, 33
18: Reading, -29GD, 33
19: Blues -19GD, 32

Fulham are away to Portsmouth, Reading away to Derby, and Blues take on Blackburn. Of all the various combinations that would keep us safe, the key is that we have to get more points than both Fulham and Reading. If we only had one more point, all we’d have to do is win against a Blackburn team that has nothing to play for. Just one more point and we’d probably be safe…

A Season Of Failure

Where to start with the postmortem? Well, I won’t. I’ll save that till after 11pm (Japan time) on Sunday. But it’s a heartbreaking end to the season, with the Blue boys seemingly snatching doom and despair from the jaws of success and glory.

Tangled Up in Blues

One point gained before kick-off became two points lost yesterday, as the Boys in Blue squandered a fantastic 2-0 lead to draw with Liverpool 2-2. Once more McLeish’s hopeless optimism that “this point could keep us in the league” hid the fact that our defence was truly terrible, while it may well be that the failure to clinch three will send us down. I’m not a big fan of McLeish, but the same can’t be said of Seb Larsson. Yet another magical free kick gave us the two goal cushion, equalling if not bettering his past efforts this season. With him, Mikael Forssell, and James McFadden, not to mention Zarate on the bench, I really do believe we should be able to survive…

At the time I was actually quite pleased with the result, although I think this was more the result of alcohol and a nervy final 10 minutes when our confidence seemed to crumble with every pass of the ball. Me and Masashi had gone into OKC (Okayama City) to watch the Chelsea ManU game (another cracker by the way), and then I’d found out that the next match on in the OzzieBar was the Blues one! So, of course, we had to stay, meaning we missed the last train and had to get a taxi all the way back to Kojima . I would have normally just gona to a MangaCafe to wait for the first train a few hours later, but having things to do today meant I needed those crucial 4-6am hours of sleep!

Surprisingly the OzzieBar, a gaijin institution in OKC with its gloomy interior and slightly worn out, depressing feel, was as much full of Japanese as foreigners. Me and Mashi made a whole posse of Japanese friends, and drank way too much before karaoke-ing it up with our new found compadres.

Results and The Table

Birmingham 2 Liverpool 2
Man City 2 Fulham 3
Spurs 1 Bolton 1
Wigan 0 Reading 0

So no one lost, and Fulham won. The updated table is to the right. Two games to go!!