can someone explain why there is a strong feeling of hatred towards birmingham? i only started to go to games as a child in the late 90's but it appears we have a real dislike of them and im clueless to why. cheers :thumbsup:
In 1993, flush with cash from the Collymore sale, we were riding high in what's now called the Championship under Barry Fry. Fry expressed his love of Southend and how he'd "walk over broken glass" for the club. Things were going great on the pitch and we were witnessing the most exciting football I've seen in 25+ years at Roots Hall with Fry believing in attack as the best form of defence. Our previous two games had seen us go to the Baseball Ground and Roker Park (that's Derby and Sunderland's old grounds if you're too young) and win both deservedly by 2 clear goals; a month earlier we'd put six past Oxford at home. This was heady times indeed. The Premiership looked a realistic target and if we'd have got there we'd have shaken a few teams up for sure with our all-out attack football featuring the likes of Ricky Otto and Andy Ansah on the wing; the likes of Chrissy Powell and Gary Poole bombing forward from full-back at every opportunity to feed an arsenal of no less than three future Premiership forwards and, er, Gary Jones.
The TV companies seemed to agree as they'd chosen our home game against Leicester for the live game the third time that season - we'd already featured with a 1-1 all draw against former double European Champions Nottingham Forest and a 4-1 thrashing of Millwall to christen the New Den's first ever game. It seemed like anything was possible... and then that fateful Leicester game.
The actual game was a something of a non-event; I think the only 0-0 of Barry Fry's Southend regime. It's highlight was the dwarf-fighting and bitch slapping between Derek Payne and David Speedie, which saw both midgets sent off. The whole day was however played out in the shadow of news from St Andrews where the the second city's second club were looking for a new manager for their distinctly second rate team. Birmingham were a sleeping giant we were told. Well, they were certainly sleeping: whilst the mighty Southend were in third and eying up the Premiership, Birmingham City who had done nothing for years were in the relegation zone and were eying up the third division, again. We weren't too sure they were giants either, well not unless you were Derek Payne or David Speedie. But after years of non-achievement Birmingham City were under new ownership, in the form of porn baron David Sullivan and fellow pornographers the Gold Brothers, the type of despicable *******s who'd want to later own W*** H**. Their chief executive was Karen Brady, whilst we were run by Vic Jobson. Surely Fry couldn't be tempted away, not whilst the Premiership was within our grasp?
Alas, it was clear from the post-match interview that Barry Fry was no longer willing to walk over broken glass to manage Southend where he'd been offered a job for life. Instead he had been seduced by a whiff of Karen Brady's perfume and his mind was no longer on the Southend job but up the M40.
How could he swap the dream of the top flight for the third division?
I was 13 years old and believed that the world was fair and that being the best team was sufficient to come out on top. That day I learnt a cruel lesson: it's not about how good you are, but how much money you have. Fry, that Judas ******* took his 30 pieces of silver and with it the dreams of thousands of Southend fans. Not only that, but he came back and poached his coaching staff, including David Howell who was still registered as a player - an act for which Birmingham should have had points deducted for. He then came back and stole half of our team.
Birmingham deprived me of my childhood innocence.
Barry Fry you ****ing Judas *******, Karen Brady, David Sullivan, Birmingham City may you all rot in hell you utter, utter *****.
