Any discussion of Birmingham City and their trophy-less fans starts on the basis of sympathy. This is only partly to do with Steve Bruce’s current failure to produce in the Blues any kind of high-powered Premiership resurrection.
It has do to with their accent (think Nigell Mansell) and their city, a huge concrete jungle that is essentially Dullsville UK.
Which is why it was such a surprise when Karren Brady turned up in charge of the club in 1993. Glamorous and attractive, Brady was the first lady of football, a pioneering woman who eased the way for television chef Delia Smith to take over at Norwich — with similarly mixed results.
Brady started her professional life as an 18-year-old presenter on a London radio station, then went to Saatchi & Saatchi before she turned up at the semi-pornographic Sport newspaper group, owned by David Sullivan, and rose quickly to
director level. Then Sullivan took her to Birmingham and there she still is, this week defending Bruce after disappointing defeats at the hands of fellow strugglers Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion.
There were outbreaks of inescapable girliness along the way. She married Birmingham’s Canadian striker Paul Peschisolido, who has since moved on (clubs not women, they’ve got two kids) and various people have had a go just because she has breasts instead of a beer belly like her peers.
In reality she’s a hard-headed businesswoman: she was the one who decided to sell Peschisolido, believing that Barry Fry — the manager at the time — might feel he should keep the boss’s hubby in the team when the player was out of form.
She had television documentaries made about her when she took the club public in February 1997, making Brady the youngest MD of any public company in the UK.
She has also hosted her own TV show — The Brady Bunch — and written three books — Brady Plays the Blues, United and Trophy Wives.
Then there are the football club’s community projects: Kids for a Quid, Family Stand and Community Classroom have been emulated and copied elsewhere. Ultimately Brady has been the backbone of Birmingham’s return to respectability. Managers have come and gone at St Andrews, but Brady remains in place, fighting her corner, having her say. Crucially, since her arrival in 1993, Brady has turned the club from a run-down outfit fighting for survival into a vibrant, profitable business.
But to explain fully the impact Brady has had on the Brummies, we need to look back at their 128-year history. We need to understand why Birmingham, who should have achieved European and Championship glory like neighbours Aston Villa, have never won the league or FA Cup. They did become the first English team ever to compete in Europe in 1957, but despite a Uefa Cup final against Barcelona, silverware remained elusive.
So let’s start at the beginning, 1875, when they were called, erm, Small Heath Alliance (a suitably modest title) after a band of cricketers got together to form a football team. They turned professional in 1885.
It was only in 1905 that they officially became Birmingham City, flag-bearers for England’s second-largest metropolis behind London. Their opening game, against Middlesbrough, attracted a crowd of more than 30 000 and by 1931 they had built the then state-of-the-art St Andrews and surged into the FA Cup final. Ironically that was against Brummie rivals West Bromwich Albion, who won 2-1 and set the pattern for the 20th century failure that came to be part and parcel of being a Blues fan.
Back in those days, they boasted a chap called Joe Bradford, who scored 267 goals in 445 games for the club — but even he didn’t help. They had something of a purple patch when they went up to the top division under Arthur Turner in 1955 and then finished in their highest-ever league position — sixth.
They also reached the 1955 FA Cup final, and did what was expected —they lost to Manchester City despite City’s famous German parachutist-turned-prisoner-of-war goalkeeper Bert Trautmann finishing the game with a broken neck.
In 1960, after pioneering English clubs’ entry into Europe, Birmingham ploughed a path to another big final — but lost the Uefa Cup showdown 4-1 to Barcelona, Spain’s own second-city giants.
A decade later, along came a true-blue hero in England striker Trevor Francis. Typically, after starting out at Plymouth Argyle, he came to the not-unimpressive St Andrews and was just getting going with 133 goals for the Blues when he was tempted away to Nottingham Forest by Brian Clough and became England’s first £1-million transfer. Francis went on to clinch the European Cup for their Midlands rivals.
Other stars like Bob Latchford and Kenny Burns kept the club punching above their weight in the top flight, but they were never going to challenge the monopoly on glory held then by Liverpool, Leeds and Arsenal.
A long history of failure nearly ended in the inevitable. With football clubs demanding more and more investment, unfashionable Birmingham were on the brink of going out of business when Sullivan came along to rescue them in 1993.
Sullivan is not some knight on a white charger. He made his money out of pornography and dodgy bars — and was backed by the Gold brothers, a shadowy pair with similar backgrounds in porn. Nice bank accounts, shame about the industry.
Fry, a colourful non-league manager, stepped up a few divisions to take charge under Sullivan and the newly arrived MD Brady, who was treated with some suspicion as a woman in a distinctly macho world.
Fry took them up to the first division in 1995, then Francis returned to boss his old club but failed to push them on to the glories Brady had encouraged the club to expect. They got to the League Cup final — but failed on penalties against Liverpool. Poor old Birmingham, always second-best.
Brady wouldn’t stand for that.
So she turned to Bruce, the great Manchester United captain, in late 2001. After an unsuccessful stint at Huddersfield, Bruce had moved to Crystal Palace, where the fans still haven’t forgiven him for his sudden departure to the Midlands.
Bruce took Birmingham straight in to the play-offs for a place in the Premiership, with local lad Darren Carter scoring the penalty that took them back to the big time.
Bruce has tried all sorts of things to put Birmingham up among the big boys.
French World Cup winner Christophe Dugarry was purchased without obvious success, Argentinian striker Luciano Figueroa didn’t have much impact and, of course, the pony-tailed Robbie Savage decided the club weren’t big enough for him earlier this season when he engineered a move to Blackburn Rovers and his old Wales boss Mark Hughes.
At the time, Savage claimed he wanted to go to Blackburn to be nearer his parents in North Wales. Sullivan made the very relevant point that Birmingham is actually a mile closer to his parents’ home than Blackburn and did all he could to keep the accurately named Savage on his books. He failed.
Emile Heskey was snapped up for a club record £6,25-million but you got the impression Liverpool were happy to let him go with the likes of Fernando Morientes waiting in the wings at Real Madrid to supplement an already bulging strike force.
Bruce has brought in 14 players this season — several of them free transfers and loan signings — for less than £10-million. His spending pales in comparison to Chelsea’s £300-million investment under Roman Abram-ovich, whose dealings are little shadier even than those of Sullivan and the Gold brothers.
But loan deals are costly, especially when the best of them, Arsenal’s Jermaine Pennant finds himself in jail for three months after a second drinking and driving offence — and still getting paid £3 000 a week.
Throughout this rebuilding phase, Brady has been working away in the background, desperately attempting to balance the books.
Some of Bruce’s moves have been close to inspirational. Matthew Upson, the young Arsenal defender, is an England prospect; Senegal’s Salif Diao deserved more than Liverpool offered, and Maik Taylor is a reasonable goalkeeper. Nightclubbing Dwight Yorke still has goals in him, David Dunn has undeniable talent and Darren ”Sicknote” Anderton still shows flashes of the old magic.
But where has it led them? In recent weeks they shocked Liverpool with a 2-0 win but followed up with devastating defeats at the hands of doomed neighbours West Brom and struggling Crystal Palace.
The footballing jury remains out on Birmingham. They have 32 points from 29 games, they’re just beyond the creeping tentacles of relegation and they’re still ahead of supposedly big clubs like Fulham, Blackburn and Southampton.
And, despite those recent defeats and rumours of Bruce going to his home-town club Newcastle, we can always fall back on the reliable figure of Brady.
When she said of the drink-driving Pennant: ”Jermaine knows the move to Birmingham is a really good opportunity. He has got himself in a difficult position and needs guidance off the pitch,” it somehow feels more reassuring than all the quotes from Sullivan and Bruce.
She’s a good MD. Birmingham may never rise to the heights of Chelsea, Manchester United or even Aston Villa, but she’s the girl who’ll do all she can to keep the club that can’t win trophies up with the big boys.