Clarity – it’s the McLeast we deserve.
He’s gone then.
Alex McLeish appears to be heading inexorably for the Villa Park hotseat having found events at St Andrew’s post-relegation too hot to handle. Confusion, anger, bewilderment and supposition has reigned supreme across the city of Birmingham since my good friend Colin Tattum at the Birmingham Mail broke the news of McLeish quitting Blues late Sunday afternoon.
So we’re relegated again.
Not that February 27th 2011 is somehow ever going to be a distant memory now that we’ve dropped out of the land of milk and honey for the 3rd time in 4 Premier League seasons. Far from it – in fact there’s a need to cling to that day for Blues fans as succour…comfort if you will, from what has happened to us time and again as a club during my lifetime.
Call me an old fuddy duddy, but there’s precious little new music that excites me these days.
When you work for a radio station, as I have done since joining BRMB in 1998, it usually follows that you spend most spare time in your car or at home listening to the place you work for, partially out of a subconscious loyalty to your paymasters and partially down to ego as you want to see whether your colleagues mention how good your show is during theirs. Which never usually happened in my case.
I miss my Dad.
It’s coming up to the 3rd anniversary of my old man’s passing from cancer, and for some reason I’m thinking more deeply about this impending date than either of the first 2 years I was forced to deal with it. Perhaps it’s because Mum has finally been able to sell the family home where we moved to nearly 30 years ago and it’s the realisation within me that we as a family have reached the end of an era.
Two weekends full of work, despite the fact that the Premier League & Championship were on hiatus for the first 12 days of it. I was originally down to work the first Saturday afternoon of International weekend as well as my usual Sunday evening stint on talkSPORT, but got a call Friday morning to come down early and cover Friday evening’s Kick Off show. Not only that, but my Sunday schedule was now to be an afternoon shift presenting live coverage of Scotland’s friendly with Brazil live from the Emirates Stadium. I hope my usual Sunday evening listeners miss me ;o)
For a change it’s been something of a quiet week for me these past 7 days…although the emergency talkSPORT call did come on Monday morning – but not for Alan Brazil but instead for a poorly Adrian Durham our Drivetime host, and so a quick dash to Birmingham International was in order to cover 4-7pm alongside Darren Gough.
Until 1994, my gigging life was, shall we say, a bit sporadic. Not to mention a bit regionally confined.
My college band Dangerous Games never dared venture outside the West Midlands Conurbation, save for one trip to play at Wrexham University for Keith’s best mate in the worst fog I can ever remember driving in – Shotgun Wedding were braver and got as far as Cardiff (at least twice), Morecambe & London, but these were one off shows rather than part of any ‘tour’ or grand design.
We did it.
We only bloody well did it!
136 years on from the formation of the club that I love, Birmingham City finally own a piece of silverware that cannot be derided as either ‘Mickey Mouse’ or ‘tinpot’ by anyone from the outside looking in. And those that do still come out with such small-minded nonsense reveal ultimately more about themselves than about what we’ve gone and won.
It’s hard for me to stay out of recording studios for too long.
Tom Ross and I have been in creative mood once again, joining forces as The Bluenose Brothers to make an assault on the download charts (and your eardrums) with our new releases; a updated version of “Keep Right On” and a new Danter composition entitled “On Our Way” to commemorate Birmingham City’s upcoming trip to Wembley for the Carling/Milk/Rumbelows/Littlewoods final thingy.
