BarryVernison

They might not have won that much but they are still a club with a proper history and tradition and a big fanbase; they aren't some plastic club with a lego ground like Reading or Cardiff. But if you want to talk about trophies, they are the club who has brought the only major trophy to this city for the best part of 20 years; when we've had chances to win one we've bottled it in both finals, they didn't bottle theirs-they didn't blame luck etc for not winning, they just got on and won.

Bitter about what?! A league cup and a milk cup? Small Heath has never been a big club. What a load of absolute nonsense. Exactly, Villa fans have nothing to really be bitter about with regards to them, but we seem to obsess over them.

You can be impressive even if you are on the back foot for certain parts of the game, you can then be on top for other parts of the game. Any idiot who knows the first thing about football will tell you that. But when they were under pressure, Noses got right behind the team. You take the mick out of them having a crowd of 18k, but if we were in their position I'd love to see what our attendances would be like. I just don't obsessively hate them like a lot of Villa fans do. That's just fact tbh, there's a link on this thread to a page that will tell you that for quite a lot of both clubs' history crowds have been pretty similar, and that they have overtaken us on occasion. The Blues are a big club with a proud history, God knows why we try and deny it and become all bitter about it. They are the club that bears the city's name and they are the club that dominates the city.

I got a free ticket to their game Saturday so went down-Blues were very impressive, and very unlucky not to gain at least a point. The Bluenoses we're fantastic too; it's summat we could learn from if we're on the back foot, all too often we get on the backs of the team, summat the Noses don't seem to do. As for what Robinson did; I totally agree with him. Watford players we're diving all over the place, and on that occasion the bloke Forestieri went down like he'd been shot, only to get up as soon as he realised the ref wasn't buying it. I honestly think Blues could push for the top 6 if they keep playing the way they did on Saturday.

To be honest we've had our fair share of scumbags play for us. All clubs do.

To be fair they've won more trophies than us in the best part of two decades.

Is it any more ridiculous than Kinnear taking over at Newcastle, or McLeish coming here?

I know someone who works at the club and knows some high-up people. There was a rumour doing the rounds last season after they got thumped at home by Watford that Yeung wanted to sack Clark and put in Zigic and Carr as joint-managers, because they couldn't afford a manager to replace him with so Yeung just wanted senior pros to do it.

They've tried basically offering him is one-year contract over 2 years (basically they get an extra year off him for free). You can only imagine his reaction..

Poyet apparently has 0 man-management skills. He strikes me as quite a smug clearing in the woods.

Helenius is an animal. I'm really looking forward to seeing him up front.

The sale of Redmond so cheaply shows how desperate their situation is. Davies I could understand; £2.25million for a bloke who's on hefty wages with just one year on his contract and who, let's face it, isn't great in the PL isn't that bad a deal. But Redmond is potentially a really good player; selling him for just £2mil is awful. Once they've sold them two, really they have no saleable assets. They aren't allowed a credit facility, loan or an overdraft with the bank. The next step to generate cashflow will be redundancies, which will be sad, because it won't be the players but people who work in places like the Ticket office or the club shop who will go. These people might not even be noses; they might be people who rely on their employment Blues to pay off the mortgage and look after their kids.

I feel a bit sorry for him, he was an absolute workhorse but just never really got a break.

Tbh though, you will find that in a lot of places in Birmingham itself Blues are the more popular club, especially my side of the city. Back in the day it was a lot more obvious; up until about the late-70s, they were had attendences of a very similar size to us, if not bigger than ours. Those fans are still around, and in Brum, they are just disillusioned with decades of rubbish.

Tbh you'll find that most of their fans tend to come from the centre of Brum, whereas a lot of us lot come from the outskirts.

Dunno if this slipped below the radar, but Trevor Francis' son was found not guilty of burgling Lee Hendrie yesterday. Tbh, it sounds like Hendrie set the whole thing up to get the insurance pay out. If that's the case he should be charged himself.

Same, none of my family we're interested in football. A neighbour who used to get free tickets 'cos he worked for Ellis took me down until I was old enough to go down with mates.

I genuinely think Palace will do well to surpass THAT Derby team, they are dreadful, especially with no Zaha or Murray. I think Hull will just about stop up; a lot of grit and fight in that team, a few decent players and Potato head is shrewd enough to keep them up. I think Stoke will be right in the mire, and possibly Swansea if all this stuff with Laudrup carries on. Cardiff will be in the thick of it too; they aren't a great team.

Vlaar as club captain, that much is obvious I think. If he's out the team for whatever reason at some point, I'd be tempted to give it to Matt Lowton or Gabby if i was PL.

My first game was a 2-1 home defeat to Rotherham in the old Div 3 in 1971; God knows why that game would get anyone hooked, but from that moment I was addicted. The atmosphere was fantastic (well to my young self).

Maybe you're right, but rumours are abound that they are getting Ravel Morrison back. If he wasn't such a nutter he'd be in United's first team right now, he's gonna be a top player in the Championship if they get him back. And Electric Cigarettes... Fair play to them for putting HHHO on all junior, infant and academy kits mind.

By the way, if anyone can find Steve Rotherham on Facebook then his profile is comedy gold-I think that 'Nat' who messaged you might be his Mrs. Some of the pictures on his Profile are, well...

To be honest there are far worse things to be supporting than gambling. I'd hate to be a Newcastle, Blackpool or Hearts fan who parades 'Wonga' around every time they put their club's shirt on. That is an enterprise set up purely to take advantage of the dis-advantaged. Gambling is like Drinking or any other vice; done in moderation, and with amounts you can afford, it causes no real harm, and can actually act as a source of entertainment.

Anyone just a tad worried they might make a good fist of it next season? They finished last season in decent form, and Clark, for all his obvious retarded-esque failings, seems to be following our model in buying young and hungry players (albeit players nowhere near as good as our own). It seems to me teams like that often tend to do OK in that league.

Macclesfield Town. I lived up there for ten years, still go up and watch every now and then. Them and Luton quite possibly have had the worst grounds to grace the Football League in the past twenty years or so mind.