The Birmingham Courier
Match17 Aug 2030
10 matches without a win for Birmingham
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Birmingham are no longer polite ones.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Honest Ahanor in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Birmingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Real improvement from Junior Wilson at Birmingham
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Junior Wilson is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Nicolò Savona falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom19 Aug 2030
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Birmingham
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market19 Aug 2030
Bristol City watching Thiago Nicolás
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Birmingham have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market19 Aug 2030
Daniel Grant steps up from the Birmingham academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniel Grant has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market19 Aug 2030
Birmingham promote Daniel James from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel James has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market19 Aug 2030
One of our own: George Scott joins the Birmingham first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. George Scott is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
- Boardroom A promise the Birmingham board did not keep
- Player ratings Carlos Vicente stands above it all
- Squad The manager makes an example of Phil Neumann