Vew from Downunder

Last updated : 14 February 2011 By Mark Nicholson in Brisbane

Disneyland for Birmingham City fans. A place where everyone smiles at each other. Genuine happiness where you smugly grin in full knowledge that you are proud owners of six points for just 180 minutes work! Joy oh joy oh joy. You bask in the knowledge that even Chelski, Arsenal and Man Utd have never, never achieved more points in any two games. Okay we got our six points from Stoke on Trent and West Ham Olympic. But nevertheless we just got 1/6th of the seasons points total in six days.

To the game. We started well against a team who haven’t scored in the first 15 minutes of any game all season.  Ziggy should have scored but put a header over the bar. From there it was a less than epic struggle where not much happened. Then for me the moment of the match. Huth had the ball hit his hand. Huth then submitted his case for a Best Actor Oscar by falling to the ground holding his face. If anything smites our game more than obvious dives it’s straight out cheating like this. When will referees find the testicular fortitude to give these guys red cards. As I said the ball hit his hand not the other way around and it probably rightly so wasn’t a penalty. But please lets address this and get it out of our game. Why can’t the league take some action post game?

If this was a boxing match it would have gone to judges after 15 rounds (90min). And the judges would have given us the decision in no small way because of Huth below the belt punch. But also because 10 of the rounds we dominated. Yes we let in some soft counter punches. Carew and Pennant both got in a couple of glancing blows. But then so did Gardner, Ridgewell and Larsson. And of course Ziggy (nearly stardust) also put in a nice uppercut. But then overtime and a 16th round, Ziggy finally became Stardust and landed the perfect right cross. 7, 8, 9, 10 and out.

I love those  92nd minute goals. Mostly because they generally mean no comeback. Yes we have lived through exceptions much too painful to recall here. But what I like most about 92 min goals is all those fans who left early. Just in the rush to miss the traffic and make the early bus. There they stand in the bus queue or in car park keys in hand. And the unmistakable roar of a goal. Yes it’s alright for me to be smug sitting here in Queensland watching with only a six second commute to my bed; but it still makes me giggle to see the crowd celebrating and fans running back from the car park!

Now to the Newcastle game. To me Newcastle are the most dangerous of opponents over the last few games. Yes I know they couldn’t score against Blackburn but they did get 4 controversially against Arsenal. This game could now set us up for 2011. If we win this game then we could be 10th. Two weeks ago 20th looked more likely than 10th. Now one more win and we will be well and truly mid table.” If we” is start of another 15 paragraphs I could write. “Potentially”  probably another 10. I’m not going too. I ’m not going to upgrade the a Newcastle win on the Christmas present scale either (see post weds 9/2). For now I’m just going print out the League ladder showing us above the Villa with 2 games in hand. And then get it laminated so it doesn’t get all soggy when I dribble/cry on it.  For now all is right with the world and I couldn’t be happier if I had woken up this morning Egyptian!! I do have this nagging feeling though that I could still end up as Hosni Mubarak!