Birmingham City v Stevenage
Tuesday 11.3.25.EFL League 1.Birmingham City (1) 2 (Kieran Dowell 27 pen, Paik Seung-ho 47) v Stevenage (0) 1 (Jake Young 90+4). Attendance: 25,544 inc. 281 away fans
Birmingham City: Ryan Allsop, Christoph Klarer (captain), Ben Davies, Alex Cochrane, Paik Seung-ho, Tomoki Iwata (Marc Leonard, 63), Alfons Sampsted (Krystian Bielik, 69), Willum Willumsson, Kieran Dowell, Emil Hansson (Alfie May, ht - Grant Hanley, 90), Jay Stansfield (Keshi Anderson, 69). Unused subs - Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Lukas Jutkiewicz.
Stevenage: Murphy Cooper, Dan Butler, Carl Piergianni (Dan Sweeney, 84), Nick Freeman, Dan Kemp, Charlie Goode, Jamie Reid (Jake Young, 84), Dan Phillips, Louis Thompson (Harvey White, 75), Eli King (Elliot List, 66), Brandon Hanlan (Louis Appere, 66). Unused subs - Taye Ashby-Hammond, Lewis Freestone.
Tonight saw first-placed Birmingham City welcome twelfth-placed Stevenage, as this unrelenting League 1 campaign threw up yet another round of midweek fixtures. Thirty-one points separated these two clubs in the table, as they stepped out onto the lush greenery of St. Andrew's Knighthead Park, amidst a cacophony of fireworks and pyrotechnics, to the strains of Harry Lauder’s stirring anthem “Keep Right On!”
There was an added incentive for a few occasional Blues watchers to attend tonight, whereby those who purchased a ticket for this game would collect double priority points, which can be used towards determining which sales window date they will slot into, to apply for tickets for the forthcoming: EFL ‘Vertu’ Trophy Final which is being played at Wembley, on Sunday April 13th, against Peterborough United. Incidentally, Posh, not Birmingham, will be wearing royal blue for the occasion.
It was announced earlier today that Blues will now receive a total of 43,356 tickets for the final, after the club were allocated an additional 6,490, following a request to the EFL for more. Blimey! The EFL co-operating with Birmingham City, bloomin’ heck! There’s a first time for everything 😳 I’ve already got mine. Personally, I was only here tonight because I was passing by and saw that the lights were on, so I popped in to see what was occurring.
At the Quarter Final stage of the Vertu thing, Blues knocked tonight’s opponents out of the competition, when Jay Stansfield scored the only goal of the game, in the 83rd minute at Broomhall Way (AKA the Lamex Stadium). These two sides are also scheduled to play each other there again on the 22nd of this month, in a league fixture. But, as that is an international weekend I suspect that game will more than likely be postponed and rearranged for some other time. Que sera!
Elsewhere tonight Wrexham lost 0-2 at Reading, Bolton were beaten 3-2 at Bristol Rovers and Charlton leapfrogged over Stockport into fourth place following their 0-1 win at Crawley. If Blues took a moment to glance in their rear view mirror, they might just about be able to make out Wycombe and Wrexham tailing some way behind them. Don't count your chickens before they’re hatched n’ all that jazz, but tonight’s win over ‘Boro' opened up a massive 14 point gap at the top of the pile, over those two nearest chasers.
On Saturday Wycombe entertain Wrexham, while Stockport visit Bolton. The Valley will be staging an Athletic’s afternoon: Charlton v Wigan! S’all getting a bit cutthroat in that battle for the four available play-off places. Blues themselves travel to 19th placed Northampton at the weekend.
Barring an abject capitulation by Birmingham City between now and the end if the season, one of the League 1 promotion spots, at the very least, already appears to be signed, sealed and heading to St. Andrew's, by special delivery. As an aside, I was asked tonight for: a short quote to sum up one thing that has been most noticeable about all of the games that I have watched in this division this season. That's easy! ‘Dogshit-refereeing’. And tonight’s was the worst I’ve seen so far. Err, moving swiftly on then.
Blues keeper, Ryan Allsop, was called into action twice during the first half, pushing Jamie Reid’s effort round the post , before doing well to adjust his footing to collect Dan Phillips’ deflected shot. But for the most part, it was the home side dominating the ball, forcing ‘Boro’ onto the back foot and patiently weighing the Hertfordshire based visitors up, until the opportunity to deal a killer blow arose.
Jay Stansfield (he doesn't just score lots of goals) threaded a pass to Alfons Sampstead, who was pushed off the ball inside the visitors area by Louis Thompson, giving Kieran Dowell the opportunity to score his second penalty in successive games to finally give Blues the lead, that had been coming, in the 27th minute.
Woo hoo! Go me! I just recorded and posted my first ever Substack video content. “Ain’t no stopping us now… we’ve got the groove!” So, how about transcribing these notes in something resembling some of kind of chronological order in future too!? Hmm, one thing at a time. My middle name, if I had one, ought to be Luddite. On another day, Dowell might have helped himself to a first-half hat-trick, but he headed a chance narrowly wide and thumped a string shot over the bar. Mustn't be too greedy, eh!
Inside the second minute of the second-half, Alex Cochrane’s corner kick, caused problems for the visitors, Alfie May (who’d only just entered the fray as an impact sub, a minute or so before) teed up a shooting opportunity for Paik Seung-ho, who netted from just inside ‘Boro's’ area and Blues were on their way to extending their unbeaten home league record to nineteen games on the spin.
Brandon Hanlan and Dan Kemp both had half-chances to get a goal back shot for Stevenage, but this well regimented Blues backline, were while having none of it… and as the visitors left themselves open while trying to salvage something from out if the game, May almost added a third goal, but lobbed the ball over the bar after working himself into a good position
Jake Young came on late in the day from the subs bench and four minutes into added time he got a touch on Dan Butler’s free-kick and scored a consolation goal. But it was far too late for Alex Revell’s side to even contemplate staging an unlikely comeback. The Blues faithful had already been serenading the 281 away fans, with heartfelt strains of: “You've seen the Blues now f*ck off home!” for ages by then. FT: Blues 2 v Boro 1
The visitors had employed quite a lot of strongman tactics tonight and the match referee had never really got on to of it. Or much else actually. But there's some competitive lads sporting the royal blue of Birmingham City this season and if you want to rough one of their number up, then you had better be prepared to deal with all of them coming back atcha! Just saying.
The free shuttle buses from and back to the City Centre (i.e, very close to Birmingham New Street) worked their magic again tonight and I was soon hot-footing it down the escalator to Platform 11A, in the nick of time to catch an earlier than planned train home. It was a shame about the misbehaving race-goers on board, returning from day on the piss at Cheltenham, who caused a few problems.
But there are also a few ‘competitive lads’ amongst the regular clientelle on these post-match nighttime trains, who quickly close ranks and cover each others backs too, so an uneasy truce was observed and nothing got too out of hand. If only the followers of other sports could behave a bit more civilised, eh!? Y’know, like what us football fans do 😇