Birmingham City 3 v Fulham 1 - EFL Championship

Sunday 6th May 2018
at St. Andrew's Stadium
SkyBet EFL Championship
Birmingham City (2) 3
Lukas Jutkiewicz 15,
Harlee Dean 43,
Che Adams 89
Fulham (0) 1
Tom Cairney 84
Attendance: 27,608 (inc. 3,366 Fulham fans)

Birmingham City: 
David Stockdale, Maxime Colin, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Lukas Jutkiewicz (Che Adams 61), Harlee Dean, Sam Gallagher (Craig Gardner 71), Jacques Maghoma (Paul Robinson, 90), David Davis, Jota, Michael Morrison, Wes Harding.
Unused subs - Tomasz Kuszczak, Marc Roberts, Cheikh Ndoye, Josh Dacres-Cogley
Fulham:
Marcus Bettinelli, Ryan Frederick (Cyrus Christie 74), Ryan Sessegnon, Denis Odoi, Kevin McDonald, Stefan Johansen, Tom Cairney, Tim Ream, Lucas Piazon (Floyd Ayite 64), Matt Targett (Aboubakar Kamara 45), Aleksandar Mitrovic.
Unused subs - David Button, Rui Fonte, Oliver Norwood, Tomas Kalas

As you go through life, it’s a long, long road, there’ll be joys and sorrows too.
Another Championship campaign careered headlong towards the potential wreckage of what was being billed as 'Survival Sunday', with five clubs battling to avoid the two remaining places, that would see them joining (already relegated) Sunderland in League 1 next season.
And four of those teams were going head to head against opposition who had play-off and automatic aspirations of their own at the of the business end of the table.

The scene was set... and though all of the possible permutations, using the linear behaviour of the stars, the Duckworth-Lewis method, a best of three: paper, scissor,stone play off behind the bike sheds and: a vastly complicated version of the Oberwolfach problem, in which two regular graphs have the property that a complete graph on the same number of vertices can be decomposed into edge-disjoint copies of the given graph, and similar variables, equations and possible outcomes, had been hypothesised about and scrutinised over to the nth degree, by the hundreds of people spilling out onto the pavements outside numerous packed-solid bars around Digbeth, on a scorching hot West Midlands morning.

The nitty-gritty down to brass-tacks facts pertaining to any mathematical conundrum surrounding this lunch-time kick-off, were actually quite simple; in as much as: Birmingham City only had to win today and they would still be a Championship club next season, regardless of what happened anywhere else.
Simples? Err... possibly, but in reality, probably not (nothing ever is with Blues), because the team they had to beat was the high-flying and in-form Fulham, who arrived in the 'Second City' sat comfortably in third place in the table, unbeaten in their previous twenty three consecutive Championship games and vying for automatic promotion.

As it transpired, results elsewhere would've seen the Cottagers pip Cardiff City for second spot and a place in the Premier League, if they had taken all three points from Garry Monk's Birmingham City. But, they didn't... because, against all the odds, Blues won.
And they're staying up (once again), after taking their fight for survival right down to the wire, for the second season in a row.
Was it ever in any doubt? I'm far too polite to answer that one at great length, but... effing hell, yeah!
Ninety whole minutes before kick off, people were queuing to get into this do or die fixture and there wasn't a single seat left unsold in the whole of the ground... well, apart from those that are used as a buffer zone for segregation purposes.

The teams were warming up out on the pitch when I took my seat, with the home side split into three groups, one made up of the starting line up, another consisting of the goalkeepers and last but not least: the substitutes, who'd set up directly in front of my vantage point and included a certain Paul Robinson among their ranks. He would make his last ever appearance in a Blues shirt this afternoon, when he was introduced from the bench late in the game, and received a rapturous welcome on the occasion of his finale, from the St. Andrew's faithful, by way of an appreciation of the seven years service he has given the club.
The subs were stood in a circle playing a 'keepy uppy' game, whereby any player who lost control of the ball and didn't keep it airborne and moving within the group, had his ear tweaked by all of his other teammates who were involved in the exercise.
On the evidence of what I saw Craig Gardner's tabs must've been ringing by the time that the exercise (and pre-match entertainment) was finished.

The sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight... and a cacophony of noise greets both teams onto the pitch, for what promises to be the stuff of dreams (or nightmares) for the home side and/or
the difference between an uninterrupted passage to football's top flight for the visitors from West London, or a free ticket for the play off lottery for Slavisa Jokanovic's Cottagers.
The atmosphere was awe inspiring, breathtaking and a bit special.
It was edge of seats stuff as Fulham threatened to take an early lead, but Aleksander Mitrovic scuffed his chance off target from Matt Targett's left wing delivery.
Word began to spread around the crowdnthat Barnsley, one of the five teams fighting to avoid the drop had gone a goal behind at Derby County, which was good news for Blues, although it was best policy to get the job done themselves, just to be on the safe side, despite the obvious calibre of their opponents.

David Davis narrowly failed to connect with a sideways ball across the Fulham area from Lukas Jutkiewicz, with the visitors keeper having strayed momentarily out of position, but within a minute, Blues were back on the attack, as Michael Morrison's measure ball released Wes Harding on the right, who burst forward and drove a low cross towards Jutkiewicz at the near post, who diverted it just inside the upright to great acclaim... everybody was on their feet now and staying there for the duration of the game. The place was rocking.
Amidst all of the noise and carnival atmosphere, Barnsley conceded another goal at Pride Park and the crowd spontaneously burst into song, inspired by a section of fans in the Tilton Road End, belting out an impromptu version of Bob Marley's 'Three Little birds', y'know the one, even if you don't recognise the title: "Don't worry, 'bout a thing, cos every little thing, is gonna be alright!"

Mitrovic took responsibility for a free kick, twenty five yards from David Stockdale's goal, but he skied his effort over the bar and into the appreciative hordes of Blues fans behind the goal.
"Hang onto it... don't chuck it back!"
Jutkiewicz went close twice as the game continued at breakneck speed, but he headed into the side netting from Jacques Maghoma’s cross before seeing his next effort blocked by the Cottagers goalkeeper, Marcus Bettinelli's feet.
Stockdale denied Targett as the game headed towards half time and then St. Andrew's erupted, as Jota's left wing cross was met by Harlee Dean, who had escaped the attention of the visitors defence and found himself with enough space, and time, to plant a thumping header into the roof of the net.
In stoppage time, Stockdale pulled of a great save to deny Tom Cairney... and as the half time whistle sounded, all was well in B9.
HT: Blues 2 v Fulham 0

I don't recall any of the other half time scores being announced during the interval, or hearing anybody responding to events elsewhere during the second half, which was good, because it was important for Garry Monk to keep his team focused, so the lack of information was probably a conscious decision, while what was going on anywhere else was merely a peripheral distraction now, as Blues had their destiny in their own hands.
The home sides defence looked meticulously well organised. Blues players who had previously looked like surplus to requirements deadwood, who were seemingly only still at St. Andrew's to see out the remainder of their contracts, and who've never really aspired to very much until the arrival of the current coaching team, have grown in both confidence and stature over recent weeks... and they've begun to look like they've been given a new lease of life and are actually enjoying playing in the famous royal blue shirts, in front of the club's partisan and loyal fan base.

Maxime Colin won possession in the outside left birth and motored forward down the channel, showing a clean pair of heels to two opponents before knocking a diagonal ball into the path of Sam Gallagher, who directed a shot into the arms of the waiting Bettinelli.
In my humble estimation, Gallagher isn't quite as sharp as he was since returning to the first team after missing just over a month's worth of action through injury, he appears to need more time to get back up to speed, but that is a luxury that Blues simply didn't have this afternoon, so that nice Mr Monk has been having to shuffle the hand he has sparingly, but still effectively... as if there weren't already enough problems on his plate to digest. But he is dealing the difficult circumstances that he has inherited admirably.

Fulham were putting the squeeze on their hosts, while committing men forward and leaving themselves vulnerable to a sucker punch on the counter attack. The Cottagers favoured getting the ball out wide to Ryan Sessegnon and using him as an outlet for their attacking play, but while that tactic worked to a point, with Jota popping up just about anywhere across the front for Blues, the visitors had to be careful not to leave the left hand side of their defence unguarded when Sessegnon ventured forward.
Maghoma and Jota have developed an understanding and are capable of pulling the majority of defences in this division all over the place on their day. The latter was unceremoniously flattened just outside the away sides area, but Bettinelli was well placed to get down quickly and push Maghoma's curling free kick away.

With six minutes to go and the Blues faithful singing their side home towards the finishing line, Floyd Ayite managed to twist and turn his way out of a tight situation on the right hind side of Blues area and lofted a cross towards Cairney, who got his head to the ball and nodded it past Stockdale from the edge of the six yard box.
I suspect that under their previous manager, this is the point when Birmingham would've caved in and conceded at least one more goal... while capitulating and heaping even more misery on their long suffering fans. But that was then and this is now!
Stockdale saved heroically at full stretch to turn Aleksandar Mitrovic's header over the bar, as the tension in the ground threatened to push several thousand onlookers in the ground over their stress threshold tipping-point, but in the final minute of the scheduled ninety, Che Adams advanced towards the visitors area and twisted his hips one way, then the other, jinked past two defenders and calmly slotted the ball past Bettinelli.

Pandemonium, a massive sonic boom of noise, joyful abandon, flying limbs akimbo and a massive outpouring of relief consumed St. Andrew's. I think I might even be pregnant, given the manner in which a celebrating Bluenose (a complete stranger) mounted me as he celebrated 'enthusiastically' while I caught hold of somebody from the row in front of me who had actually fainted and was toppling headlong towards the stairs.
Amidst the cheery melee of chaos, Garry Monk introduced Paul Robinson from the bench to make his farewell appearance for Blues, albeit a cameo one and the stadium announcer appealed for the crowd to stay off of the pitch at full time. Of course, that was never going to happen, not after all the punishment that these ecstatic Blues fans had been subjected to for yet another season... and sure enough, as the final whistle sounded, thousands of people spilleded onto the sacred turf to have a party.

Over the years there have been some rather infamous pitch invasions at this ground, but there was no inclination for any of that sort of thing today. This was merely a celebration of the successful conclusion of one more final push, great escape story... and after the home faithful had applauded the Fulham fans and wished them well in the play offs, they returned to the stands to await Garry Monk, Pep Clotet, James Beattie and their players doing a lap of appreciation.
FT: Birmingham City 3 v Fulham 1
It wasn't until I sat down to write up this blog overview from my scribbled an barely decipherable notes, upon reaching my homestead via a combination of a two-legged train and car journey, that I realised; it's now been over three hours since I left St. Andrew's and I still didn't know any of the other final results in the Championship today as of yet

So, for the record, I've just checked... and this is how it all finished: Bolton Wanderers and Reading both stayed up with Blues, while Barnsley and Burton Albion will join Sunderland in League 1 next season.
Champions Wolves and second placed Cardiff City have both been promoted to the Premier league, while Fulham, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Derby County will battle it out for the final promotion spot via the play offs. So good luck to: Fulham, Boro and Derby!

Today marked the last Football League fixture that I'll be watching this season... so will somebody please shut the door and switch the lights off on the way out, I'm off to have a lay down.