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| Outside St. Andrew's Stadium earlier today. |
With a belated inquest into the murderous pub bombings of 1974 opening this week, it seemed like an appropriate time to post the following information, on the day that the Justice for the 21 campaigners, including bereaved relatives of the victims, were holding a bucket collection to raise funds to cover their legal costs, prior to today's Championship fixture between: Birmingham City and Blackburn Rovers.
The following text is copied, verbatim, from the Justice for the 21 crowd-funder page that appeared online a little over a year ago:
The biggest mass murder of innocent lives in this country.
The people who committed the crime have NEVER been brought to justice by the authorities.
On November 21st 1974 two bombs went off in two Birmingham pubs. 21 people died, hundreds were injured, some of these were life changing.
Normal everyday people, having a drink after work, or just starting a night out with friends.
It devastated families, and the community. No answers have been forthcoming, and the families have continued there fight with no help from our justice system.
They have recently tried and failed to get legal aid. Below is an account of recent events ( 12/11/17), in the words of Julie Hambleton, who lost her sister Maxine in the blast:
We've received devastating news today, where the legal aid agency have refused our application for funds to be represented at the forthcoming judicial review (where we are challenging the Coroner's decision - he has used his wide discretion to exclude the murderers from the inquest - who made the bombs, who directed them, who carried them, who planted them and their associates) As such, we are now looking to the great people of our country to help us challenge the Coroner and help us raise money to do so.The fact that the authorities continue to create barriers stopping us from being legally represented, only adds to the myth & rumour that they do not want the truth to be in the public domain. What is it they're are so scared of us knowing?
Why do they thwart us at every opportunity?
We are not the murderers!
We went to the Legal Aid Agency because a judge found that there was sufficient merit for the challenge to be heard before a panel of judges – the Legal Aid Agency appears not to think there is such merit or sufficient public interest to award public funding for such an important challenge.
This is despite the fact that public funding has been and continues to be made available to the Coroner, West Midlands Police, Home Office, Police Federation and others to defend his Ruling, but NOT to us (the victims' families). We are therefore now with our backs against the wall – again – with important deadlines to be met before the two day hearing in December and urgently require £20,000 to continue to fund our legal representation so we can argue our case at its highest. This is yet another example of how the families are continuously being obstructed from getting to the truth and from having fair access to Equality of Arms in legal funding. Ironically, if we were in Northern Ireland, we would not have to even apply for legal aid, because the judge has found merit in our case!
Please help us raise our plight.
We are desperate for funds and need all the help we can get to fight for our loved ones who are not here to fight for for truth, justice & accountability themselves. Even if it is £1 - we desperately need YOUR help!
Please. Please help us!
More information: http://justice4the21.blogspot.com/
Contact details: via @Justice4the21 Twitter account
To be honest, there wasn't very much separating these two sides today either, even though the home side began the afternoon in the ascendancy and finished the game with a flurry, the game could've gone either way, during the time sandwiched in between those two book ends, as Garry Monk's side let the chance to consolidate their lead pass them by, and Rovers scored twice in between Adams' double salvo.
Daivd Raya, the Blackburn keeper, denied Harlee Dean and Maxime Colin, the latter rather fortunately, at the second attempt, as Blues got stuck into their visitors from the off, while Adams was frustrated by two defensive blocks, as the 'high on confidence' peppered Raya's goal with shots from the edge of the area.
But the breakthrough goal came in the sixteenth minute, when Gary Gardner won the ball in Blues half, before stroking a measured ball forward into the path of Adams, who strode forward with purpose, before clipping an angled shot across Rovers goal, that nestled into the bottom left hand corner of the net.
Having given themselves the apparent luxury of a one goal cushion, Blues, rather uncharacteristically, seemed to let their work rate drop and allowed Blackburn to get a foothold in the game, and they were almost punished by the visitors before the break, when the lively former Gillingham midfielder, Bradley Dack, unlocked Birmingham's usually reliable defence, with a clever through ball that set up Danny Graham with a great opportunity, but Lee Camp kept the ball out of his net with a great save.
HT: Blues 1 v Rovers 0
Boosted by their efforts in the last fifteen minutes before the interval, Tony Mowbray's side came out for the second half all guns blazing, and seven minutes after the restart they were on level terms as Charlie Mulgrew netted the equaliser directly from a corner kick. Of course, there are still those amongst the St. Andrew's crowd who still want to blame Camp for everything and anything, but this is the third time that Mulgrew has repeated this party trick so far this season, so just maybe, somebody really ought to have been guarding that near post, to be on the safe side.
Rovers had grasped the momentum now... and only a last ditch block by Blues captain Michael Morrison, stopped Dack from giving the visitors the lead.
Roared on by a partisan home crowd, who perhaps, it could be said, haven't been quite as vociferous at several recent games that have been played at St. Andrew's, Blues began to find there way again, and Lukas Jutkiewicz went close with a low shot that flew inches past the upright. 'Juke; hasn't been finding the net as often as he did earlier in the season, but his record for assists is ssecond to none in the Championship, that explains his apparent 'drought'... well, that and the fact that is strike partner is on fire at the moment.
Kerim Mrabti, on in place of Jacques Maghoma, continues to catch the eye, after his recent capture as a 'free agent', and he would've restored the hosts lead, had it not been for the agility of Raya in Rovers goal. Adams too, had the scent of another goal in his nostril once again, but Jack Rodwell did well to block his strike that was on target.
With just seven minutes remaining, Camp was wrong-footed, and could do nothing to stop Graham's shot from ending up in the back of his goal, via two deflections en route.
But Blackburn weren't given the opportunity to run the clock down and see the game out, to claim the three points, because, within ninety seconds, that Adams guy, had made himself a yard of space from Colin's pass forward and although the angle was tight, his aim was true... and the noise in the ground nearly took the roof off.
With full time approaching, Gardner almost won the day for Blues, with a dipping long range free kick that Raya did well to guide just over his bar.
But there was still to be a dramatic finale to this entertaining game of football, when Adam Armstrong rode two challenges, before feeding a pass to Dack, who unleashed a shot from twelve yards out, that initially caused some Rovers fans to celebrate, because they thought it had gone in, but Blues fans shared a collective sigh of relief as it whizzed a matter of millimetres past the left hand post.
The following text is copied, verbatim, from the Justice for the 21 crowd-funder page that appeared online a little over a year ago:
The people who committed the crime have NEVER been brought to justice by the authorities.
On November 21st 1974 two bombs went off in two Birmingham pubs. 21 people died, hundreds were injured, some of these were life changing.
Normal everyday people, having a drink after work, or just starting a night out with friends.
It devastated families, and the community. No answers have been forthcoming, and the families have continued there fight with no help from our justice system.
They have recently tried and failed to get legal aid. Below is an account of recent events ( 12/11/17), in the words of Julie Hambleton, who lost her sister Maxine in the blast:
Why do they thwart us at every opportunity?
We are not the murderers!
This is despite the fact that public funding has been and continues to be made available to the Coroner, West Midlands Police, Home Office, Police Federation and others to defend his Ruling, but NOT to us (the victims' families). We are therefore now with our backs against the wall – again – with important deadlines to be met before the two day hearing in December and urgently require £20,000 to continue to fund our legal representation so we can argue our case at its highest. This is yet another example of how the families are continuously being obstructed from getting to the truth and from having fair access to Equality of Arms in legal funding. Ironically, if we were in Northern Ireland, we would not have to even apply for legal aid, because the judge has found merit in our case!
We are desperate for funds and need all the help we can get to fight for our loved ones who are not here to fight for for truth, justice & accountability themselves. Even if it is £1 - we desperately need YOUR help!
Please. Please help us!
More information: http://justice4the21.blogspot.com/
Contact details: via @Justice4the21 Twitter account
Saturday 23rd February 2019
SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (1) 2
Che Adams 16, 85
Blackburn Rovers (0) 2
Charlie Mulgrew 52
Danny Graham 83
Attendance: 21,869 (inc. 1,232)
SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (1) 2
Che Adams 16, 85
Blackburn Rovers (0) 2
Charlie Mulgrew 52
Danny Graham 83
Attendance: 21,869 (inc. 1,232)
Birmingham City:
Lee Camp, Kristian Pedersen, Maxime Colin, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Che Adams, Lukas Jutkiewicz (Isaac Vassell 76), Harlee Dean, Jacques Maghoma (Kerim Mrabti 56), Gary Gardner, Jota (Connor Mahoney 65), Michael Morrison
Unused subs - Connal Trueman, Craig Gardner, David Davis, Wes Harding.
Blackburn Rovers:
David Raya, Ryan Nyambe, Harrison Reed (Adam Armstrong 66), Jack Rodwell, Ritchie Smallwood, Danny Graham, Charlie Mulgrew, Amari’i Bell, Bradley Dack, Lewis Travis, Elliott Bennett.
Unused subs - Jayson Leutwiler, Joe Rothwell, Ben Brereton, Joe Nuttall, Corry Evans, Craig Conway.
Lee Camp, Kristian Pedersen, Maxime Colin, Maikel Kieftenbeld, Che Adams, Lukas Jutkiewicz (Isaac Vassell 76), Harlee Dean, Jacques Maghoma (Kerim Mrabti 56), Gary Gardner, Jota (Connor Mahoney 65), Michael Morrison
Unused subs - Connal Trueman, Craig Gardner, David Davis, Wes Harding.
Blackburn Rovers:
David Raya, Ryan Nyambe, Harrison Reed (Adam Armstrong 66), Jack Rodwell, Ritchie Smallwood, Danny Graham, Charlie Mulgrew, Amari’i Bell, Bradley Dack, Lewis Travis, Elliott Bennett.
Unused subs - Jayson Leutwiler, Joe Rothwell, Ben Brereton, Joe Nuttall, Corry Evans, Craig Conway.
No Blues striker has passed the twenty goals in a season mark, since Steve Claridge achieved that total during the 1994-95 campaign, but his record was surpassed by Che Adams this afternoon, who took his total up to twenty one this term, with a well taken brace of strikes, that puts him within touching distance of the twenty five that Trevor Francis scored, way back in 1977-78 (and, of course, the twenty three that Bob Latchford scored during the promotion year of 1971-72). For the record, Adams is some way off the highest ever amount of goals scored by a single player in a season, which stands at 42, a record that will most likely stand forever, that belongs to the prolific
Walter Abbott, who racked up his immense total way back in the 1898–99 season, when the club were still called Small Heath and Gainsborough Trinity still strutted their stuff as a Football League club. While Joe Bradford's 29, is the highest total scored for Birmingham City in a top-flight season, namely the 1927–28 term, when Blues finished eleventh, one place above today's opponents Blackburn Rovers, by virtue of having scored an average of 0.087 more goals than the Lancastrians, using the olde worlde 'goal average' calculus, or plus seven goals using the infinitely more sensible, post decimalisation method of determining such things that we now know as 'goal difference'.
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| 1,232 souls from Blackburn, Lancashire |
Daivd Raya, the Blackburn keeper, denied Harlee Dean and Maxime Colin, the latter rather fortunately, at the second attempt, as Blues got stuck into their visitors from the off, while Adams was frustrated by two defensive blocks, as the 'high on confidence' peppered Raya's goal with shots from the edge of the area.
Having given themselves the apparent luxury of a one goal cushion, Blues, rather uncharacteristically, seemed to let their work rate drop and allowed Blackburn to get a foothold in the game, and they were almost punished by the visitors before the break, when the lively former Gillingham midfielder, Bradley Dack, unlocked Birmingham's usually reliable defence, with a clever through ball that set up Danny Graham with a great opportunity, but Lee Camp kept the ball out of his net with a great save.
HT: Blues 1 v Rovers 0
Rovers had grasped the momentum now... and only a last ditch block by Blues captain Michael Morrison, stopped Dack from giving the visitors the lead.
Kerim Mrabti, on in place of Jacques Maghoma, continues to catch the eye, after his recent capture as a 'free agent', and he would've restored the hosts lead, had it not been for the agility of Raya in Rovers goal. Adams too, had the scent of another goal in his nostril once again, but Jack Rodwell did well to block his strike that was on target.
But Blackburn weren't given the opportunity to run the clock down and see the game out, to claim the three points, because, within ninety seconds, that Adams guy, had made himself a yard of space from Colin's pass forward and although the angle was tight, his aim was true... and the noise in the ground nearly took the roof off.
With full time approaching, Gardner almost won the day for Blues, with a dipping long range free kick that Raya did well to guide just over his bar.
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| Championship football for a tenner! What's not to like? |
FT: Birmingham City 2 v Blackburn Rovers 2
Blackburn are away again next weekend, when they face Rotherham United, while Blues travel to Bristol City on Tuesday night before heading to Hull City.
I've decided not to post an updated Championship table, because it's a division that is in a perpetual state of flux, that changes daily, in fact twice daily sometimes.
Blackburn are away again next weekend, when they face Rotherham United, while Blues travel to Bristol City on Tuesday night before heading to Hull City.
I've decided not to post an updated Championship table, because it's a division that is in a perpetual state of flux, that changes daily, in fact twice daily sometimes.
