EFL Championship
At St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (2) 2
Scott Hogan 5
Przemyslaw Placheta 45
Huddersfield Town (0) 1
Danny Ward 61
Attendance: 17,065
Birmingham City:
John Ruddy, Dion Sanderson, Marc Roberts, Auston Trusty, Maxime Colin, Jordan James, Ryan Woods, Juninho Bacuna, Przemyslaw Placheta (George Friend 89), Scott Hogan (Lukas Jutkiewicz 82), Troy Deeney (C) (Jordan Graham 75).
Unused subs - Neil Etheridge, Alfie Chang, Jonathan Leko, Jobe Bellingham.
Huddersfield Town:
Lee Nicholls, Ollie Turton, Rarmani Edmonds-Green (Will Boyle 76), Tom Lees, Josh Ruffels (Josh Koroma 88), Sorba Thomas, Jonathan Hogg (C), Jon Russell, Jack Rudoni, Tino Anjorin (Jordan Rhodes 76), Danny Ward (Duane Holmes 76)).
Unused subs - Jacob Chapman, Etienne Camara, Yuta Nakayama.
THE66POW's amazing world of Non-League trivia #1
Huddersfield Town's recently appointed manager: Danny Schofield, originally signed for the Terriers (as a player) in 1998, from Brodsworth Welfare, for a reported fee of £2,000 plus some training equipment.
Six days ago Blues kicked off the new season with a goalless draw at Luton Town. Huddersfield had started their campaign the previous night, when they lost 0-1 at home against Vincent Kompany's Burnley.
Tonight's game was brought forward from Saturday to avoid clashing with the influx of people heading into the Birmingham area for the Commonwealth games.
Subsequently, John Eustace's first home league fixture finished in a win for Birmingham that saw them move to the top of the Championship table, for a brief time at least.
That said, without wanting to put the mockers on things, Blues had the same amount of points after two games last year too. In fact they won three and drew two of their opening six league fixtures, before reverting to type and plummeting spectacularly towards a twentieth placed finish.
In spite of all that as gone before in recent times, optimism (albeit of a very cautious variety) abounds, and their is a growing but guarded feeling of optimism and belief that Blues are finally heading in the right direction again, on the field of play at least.
There also seem to be genuine signs of hope that the seeds have been sown for at least a partial takeover of the club to happen any time soon, coupled to the prerequisite of a complete change of club ownership in due course.
But of course, this being Birmingham City FC, every silver lining's got a cloud and the EFL vultures are circling yet again, looking to punish the club vis the suitability of their current owners, who are once again under investigation.
Ironically, it is the EFL that sanctioned these people's involvement at St. Andrew's when they granted them fit and proper persons status at the outset of their involvement at Blues.
Isn't it time that the authorities started to eradicate their own shortcomings to this end, instead of hammering clubs who have adhered to the governing bodies guidance and misguided approvals in the first place? It's a rhetorical question of course, we all know the answer... and the powers that be have got a track record for passing the buck and punishing numerous clubs for what are effectively the EFL's own failings.
What news updates are there pertaining to the repair work getting done towards the re-opening of the lower tiers of the Tilton Road End and the Kop? You might well be asking.
The short version and to the point answer, sans any of the bullshit excuses that the club have been fobbing people off with over the last couple of years is, putting it bluntly... none whatso-effing-ever. And one suspects that'll be all you'll be getting in regards to such a line of questioning for the foreseeable future.
You can dress it up however you want but, but... without wanting to highlight any negatives at a time when there are potentially (much) better times ahead just over the horizon, there are parts of the St. Andrew's ground that are nothing short of an embarrassment to Blues loyal and thick-skinned fan base at this current moment in time.
But hey! Notwithstanding all the genuine causes for concern that I've touched on above, let's have a real tonic for the troops and something for the long suffering Blues faithful to believe in.
An opening half of football of the highest order against a decent visiting side would be as good a place to start as anywhere.
The threat Huddersfield obviously posed, as runners up in last season's Championship play-off final, could not be taken lightly.
But, never mind the past. Right here, right now is where it's at... and the visitors from West Yorkshire were up against no less the current and Bass Charity Vase holders and that alone must've had the buggers quaking in their boots as they tentatively emerged from the players tunnel to face the undisputed 'Champions of Burton'.
Eustace's side were rampant from the off and before very long Blues were at the top of the league as Scott Hogan stooped to meet Juninho Bacuna's delivery from the right with a well directed header five minutes into the game..
Huddersfield must be cursing the day that they let Bacuna go... and his brother Leandro must be green with envy that his younger sibling has signed for the West Midlands' bestest ever club, after he'd had to make do with turning out for a team of lesser mortals, who reside to the north of the City of Birmingham. Chim, chim-iney, chim, chim-iney, chim, chim, cher-oo.
There will be ups and downs... and of course joys and sorrows as the season unfolds but if Blues can sustain even half of the tempo that they displayed during the opening forty-five minutes tonight, then they'll have no worries about getting dragged into what has become their annual battle against relegation this term. And on the balance of play, it was almost a travesty that they hadn't increased their lead until right on the stroke of half-time, when Maxime Colin dinked pass over the visitors backline for Hogan to run onto, who in turn hooked the ball across the face of the Terriers goal to Jordan James whose shot was blocked, but the ball rebounded to Przemyslaw Placheta who planted it beyond the reach of Lee Nicholls, whose had hitherto led a bit of a charmed life between the sticks.
HT: Blues 2 v Terriers 1
Bacuna almost added to Blues lead at the start of the second half, from an audacious overhead kick, while Colin, marauding deep inside the visitors half and relishing the right to roam, was unlucky to see his thumping shot deflect wide of the upright.
But despite the message that the Championship table might be conveying tonight, even though they have lost a couple of key players from last season, most notably Harry Toffolo and Lewis O'Brien who left them to join Nottingham Forest (the team that beat them in the play-off final), Huddersfield are no pushover and they were always likely to turn up and make their mark on the game at some point.
Welsh international Sorba Thomas went close twice as he strove to get the visitors back in the game and in the sixty-first minute he created a shooting opportunity for Danny Ward who fired across the face of Ruddy's goal and halved the Terriers deficit, bulging the net just inside the far post.
Welsh international Sorba Thomas went close twice as he strove to get the visitors back in the game and in the sixty-first minute he created a shooting opportunity for Danny Ward who fired across the face of Ruddy's goal and halved the Terriers deficit, bulging the net just inside the far post. Huddersfield were growing into the game and it was now the turn of Birmingham's defence to shine, with: Dion Sanderson, Auston Trusty (a loanee from Arsenal) and Marc Roberts all making timely interceptions.
One had to wonder if Blues would regret not putting more chances away before the break when they were in the ascendancy, now were having to dig in and show bags of character, cohesion and hard graft in a bid to hang on to their slender lead as the clock ticked down.
Maybe if this contest had taken place towards the tail end of last season, the hosts might have buckled and settled for a draw, or even have gotten nothing whatsoever out of the game. But togetherness, determination and a conspicuous hunger to succeed, saw them through a nail-biting climax to the night.
In fact, right at the death, with the Terriers committing numbers forward, Bacuna took flight with an impressive solo run but couldn't quite find the final touch that would have finished off Huddersfield's second-half resolve.
FT: Birmingham City 2 v Huddersfield Town 1
Blues held on to take three hard won points... and though the visitors ran them close and might well feel that they had done enough to salvage a point, if truth be told Birmingham had done more than enough to have built up a far more comfortable lead before half-time.
'Twas a most enjoyable game all told, on so many different levels.
Ain't new season optimism a joyous thing to behold?
