The 2024-5 edition of ‘teams that fell from grace and ended up in the same league as us’ starred Birmingham City; a team that weren’t entirely new to us. Boro’ fans of a certain era will remember expert orator Andy Green as matchday announcer; “Welcome to Broadhall Way” being a line often used ahead of kick-off. There is, of course, one time when things were ever-so-slightly different. Was it a four-fold bump in stadium capacity? Or the swathes of blue seats? Or being 90-odd miles from his usual patch?
Yep, our only previous encounter before that had been in the domain of the Blues for a ‘home’ FA Cup tie? Oh, those were the days. But, a generation later, those words were offered without irony as the us and them met on equal terms. Why was our 1996-7 cup clash held at their place in any case? Well, back then, it wasn’t unusual for non-league sides to switch home ties against bigger clubs for safety reasons. We think the experience of giving up proper home advantage is a huge reason why we did everything we could to make sure our 1998 match against Newcastle didn’t get switched.
It was a short-lived experience. The Blues stormed to a record-breaking 2024-5 League One title win; winning 34 out of 46 fixtures. Yes, we made up two of them (plus a Football League Trophy defeat). But we were far from disgraced in our endeavours. All three defeats were by a single goal and were much more respectable than some of our peers managed. With the backing of some tidy wealth, Brum rose back to the Championship. Would it be another 27 years before we met again? We’ll have to get back to you on that one…
