The worm has turned

Regular readers of this blog - I pity you all - will know that I have no been a supporter of Steve Bruce as Birmingham manager for quite some time now. Today we lost 3-2 at Luton to yet more kamikaze defending, which means two points from the last 12 available. There is an outpouring of anti-Bruce sentiment now at the club - it's like a dam has been released, and while supporters from other Championship clubs think we're being all "big-time Charlies" about it, they need to understand that a lot has gone wrong at the club under his stewardship since the summer of 2004 when he first sacked his coach and then - extremely reluctantly - avoided resigning to go after the Newcastle United job.

Bruce has been at our club for nearly five years. For the first two-and-a-bit seasons he could do nothing wrong - he got us promoted and established as a Premiership club. But it's all gone wrong since - this isn't some knee-jerk reaction bought on by being in a league beneath our "proper station" (which is bowlocks - we've traditionally been a yo-yo club between the top two divisions), but a slow build up of frustration bought about by appalling management. I'm not going to rehash all the old arguments here and now, but unless Steve Bruce resigns or is sacked within the next few weeks we can kiss goodbye to competing for promotion in this league. For all my frustrations with the man, there is still a glimmer of thanks and recognition left for his achievements - but if he stubbornly refuses to see he's reached the end of the line (or the board continues to stick with him for clearly non-professional reasons) then even that goodwill will soon be gone. We are now actually two points behind the tally we had when Trevor Francis was sacked at this stage back in 2001, so we're now officially going backwards under Bruce.