Today is St Obafemi’s Day for Birmingham City Fans

 

Three years ago today a mixup between Laurent Kosicelny and Wojciech Szczęsny saw Birmingham City striker Obafemi Martins presented with the ball and an open goal to aim at from ten yards to give Birmingham City their first major trophy in a Wembley final.

It was a day for us all to celebrate and judging by the amount of tears I saw streaming down grown men’s faces was the realisation of a dream for many.

In the three years that have followed it’s been a bit of a downward slide – relegation, players being sold, Carson’s arrest, more players being sold and then after the failure to get past Blackpool in the playoffs even more players being sold. There have been a few high points – such as the Europa League games which gave so many fans the chance to follow Blues in European competition but in the main it has been one long slog since.

As much as I fondly remember looking back to February 27, 2011 I’m reminded that reliving history is something the claret and baby blue mob from across the expressway do. Rather than remember the “glory days” and live in a nostalgia-tinted world, it’s better for us to look to the future and the hope that things will improve, that we will rise again from our current malaise and that we may once again be challenging the big boys for a place at the top table.

It’s also Carson’s 54th birthday today and no doubt he’ll be looking to the future as well. His future is potentially much darker, with the very real possibility he will be spending tomorrow night in Lai Chi Kok prison on remand waiting to hear how much of his life will be spent behind bars. Whatever happens to Carson, I think it’s a fallacy to believe that much will change in the short term – either way the verdict goes the losing side will appeal and with that Carson’s assets will remain frozen and his movement will be restricted.

Should Carson be sent down, the Department of Justice here can apply to change his restraint order into a confiscation order but that would be held in abeyance until all possible appeals are exhausted. He wouldn’t know his sentence for a week or two and although there is every chance he would be allowed to be on bail once again pending appeal, the hunch here is that application would have to go to the high court meaning if Carson is convicted he would spend the next six to eight weeks minimum behind bars waiting for that to be heard.

As Carson isn’t a director of the football club or BIH any more the “owners and directors test” no longer applies to him; he doesn’t own enough of the club to be considered an owner by the Football League and I suspect it would take pressure on them to get them to consider if he still exerts control as if he were a director or a majority shareholder – and it would take some major bottle from them to push Birmingham City on that issue.

Whatever happens, I’m going to remember the good times today and everything that was right about Carson’s tenure. We’ll have enough time to consider everything else tomorrow – especially if Carson is found guilty. I’ll be at the courthouse tomorrow to hear the verdict and as soon as I can I will post news on twitter followed by an article here.