Blues and Bears ‘beyond the pail’
DEAR Editor, I have been following both Birmingham City and Warwickshire CCC for more than 70 years and can there have been a more troubling weekend than that just passed?
But we should not be surprised. It is interesting that the manner in which both clubs have operated over the past 12 months or so have striking similarities in how not to succeed or, put another way, how to mess things up.
Taking the Blues first, they had a reasonable first half of the season but then decided to sack their manager and appoint Zola, a wonderful footballer in his time, but with an appalling management record who now leaves the club with relegation staring itself in the face.
Now Warwickshire, who since the second half of last season have been in free-fall from title contenders to relegation candidates, have lost their first two games of the season by in each case more than an innings. The coaching side of the club is in the hands of Ashley Giles, who the upper echelons of English cricket did not consider good enough to run its one-day