Moody Blue Duga the club out of trouble
UNSUNG hero Jeff Kenna has revealed the extent of Christophe Dugarry’s greatness at Birmingham City, but admitted: “He did have a little bit of that moody French attitude.”
Full-back Kenna won promotion back to the Premier League with Blues and recalled the time thenboss Steve Bruce pulled off the coup of all coups by landing World Cup winner Dugarry in the January of 2003.
The flamboyant forward scored five goals in four matches to help Blues survive before signing permanently the following season.
And former team-mate Kenna explained: “He was phenomenal. Just look at his CV and the clubs he played for, winning European Championships and World Cups with France. His pedigree was second to none.
“Talent-wise, he was off the scale. The things he could do with the football in training were scary.
“But he did have a little bit of that moody French attitude, if the ball wasn’t where he wanted it to be he’d have a little moan.
“He didn’t want to run after it. But, you know, some of the goals he scored that season really made a difference with us staying in the league.
“You’ve got to think Brucie did a good job. He went out, got what was needed and did the job and we ended up staying up comfortably.
“There was a period in the January and February where we were dicing with death a bit but, that little injection of quality, just settled everybody down a bit.”
Kenna, of course, was part of the Blues side who did the double over Villa in 2002/2003 and the Irishman added: “The importance of that game to the Birmingham City fans was just what all people were talking about. “From the minute we got promoted, it’s all everybody was talking about. Nobody cared about staying up, all we had to do was beat the Villa.
“If we would have lost every game but beat Villa twice, Blues fans would have been happy with that.
“The whole build-up to the (first) game was phenomenal. The city was electric, you could feel it. Everybody was talking about the game.
“Villa, ultimately in my opinion, totally underestimated us. They had a seasoned team of internationals and, probably, didn’t think we’d play anywhere near as well as we did.”