THE RACE IS ON!
Birmingham’s Isaac Vassell warms up for the Second City derby
ISAAC Vassell has had a series of tough challenges since joining Birmingham City. He’s won two of them, but the third this week, well it was too much.
Vassell, one of the quickest in the Championship, was beaten in a special challenge sprint by Blues fan George Arnold.
To be fair, George had ducked out of a game of football at lunch time to make sure he was fully fit for the race.
But then again, little George, hair neatly combed and in his smart Birmingham City kit, is only six years old.
“He’s quick. That boy is quick,” admitted Vassell after being beaten not once but twice across the width of Birmingham’s indoor training pitch.
Lukas Jutkiewicz and Kristian Pedersen broke off from training to watch.
Jutkiewicz also did a bit of keepy-uppy with George and when Vassell went in goal for a bit, left-footed George put half a dozen shots past him.
“I loved all of that with George,” said Vassell, who is set to play in the Second City derby today 15 months after his last appearance against Aston Villa put his career on hold.
A rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in a goalless draw with Villa on October 29, 2017 was followed by a hip injury.
Vassell, a £1m signing from Luton two months before the injury, hasn’t played a full game since.
He’s been on the subs’ bench for Birmingham’s last nine games, coming on in all of them except the defeat at Hull last Saturday.
“I’m reckoning that the less time I play off the bench means I don’t need the minutes so much and I’m getting fitter, stronger and closer to starting,” says Vassell.
With the strike partnership of Jutkiewicz and prolific Che Adams bringing goals, Vassell, 25, knows manager Gary Monk is unlikely to disrupt it and he will probably be on the bench again today.
Couldn’t he use the lack of match fitness as a reason for losing to George?
“George was good, I’m telling you. He is fast for such a young boy.”
Vassell, an 11 seconds man over 100m in his athletic youth, also didn’t want to upset the day of George’s young life.
George’s dad, John, was watching.
“When Isaac Vassell signed for Birmingham it was said he was quick and George just said ‘would I beat him?’,” reveals dad.
“He wouldn’t let it go so I said ‘why don’t you write to him?’.”
Quick
This is what George wrote in his best handwriting: My name is George Arnold. I am 6. I love playing football and going the Blues. I hope your hip is better soon. When it is can I have a race with you because I am fast. From George Keep Right On. BCFC. On the front of the letter George drew a picture of him, Vassell and the race finish line. Guess who is closest to the finish line?
There’s nothing like confidence.
“George is convinced that he will play for Birmingham City,” says dad. “Just convinced by it.
“He was at his first Birmingham game at two years old. I’m a season ticket holder and so is he with me in the Tilton Road End.
“George doesn’t do the midweek games, that’s a bit too much for him, but he’s been to away games. We’re going to Preston next week, that will be his 10th ground.
“With him being such a fan, it’s my excuse to get to games. If his mom says why am I going, then all I have to say is George wants to go.”
George’s wait for the race has been as long as Vassell has battled for his fitness and George left the training ground with a bagful of gifts.
“Now I’ve got to find somewhere in his bedroom to put all this,” says dad. “It’s packed with Blues stuff.”
The one thing young George hasn’t seen yet is Birmingham beat Villa.
Important
They haven’t done it in a league game for 14 years, with just one win in the League Cup (“That was the important one,” chips in dad about the quarter-final win on the way to beating Arsenal in the 2011 Carling Cup final).
Birmingham have lost ten of the 14 since Emile Heskey and Julian Gray scored in a 2-0 win at St Andrew’s on March 20, 2005.
Vassell has Villa history in his blood, though.
Not only did he suffer his worst injury against Villa, he
made his debut as a League player against them for Luton.
League Cup tie early in Aston Villa’s life as a Championship club three years ago following relegation.
Luton then in League Two, won 3-1 on that August night in 2016. Vassell came on for the last few minutes.
Roberto Di Matteo’s tenure as Villa manager wasn’t to last much longer, just two months, and he was sacked. After successor Steve Bruce failed to do it, now it’s Dean Smith, a big Villa fan, who has the revival job.
Revival
There is a further Vassell link with Aston Villa.
In another League Cup tie against Bournemouth, Tyrone Mings, now on loan at Villa, stopped Vassell scoring his first goal on his Birmingham debut, clearing off the line.
“I don’t think about the time I have lost too much,” says Vassell. “It’s been about the next thing. If the next thing in my recovery was ball work or running, then that’s been my focus in getting back to this point, rather than the time it’s taken. I’m not afraid of the challenge I’ve got. It would be full circle if I play in this game.
“If I’m not starting I would love to get on and have some impact on a game that is emotional for a lot of people.
“I will feed off that, not back off it or be scared of what happened before. If anything, it’s going to inspire me, fuel me to do something good in the game and make the situation right.
“I’ve always been confident that I would get back. When it happened it was tough but I kept in my mind that I would come back. With that in your head you find ways to get through things.
“At the start I was down, pretty upset, but the medical team at Birmingham assured me that everything was going to be alright. I took the baby steps, little small hurdles to get over.
Frustration
“You want everything there and then, of course you do, to play, to be successful. There’s a frustration to longterm injuries and there are days when you don’t feel like a footballer, when your legs don’t work, when it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to on that day.
“There has to be patience. The second injury was a blow. It was just as I’d finished my knee rehab, so I was back in training, feeling good. Yes, bit of a dagger that.
“But I’d already done my time for my knee and got through that and the medical people were telling me this new injury wasn’t so bad.”
And all the time George was pestering his dad – ‘when am I going to race Isaac?’.
Now you’ve been there, George, won the race, got the signed shirt, whose going to win on Sunday? “Blues 2-1”, says George. Scorers? “Adams and Vassell.” “I’d better get a bet on that. Just in case,” says dad.