Fourteen managers. Six clubs. Six sackings. One walk-out. One relegation and a play-off final heartbreak. Since the start of last season, football in the Midlands has been chaotic.
Fans from Villa Park to the Hawthorns, King Power to Molineux and St Andrews to Ricoh Arena, will tell you it has been a tough last decade or so (unless you were a Leicester fan for half of it).
It is an area of the country that is often overlooked when it comes to football heritage. Manchester United and Liverpool are the historical juggernauts, whereas Arsenal and Chelsea are the Gen-Z heavyweights, leaving Manchester City as the unstoppable superpower.
Embed from Getty ImagesPrior to all of this, it was the many football clubs of the Midlands that were setting the standards of success in English football.
Before Manchester United became the first side from this island to lift the European Cup, Wolverhampton Wanderers stepped preceded them as one of the first British clubs to play in the European competition, the torch bearers for English football on the continent.
In terms of domestic football, Liverpool would run-away to a tally of 19 English top flight titles by 1990. However, as they took 76 years to lift their sixth title, Aston Villa won six First Division’s in the first 32 years of the competition, the bar was set.
As for one of football’s most prestigious cup competitions, the FA Cup, by the time both United and Liverpool had won four between them, Wolves (4), West Bromwich Albion (5) and Aston Villa (7) had their trophy cabinets full of them.
If you venture out of the West Midlands towards the River Trent, you find European football royalty in Nottingham Forest.
Decades before Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City would dream of lifting European Cups, Forest did under the iconic reign of Brian Clough. Becoming back-to-back European champions, it is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of English football. Villa also got their hands on the trophy in 1982, something City only matched in 2023 and a feat Arsenal are yet to match.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe financial muscle and global reach of the ‘Big Six’ has been hard for anyone in English football to compete with, but still the might of the Midlands has shown it can be done on more than one occasion.
Birmingham City went into the 2011 Carling Cup final very much as the side-piece to Arsenal’s predicted triumph to end their trophy drought. Yet, once Obafemi Martins had wheeled away after rolling the ball into the Arsenal net with minutes to spare, it was City celebrating and showing everyone why you can never write a football game off.
Five years later, Leicester City went one step further. After surviving relegation by the skin of their teeth just a year before, former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri was at the helm.
“Claudio Ranieri. Really?”. The infamous words of Gary Lineker following his appointment. No one gave them a chance of a top-half finish at most and their stand-out signing that season was Japanese veteran Shinij Okazaki.
Embed from Getty ImagesHowever, by May 2016, Chelsea and Tottenham played out a fiery 2-2 draw deemed ‘Battle of the Bridge’. But what it’s really remembered for is the celebrations 113 miles north at Jamie Vardy’s house, as Leicester were crowned Premier League champions.
Not to forget the unbelievable turn-around at Coventry City. From liquidation, relegation and being homeless. To returning to the Ricoh and missing out on the Premier League by penalties alone in the 2023 Play-Off final.
Mark Robins is working miracles and they’re playing some of the best football in the EFL. Villa are dreaming of the Champions League. Wolves are excelling again under Gary O’Neil. West Brom are back in play-off contention whilst Leicester are setting Championship records.
This FA Cup weekend welcomes two anticipated derbies as football in the Midlands has a buzz about it again.
