My joy at the win for the Blues in the Carling Cup Quarter Final was quickly turned to anger at the behaviour of the fans at the end of the match. Knocking Villa out of the competition should be enough, but several hundred Blues fans decided that they wanted more and ran on to the pitch to celebrate. That was bad enough but then a large number of them ran up to taunt the Villa fans. While the stewards and rapidly emerging riot police did a good job in keeping the rival fans apart, they could not prevent several missiles, most notably a flare, being thrown from one group to the other. Many fans were injured and the reputation of english football was dragged down, just at the wrong time for our World Cup Bid.

One of my duties as a Councillor is to sit on the Birmingham City Safety Advisory Group. These groups are mandatory for all large sports arenas (the Villa and Edgbaston Cricket Ground also have one). The next meeting of the Group is on Wednesday (8th December). It will be an interesting meeting and I will be taking a keen interest in the views of the police and the club about the events. If you were at St Andrews and saw what happened at the end of the match, I’d be particularly interested to hear your views ahead of next Wednesday’s meeting.