We welcome Birmingham City to The Memorial Stadium tonight for their first ever league fixture at our home, though they have previously played here in the League Cup and also in a couple of pre-season friendlies.
The game will be the 14th league meeting between the sides and Rovers have won only one of the previous 13 encounters, while Birmingham have won four and eight games have been drawn. The first ever league meetings were in 1953/54 when both games were drawn 1-1, at Eastville on 17th October 1953 and at St Andrews on 6th March 1954.
Prior to this season the last league meetings were in 1994/95. Birmingham were 2-0 winners at St Andrews on 29th October 1994 while the return fixture at Twerton Park on 29th March 1995 ended in a 3-3 draw.
Earlier this season, at St Andrews on 14th December 2024, Birmingham were 2-0 winners thanks to first half goals by Lee Buchanan and Adam Stansfield (penalty).
Managerial/Coaching connections between the clubs include Terry Cooper, who was player/manager at Rovers from April 1980 until October 1981 and was in charge at Birmingham from August 1991 until January 1994. Paul Trollope, who was in charge at Rovers for five years from November 2005, was First Team Coach at Birmingham from July 2011 until July 2012.
Ian Atkins, who preceded Trollope as Rovers boss, appeared in 93 league games for Birmingham while Kevan Broadhurst, his assistant at Rovers, appeared in 173 games in all competitions for Birmingham before his career was cut short by injury, and also had a brief stint as caretaker manager at St Andrews.
Garry Pendrey played just one league game for Rovers, after a career that saw him play in over 300 games for Birmingham. He was also manager of The Blues from May 1987 until April 1989.
Departing Rovers Director of Football George Friend appeared in 46 games for Birmingham and he and Pendrey are among more than 20 players to have turned out for both clubs, a list that includes Dennis Bailey, Stewart Barrowclough, Jon Bass, Tim Carter, Jamie Clapham, Jake Clarke-Salter, Richard Dryden, Gary Emmanuell, Neil Etheridge, Colin Gordon, Paul Hendrie, Graham Hyde, Trevor Morgan, Will Packwood, Nicky Platnauer, Ted Purdon, Byron Stevenson, Robin Stubbs, Martin Thomas and Ryan Woods.
As far as I’m aware, only one Rovers player made his league debut for the club against Birmingham so step forward Justin Channing, the 574th player to represent the club when he appeared in the 2-1 defeat at St Andrews on 24th October 1992.
Birmingham arrive at The Mem as league leaders with 86 points from 37 games, and a nine point lead over second placed Wrexham. They have won nine, drawn nine and lost three games (the only games they have lost all season) on their travels this season and last Saturday were 4-1 home winners against bottom club Shrewsbury Town.
Our 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Mansfield Town last Saturday leaves us in 20th place with 42 points from 39 games. We have lost our last three games, against
Lincoln City, Crawley Town and Mansfield Town for an unwanted hat trick.
Prior to that there were successive home wins against play off hopefuls Huddersfield Town and Bolton Wanderers and the hope is that we can reproduce the performances from those two games at The Mem tonight. Our visitors are bringing an estimated 2,000 fans tonight, so the atmosphere inside the ground promises to be electric.
We can do our bit by getting behind the team right from the start in this televised fixture (let’s hope the commentators have enough sense not to call us Bristol!). Here’s hoping we can upset a side that, almost certainly, will be playing Championship football next season.