Our ‘On This Day’ feature for 28th August takes a look at Birmingham City’s programme for the 1976/77 season. Read our review below and see all the top-flight programmes from 1976/77 here.
Birmingham City’s ‘Blues News’ for the 1976/77 season was a 20-page effort, with 16 pages of content for the 15p cover cost.
The programme opens with ‘Blues Scene’, which describes recent improvements to the club’s ground and training facilities. The feature notes that a recent survey of playing surfaces in the Football League had voted St. Andrews in second place – an achievement that is also referenced by manager Willie Bell in his column.
‘Blue Boys’ is a two-page profile of full-back Archie Styles, who had found the net in City’s recent trip to Manchester United, while a column for the club’s junior supporters makes reference to the switch to using goal difference, rather than goal average, to separate teams level on points.
‘In Days Gone By’ is a fascinating article that looks at Albert Jones, who signed for Birmingham shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. The article reproduces Jones’ contract and other documentation from the time, including a letter that refers to a cheque for £3 for two weeks’ wages. Jones would find his Blues career cut short by conscription in the War, during which he would rise to the rank of Sergeant.
Elsewhere in this issue there is a detailed half-page column on the club’s reserve and youth teams. The usual first-team statistics pages are also provided and there are three pages of action shots from Birmingham’s recent game against Leeds United.
Coverage of opponents Liverpool takes the form of a column entitled ’15 Glorious Years’, which tracks the club’s successes since winning promotion from Division Two as Champions in the 1961/62 season. The article makes particular reference to the club’s European successes and ponders (somewhat prophetically) whether the 1976/77 season might bring the Reds their first European Cup win!
There are plenty of good features within this Blues programme, with a nice mix of old and new, providing some very worthwhile reading.