I took a break from my non-league journey to travel up to the place I grew up in order to watch the Blues play in the Championship against Portsmouth. Finding tickets at St Andrews this season has been a challenge as most games have sold out, with the Blues returning to the Championship, so this was my first visit since the Ipswich fixture in early August.

Birmingham City, under Chris Davies’ management this season, have had mixed results. They came into today’s game with fifteen points from twelve games, but having just one win in their last six games. Jay Stansfield had top scored with six goals, supported by Lyndon Dykes and Seung Ho-Paik (both 2 goals).

Portsmouth, managed by John Mousinho, had a strong first season in the Championship in 2024-25 since their promotion the previous season. In twelve games this season Portsmouth had secured thirteen points, with their goals coming largely from Adrian Segecic (3 goals) and Yang Min-hyeok (2 goals).

Before the game started, acts of remembrance took place, including a roll call of names of the fallen in World Wars 1 and 2, representing players from both clubs. Then armed service veterans and pipers entered the pitch and the last post was played before a minutes silence was observed.

Within three minutes of kick off, the home team had a chance to get in front when they were awarded a penalty for a poorly timed tackle. Jay Stansfield stepped up but struck his shot weakly allowing Josef Bursik to save diving to his left.

The Blues did not relent in the minutes following the penalty miss, pushing forward in waves before securing a corner in the ninth minute, which Seung Ho-Paik, met to drill a diving header into the visitors net, sending the 27,908 crowd wild.

The remainder of the half saw Pompey revived, with their fans being sung into silence by the partisan home support, before retaliating just before the break, with a chorus of “you have to live here, we get to go home…”. On the pitch the visitors began to create chances, with Swift and Dozzell linking well. at the break, the sides went in separated by just the single goal.

The second half opened with Portsmouth looking lively. However with eleven minutes played it was the home team who went 2-0 ahead when Tomoki Iwata flicked a near post header into the Portsmouth goal from a corner.

Five minutes later, in the 61st minute, a Christoph Klarer diving header finished a perfect free kick from Alex Cochrane, to put the Blues 3-0 up, cementing the gulf between the two sides today.

There was still time for Blues to have a Kyogo Furuhashi goal disallowed for off-side before with just a minute to go Keshi Anderson fired home with the help of a deflection, to seal a 4-0 victory and all three points.

At the final whistle the Blues moved up to eleventh place, four points off the play-off places. The visitors, Portsmouth FC, sat in twentieth place at full time, four points clear of the relegation places. This however was a day for celebrating for Chris Davies and his Blues side, as they finally clicked to show the potential they clearly possess this season.