Second City derbies were among the most thunderous occasions of my playing career.
The atmosphere was so highly-charged, and the rivalry so intense, that you could feel the earth move.
Birmingham against Villa is the only fixture where my legs have turned to jelly for the first five minutes – although I never finished on the losing side.
It’s the game which makes people do the daftest things, like Peter Enckelman’s own goal when he let a throw-in under his foot or Dion Dublin sticking the nut on me at Villa Park. Once more, for the record: No, it didn’t hurt – and Bluenoses had the last laugh because we won 2-0.
On Sunday, I want Birmingham to __win because I spent three memorable years at St Andrew’s as a player. And on the face of it, Blues should be favourites because they are at home, they are six points above Villa in the table and they have a fantastic manager in Gary Rowett who knows how much the game means to supporters on both sides of the divide.
But I fear Steve Bruce will be Villa’s trump card – and not just because they have been enjoying the new manager ‘bounce’ of seven points from his first three games in charge.
When Bruce was our boss at Birmingham, he knew Villa had the better squad, better players, more experience, a more experienced manager, they had spent more money, they had a bigger ground, a better training ground and a larger fanbase.
He harnessed all those things, used them to motivate his players, and in the 2002-3 season he came up with two wins, home and away, which were among my best nights in football.
Bruce loved being the underdog – and I’m worried he might have the same effect on Villa this weekend.
Not even Sir Alex Ferguson could keep Sunderland up
David Moyes made a mistake by saying, after only two games, that Sunderland would be in another relegation battle this season.
With only two points from nine games, it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But he’s a decent man, and I don’t like it when people start calling for his head and Sam Allardyce to be given his old job back.
Moyes has only been at the Stadium of Light five minutes. As grim as Sunderland’s plight may be, it’s not his fault – there is something fundamentally wrong at the club.
The same thing happens year after year – they dodge relegation by the skin of their teeth, whether it’s Paolo Di Canio, Gus Poyet, Dick Advocaat or Big Sam pulling off the great escape. And then the whole cycle begins again.
I fear for Moyes because the recent pattern has been for Sunderland to start badly and a new manager to come in and pull things round. But this time, I think the Black Cats have used up their nine lives.
Just as Aston Villa flirted with relegation for several years before it finally happened, I’m afraid Sunderland are going down this time.
When your luck’s out, you lose to a wonder goal, get robbed by a penalty decision, get charged by the FA after being sent to the stands for protesting, and then you’re stranded because your plane home is grounded by fog, which is what happened to Moyes at Southampton in the EFL Cup on Wednesday.
Sadly, those hard-luck stories are typical of teams who are heading for the drop – and typical for managers like Moyes who are under big pressure. I’m not sure Moyes can keep Sunderland up. I’m not sure Big Sam could do it if he came back.
In fact, it’s looking so grim on Wearside that I doubt if Sir Alex Ferguson could rescue them now.
The stadium's not to blame - the fans are
Instead of blaming the layout of a football stadium, there is a much simpler way of addressing the crowd trouble at West Ham’s EFL Cup tie against Chelsea.
Whoever was throwing coins, bottles or seats – I wasn’t there, but it sounds as if there was nonsense on both sides of the segregation – the truth is clear as crystal.
Nobody forces football fans to behave like animals. It’s a lifestyle choice.
People who cheered Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill at the London 2012 Olympics didn’t throw missiles – so the problem at West Ham games must be a minority of fans, not the venue.