Great escape of '83 should inspire Birmingham City, says Robert Hopkins

May 1 2008 By Colin Tattum

WHEN you are staring relegation in the face, don't blink.

If the current Blues team want inspiration for this weekend and their precarious predicament, they need to look back to the Great Escape of 1983.

With six games left, Blues were bottom of the old 22-team First Division, where they had been marooned since the opening few weeks.

But five victories and a draw incredibly saw them scramble clear.

And kick-starting their amazing surge was a 1-0 win at Coventry City. Like now, Blues were poor on the road. In fact, make that dire: no wins in 18 games and just seven goals scored going into the Highfield Road clash.

Next, Robert Hopkins headed the only goal in the victory over Everton at St Andrew's and Blues were four points adrift of safety with as many games to go.

Noel Blake (penalty) and Mick Harford got Blues a late win at Sunderland and by the final weekend of the season, the relegation issue was on a knife-edge.

Swansea City and Brighton had gone down, but Blues were in a survival tussle involving Manchester City, Luton Town and Coventry.

Harford's 87th-minute goal brought a 1-0 win at Southampton and Blues rejoiced. Hundreds of miles north, David Pleat danced his jig at Maine Road after Luton scored late on and condemned Manchester City to the drop.

Manchester had been seven points ahead of Blues in 17th place - where Ron Saunders's side eventually finished - before the remarkable recovery.

Hopkins remembered: "We had a very physical team, maybe not the best players, and we just tended to out-battle the opposition. I think we had a meeting when we realised we had six games to save our careers basically, and we rolled our sleeves up.

"Blues are probably thinking like that now, and what we did shows you anything can happen.

"I've just got this feeling we will get a result at Fulham and it will all depend on the last game against Blackburn Rovers.

"We can't be that unlucky that all the results go against us on Saturday and we get relegated... can we?"