It was recently revealed that Peter Enckelman is now working as a sales executive for the courier service DHL. However, the former Aston Villa goalkeeper will forever be remembered for another kind of delivery: the second goal in the second-city derby of December 2002, a throw-in which rolled right under his foot.
Villa went on to lose that match 3-0. That clanger was awful for Enckelman but hilarious for everyone else, and has become the defining moment in the recent history of the derby. This might seem odd given the significance of the fixture, but it is not entirely out of keeping with its spirit.
This is a match with confused alliances, unlikely heroes and vegetable‑based banter. And it resumes on Sunday lunchtime in the first league encounter between the sides for five years.
Steve Bruce remembers the Enckelman game well because it was the now Aston Villa manager’s first derby in charge of Birmingham City. Bruce has spent much of this week discussing his history on the other side of the city, a history that includes periods as both player and manager at St Andrew’s, and which lasted a decade in all.
It was Bruce who took City to the Premier League for the first time and, in so doing, rekindled a rivalry that had lain dormant for too long.
“There hadn’t been a derby game for 17 years: it was a fabulous occasion and the result went their way,” Bruce said of the Enckelman match, indulging in the convolutions his position makes necessary. “Enckelman makes a mistake but who can forget it. It was that little bit of luck. What we talk about in these games is mistakes, a bounce of the ball, a touch of genius, a bit of indiscipline. That’s what makes the difference. It’s what playing in the derby is all about.”
Bruce describes his 2002 side as a “bunch of pirates” for whom a black away shirt was an appropriate uniform. They were a side who knew how to get a rise on their more illustrious rivals. It was the defender Olof Mellberg’s throw in that went under Enckelman.
“I have definitely never been involved in a game such as the first match at Birmingham,” the Swede said, two years later. “I don’t particularly like Birmingham City after the four games we have played against them in the Premiership.”
Bruce duly used those lines as his pre‑match team talk and Birmingham defeated Villa again 2-1. Nowadays Bruce is known by Blues fans as Mr Potatohead (he has encouraged them to come up with something more original this weekend).
Inevitably Robbie Savage, who was part of Bruce’s Birmingham midfield and lost only once against Villa in his career, has also been stirring it up this week, trying to rekindle the spirit of the noughties. “Man for man Villa [were] better,” he wrote on Twitter, “but we had a team spirit, desire and belief that made us play above ourselves in those games!”
The Birmingham manager, Gary Rowett, will be looking at the fixture this week and hoping he can conjure up a similar response. The urbane Rowett (he is a wine connoisseur and confesses to drinking a glass of fine rioja before a match) has also had issues of affiliation to resolve. Since taking the reins at St Andrew’s in 2014 he has faced questions over whether he was a childhood Villa fan. This week he put the speculation to bed with an impressively lawyerly answer.
“As a kid I had plenty of teams that I liked and they were one of the teams,” he said. “I openly admitted when I came here that I followed some of their results but hadn’t actually gone to Villa Park as a kid.
“Having played at St Andrew’s for two years and been here as a manager for two years, I would like to think people will understand that I am thoroughly Blue – and a Birmingham City fan.”
Rowett’s Birmingham are a physical side who can also play and they sit one place outside the Championship play-offs. But they come into the derby in dwindling form having won only two of their past six matches. They were roundly outplayed in their last fixture, a 2-0 defeat at Burton Albion. Villa, meanwhile, are unbeaten under Bruce and looking to extend back‑to‑back victories, the last of which – a 1-0 win against Fulham – was achieved with a late Bruce tactical switch.
The derby is, lest we forget, just another three points, but Bruce believes the result could be important for the rest of the season.
“It will certainly help if you can get the result,” he said this week. “Two weeks ago we were in the bottom three. If we do manage to turn them over we’d be three points behind them and sitting outside the play-offs. That’s got to be the long-term game and if we do make it three wins out of four it would be a smashing achievement for what we’re trying to achieve.”
