As we enter the final day of Premiership football in the 2010/11 season, Stoke City win the Braggers' League having won four of their eight West Midlands derbies and drawn two. The Potters can also be rightly proud of being finalists in the 2011 FA Cup final last weekend, being beaten 1-0 by Manchester City in the final.
Amazingly, Wolverhampton Wanderers finish the Braggers' League in second position, also with 14 points and coming second only on goal difference. I say 'amazingly' as Wolves go into 'Survival Sunday' today, fighting for survival in the Premiership. Which does go to show that performance in local derbies doesn't always reflect wider performance in the premiership.
Albion leap-frogged Villa for 3rd place in the Braggers' League with a recent and historic win over Villa at the Hawthorns. Villa's own performance in local derbies reflects a poor season generally for Villa in the Premiership - they have won only two of their eight derby matches and also lost a Carling Cup quarter final against rivals Birmingham City at St Andrews.
Blues themselves have had the worst season in terms of both the Bragger's League and the Premiership. They only won one derby match this season and are fighting for Premiership survival this afternoon against Tottenham Hotspur at Whitehart Lane. Having said this, by winning the Carling Cup against Arsenal at Wembley this season, if Blues can avoid the drop today then Blues fans will have cause to celebrate a successful season in terms of picking up silverware for the first time in many years.
Below are the results from all 20 of the local derby games in the West Midlands region this season. What the Braggers' League does reflect is how close our local teams are to one another generally with no single team dominating the derby games in terms of winning all eight of their fixtures. Indeed, the one derby that Blues won was against Stoke City, bottom beating top.
Well done to Stoke City on winning the league and good luck to Blues and Wolves this afternoon, if either or both teams were to go down today it would completely ruin the Braggers' League next season! So as a Villa supporter I can genuinely say, bring it on for next season, fingers crossed that we can go at it again in 2011/12 with all 5 of these teams staying up for another exciting season of West Midlands Braggers' League.
Wolves 3 West Brom 1
Blues 1 Wolves 1
Albion 2 Villa 1
Stoke 3 Wolves 0
Villa 1 Stoke 1
Villa 0 Wolves 1
Blues 1 Albion 3
Stoke 1 Albion 1
Albion 1 Wolves 1
Blues 1 Stoke 0
Blues 1 Villa 1
Wolves 1 Blues 0
Villa 2 Albion 1
Albion 0 Stoke 3
Stoke 3 Blues 2
Villa 0 Blues 0
Wolves 1 Villa 2
Albion 3 Blues 1
Stoke 2 Villa 1
Wolves 2 Stoke 1
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