I'm a Birmingham based member and I was gutted when they changed the name of the T20 side to Birmingham Bears. I found it embarrassing. I completely understood we had to bend to the council though. And personally I was never not going to support the players in every comp at all levels.

Not sure it had an adverse effect (affect?) on attendances though. Those from areas with the CV postcode often seem to be the more casual supporters whereas those from Brum, Lichfield areas (we have good number of supporters from here and it often gets overlooked) aswell as the Black Country (lot of Pears there too) seem to be the more match going supporters. Those from Cov, Nuneaton etc seem to be the ones pedalling the anti Birmingham rhetoric too that seems to have crept in lately. Curiously lots of these proud Warwickshire types support Birmingham City or particularly Aston Villa in football as far as i can tell...

To revert back to being Warwickshire Bears would be a huge win though.

I tend to think that having a 'City' name doesn't always sit well if you have members who are also football fans and don't want to associate with elements of having to shout out "Come on Birmingham". This was an argument for not not putting out a team called 'Manchester Originals' in that OTHER inferior competition as certain Lancashire fans pointed out that they were form other parts of the county and didn't want to be associated with a team with Manchester in the title. I can quite understand. Did being called 'Birmingham Bears' drive away a few fans from supporting the team as they didn't want to be associated with Birmingham. I have no idea if this was the case but I could understand certain people being against it.

I just considered the use of the Birmingham title as been similar to having a title sponsor on other sports, eg Mclaren Mastercard F1 team or Petronas AMG Mercedes in F1., or Newcastle Red Bull in Rugby Union or RB Leipzig in football.

The club is Warwickshire County Cricket Club, the players and staff get paid by Warwicksshire CCC Ltd, so the use of the title sponsor was temporary and was a neccessary evil to obtain the funding needed to safeguard the stadium's Elite ground status, and untimately the long term survival of the club

paulbear wrote:

I tend to think that having a 'City' name doesn't always sit well if you have members who are also football fans and don't want to associate with elements of having to shout out "Come on Birmingham". This was an argument for not not putting out a team called 'Manchester Originals' in that OTHER inferior competition as certain Lancashire fans pointed out that they were form other parts of the county and didn't want to be associated with a team with Manchester in the title. I can quite understand. Did being called 'Birmingham Bears' drive away a few fans from supporting the team as they didn't want to be associated with Birmingham. I have no idea if this was the case but I could understand certain people being against it.

I think it's a bit deeper, Paul. Those people don't want to be associated with Birmingham full stop and I completely understand that especially if yer not from Brum but yet some of these people support Birmingham City or Aston Villa, its bizarre.

Highveld wrote:

I just considered the use of the Birmingham title as been similar to having a title sponsor on other sports, eg Mclaren Mastercard F1 team or Petronas AMG Mercedes in F1., or Newcastle Red Bull in Rugby Union or RB Leipzig in football.

The club is Warwickshire County Cricket Club, the players and staff get paid by Warwicksshire CCC Ltd, so the use of the title sponsor was temporary and was a neccessary evil to obtain the funding needed to safeguard the stadium's Elite ground status, and untimately the long term survival of the club

Fair point

Sadly people can become very tribal indeed, particularly around footbasll. During the 1970's it was observed that in counties that did not have a football league teams, a more rowdy type of supporter, who would normally attend football, was attracted to the Sunday league games, creating a less than pleasent atmosphere at some games. Although the tribalism is more a problem for society overall, not just sports.

At the time the Club denied Birmingham Council had pressurised them over the name change. It was that awful Povey era.

I remember Brian Halford passionately arguing against the name change in several articles in the Evening Mail and anonymously quoting players against it. Of course he’s employed by the Club now.

We seem to have a misunderstanding locally that Birmingham isn’t in Warwickshire. west Mids is only an administrative area. It’s not a proper county. The 1972 Act which brought in the local government reorganisation stated it wasn’t supposed to change traditional loyalties.

Try telling somebody from Manchester th st they aren’t in Lancashire or somebody from Leeds that they aren’t in Yorkshire. It’s exactly the same thing.

So yes I’m happy to support a Warwickshire football team in Villa the same a four precious generations did and I’m happy to support my county cricket club in the same way.

Lichfield and the Black Country aren’t in Warwickshire of course.

And don’t think there’s anti rhetoric. The very many Nuneaton members I know love going over to Edgbaston. The only people who are the problem are the small number of vocal luddites who try and wreck outground cricket whenever it emerges in Warwickshire because it’s wrecks their vested interests in attending games in Birmingham,

The changing to 'Metropolitan' areas in the mid-70's created all sorts of talk about where people were associated with. I live in Halesowen which was Worcestershire so had no problem with its change to West Midlands but cities and towns that were in counties, should still be associated with those counties, for instance, would one of our old players Chris Old, have been allowed to play for Yorkshire if these counties had been changed 10 years earlier as he was from Middlesbrough which then became 'County Cleveland'. I think Chris Old would still regard himself as a Yorkshireman and form nowhere else just because some numpties decided we needed to change things.

Well Birmingham was very much part of Warwickshire and still is as far as I’m concerned.

As I say no difference to Manchester relationships to Lancashire or Leeds to Yorkshire or even Leicester to Leicestershire for that matter.

Anybody confused about the County we represent should look at the clubs covered by the Warwickshire Cricket Board.

It annoyed me that the club name wasn't on the side of the building and maybe that's why people who know absolutely nothing about cricket assume there is a team called Edgbaston who play there like my uncle once did. I wrote to the club asking if the name could be put somewhere on the building like it should be and wrote, "Can you imagine Anfield without Liverpool F.C. on the front of the building".

paulbear wrote:

It annoyed me that the club name wasn't on the side of the building and maybe that's why people who know absolutely nothing about cricket assume there is a team called Edgbaston who play there like my uncle once did. I wrote to the club asking if the name could be put somewhere on the building like it should be and wrote, "Can you imagine Anfield without Liverpool F.C. on the front of the building".

Good for you. There’s certainly been an attempt to separate Edgbaston from Warwickshire CCC for some time now. And the Chairmen and CEOs have been disingenuous about it. At one stage the letterhead sent to members only mentioned Edgbaston and not Warwickshire CCC which was bizarre. I remember telling Gascoigne that’s like Manchester United sending letters to supporters headed Old Trafford but he didn’t get it at all!

The floodlights are “e” for Edgbaston but Yorkshire have the county rose on them and Surrey their feathers.

If they can get away with it the unaccountable powers that be will remove all Warwickshire first class matches from Edgbaston and just have internationals, Hundred, T20s.

No sense of recognition that the Calthorpe Estate gifted Edgbaston to the people of Warwickshire!

Interesting debate, enjoying all views and opinions. Ah Gsscoigne, how clueless was he, he just didn't 'get' county cricket at all.

Freddie Calthorpe, he was captain and a decent allrounder, distantly related to Henry Blofeld.

paulbear wrote:

Freddie Calthorpe, he was captain and a decent allrounder, distantly related to Henry Blofeld.

Yep he was a member of the Gough- Calthorpe family who built and own the estate.

They also gave the land for Birmingham Univeristy and Cannon Hill Park.

paulbear wrote:

Freddie Calthorpe, he was captain and a decent allrounder, distantly related to Henry Blofeld.

Freddie Calthorpe guarantees that Jacob Bethell won't be the luckiest Warwickshire player ever to captain England - he was captain on a tour to West Indies in 1929/30 when, in one Test, England had a first innings lead of 563 and Freddie decided not to enforce the follow on. Then it rained and the tour party had to catch the boat home. Freddie took just one Test wicket and with the bat averaged 18 in his four Tests.

In the first Test, England needed 287 to win and finished on 167-3 from 65 overs. I know it was a different era but 4.4 runs per over and it doesn't appear they even wanted to chase it.