Stitches, fractured jaws, and 'a wee tap' - Birmingham City's hardest ever players

They are the players that put in the boot when it matters, and their head in where it hurts. Modern interpretations of the laws of the game mean the true enforcers are probably a thing of the past.

So as the years go by, so their reputations grow. Here we take a look at the hardest players to have worn the shirt at Birmingham City...

A fearsome, imposing and powerful centre-half, Blake was a tough customer to play against. He gave no quarter in the heat of battle against an opposing centre-forward.

He was affectionately nicknamed ‘Zulu Warrior’ after such a cry went up once he went off with a bloody head wound against Watford and returned to the fray with his head smeared in Vaseline, carrying on as if nothing had happened.

Blake was one of the hard men in the team of the mid-80s, brought together by Ron Saunders. Now that was a side you just didn’t mess with.

Blake, Tony Coton, Pat van den Hauwe, Robert Hopkins, Howard Gayle, Mick Harford – some crew. Tales were legion of their toughness on the field of play, but also of the escapades in and around Birmingham once the games were over. Blake always insisted too much was made of their behaviour.

“Everybody talks about that side of the team but it doesn’t even cross my mind. The people who talk about it don’t know anything; it just gets blown out of all proportion. If we were supposed to have done half the stuff everybody thinks we did, do you think we’d have played the amount of games we did?

“There were a few scrapes, I’m not going to deny that. But the way I was brought up, if someone stood in your face, you stood your corner. Perhaps it was what Ron Saunders instilled in us. He was into his boxing. Anyway, we were young and stood together. Birmingham is a big city so