I’m going to make a confession. I’m a fan of Football Manager type games and thus I get super-excited when a player I’ve signed on the game comes to Blues for real – especially when that player is a very highly rated one. Christophe Dugarry was one of the players to fit into that category; a world cup winner with France and here he was at Blues – it was a bit surreal at first and a dream come true.

Christophe didn’t score in his first ten games at the club, and I remember that there had been mutterings on the highlights programmes that Dugarry hadn’t been worth the expensive gamble – he’d not produced the goods and Blues were slowly slipping into relegation trouble. Wins against Liverpool and at Villa Park had been welcome but they had come at the end of a nine-game streak without a win and by the time the Sunderland match rolled around we’d won three in five to arrest the slump somewhat. However, we’d been bouncing around just above the relegation trapdoor and came into the game in 17^th place. Sunderland however were in deep trouble; bottom of the table, without a league win since December 15 2002 and on a run of nine consecutive defeats. It was a match Blues had to win.

Bryan Hughes started his first game in five months in midfield and Horsfield partnered Dugarry up front. Blues had had a terrible run of injuries in the first couple of months of 2003 and it had just started to ease up as this game approached, meaning the team had quite a balanced look about it. It was two weeks before I got married and thus, ever the romantic fool I am I brought my wife-to-be (as she was then) to only her second or third ever Blues game, and we were sat up in Block 39 for this one.

Sunderland came at us like a train; they knew that if they lost this game any mathematical hope they would have of staying up would evaporate and Mick McCarthy (who was their fourth manager that season) had instilled in them some fight to try to regain some dignity.

However, after the early storm Blues settled and first Horsfield was denied by a block by Talal El-Karkouri before Stephen Clemence missed a good chance with a close-range header. Sunderland should have scored midway through the first half when Sean Thornton miskicked with the goal gaping before Kevin Kyle headed wide.

Blues took the lead just before half time – Estonian keeper Mart Poom had been forced to punch a ball clear to prevent Dugarry from potentially scoring only to see Bryan Hughes chip him from 25 yards.

It was another Poom punch that was to see Dugarry finally break his duck in Blues colours after eleven games – Hughes returning it into the area before Upson touched it on and Dugarry diverted into the corner of the net with a clever header. I remember at the time thinking “well, he’s at least got one for us – I’ve seen him score once for us.” The mercurial Frenchman was subbed off straight afterwards for Stern John. Sunderland came back at us before former Blues target Marcus Stewart was sent off after hacking down John and Clemence had a chance at the death to make it three but couldn’t take it.

Dugarry went on to score four more goals in as many games including a peach of a goal at Charlton where he backheeled in a cross – much like Danny Welbeck did against Sweden in the Euro2012 Championships and Sunderland continued on a losing streak, finishing the season with fifteen lost in a row and a grand total of nineteen points and twenty-one goals scored – both Premier League lows until Derby County in 2008 managed to beat both.

Whilst it went a little pear-shaped once Dugarry joined us permanently I still remember with fondness his Gallic pomp on the pitch – the shrug of the shoulders, the untucked shirt and hair straggling past his shoulders – and think fondly of a time when Blues could bring in someone who was a star on a computer game.

Tags: Christophe Dugarry