Birmingham battle back to frustrate West Ham

Birmingham staged an impressive fightback to earn a 2-2 draw against West Ham that frustrated former owners David Sullivan and David Gold.

Alex McLeish’s side trailed 2-0 at St Andrew’s as goals from Frederic Piquionne and Valon Behrami put the struggling Hammers, now owned by Sullivan and Gold, on course for just their second win of the season.

But Cameron Jerome reduced the deficit for City and Liam Ridgewell salvaged a point for the hosts nine minutes later.

Sullivan, whose team remain bottom of the table, looked on impassively but at least he was able to witness proceedings at first hand after former Blues chairman David Gold had been banned after comments about Birmingham’s current owner Carson Yeung.

There was a bizarre delay to the match in the early moments when the pitch sprinklers suddenly burst into life and showered several players with water before they were quickly switched off.

But West Ham looked threatening and it needed a brilliant save from Ben Foster to deny Carlton Cole the opening goal.

Cole’s close-range shot from Victor Obinna’s low centre looked destined for the corner of the net, but Foster somehow finger-tipped the ball onto the post at full stretch and it rebounded out.

West Ham needed only three minutes of the second half to break the deadlock through Piquionne’s fourth goal of the campaign.

Luis Boa Morte picked out the run of Piquionne in between Ridgewell and Roger Johnson and he drilled his shot across Foster into the far corner of the net.

Cole came close to making it 2-0 when his glancing header went just over from Obinna’s corner.

It came as no surprise when Behrami doubled the Hammers lead after 57 minutes. Cole had time to tee up the run into the box of Behrami and his first-time shot flew past Foster from 12 yards.

But Jerome gave Birmingham a life-line by reducing the arrears after 63 minutes.

Nikola Zigic headed a cross from Sebastian Larsson into his path and Jerome made no mistake from close range.

Then Ridgewell equalised in the 73rd minute as Robert Green could only push a free-kick from Larsson into the path of the centre-back, who made no mistake from eight yards out.