Birmingham. I love this city. A city I love like a worryingly obese kid loves cake. And, like that pudding-munching pre-adolescent, I can’t get enough of this city’s sometimes sweet, sometimes sickly delights, however aggravating they can be to my delicate constitution. For all its faults, it will always be No.1 in my heart.
This makes the perpetual preoccupation with being No.2 all the more jarring. This week, Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham discussed on BBC Radio 5 Live that Birmingham was in danger of losing its Second City of UK status to Manchester. His comments generated the usual parade of hand-wringing and defiant bluster from all (Chinese, Jewellery and Gun) quarters supportive of this city. The thing is though, does it matter? What’s so good about being second best?
If it was easy to determine what should constitute a Second City, then perhaps it would be a moniker worth worrying about. Instead, the criteria for the prestigious status of being not-as-good-as-Big-London are utterly indistinct. Is it down to population figures? Strength of artistic offering?
Cleanliness of public toilets? Who knows? And, furthermore, who decides?
I would have suggested a referendum, had this generation’s referendum not already been used to give Nick Clegg a case of extreme sad-face.
‘Second City’ is a nebulous concept at the best of times. Birmingham first seemed to acquire this soubriquet after World War One and has got away with marketing itself as such since then. The impressive development of modern-day Manchester has challenged this status quo, with occasional polls demonstrating increasing numbers believe the Northern city has the edge over its Midlands rival. Lord Jones’ comments have been perceived as an acknowledgement of Manchester’s advancement, attributing this to (among other things) the popularity of Coronation Street, rock band Oasis and the recent footballing successes of Manchester’s United and City.
I could, like many others have this week, start making defensive rebuttals to these examples of Mancunian dominance – y’know the sort of thing: ‘football-wise, we’re Manchester’s equals in that one of our clubs won a trophy this season and the other is run by a publicity-shunning American’. But I won’t. There’s no point.
Setting up a silver medal battle between us and Manchester does Birmingham a disservice. It’s like a drunken pub debate on what would win in a fight between a grizzly bear out of his mind on Red Bull and a gorilla forced to listen to six hours of Latvian noisecore – it’s moderately entertaining, impossible to prove and makes both hypothetical participants seem a bit tawdry. Certainly, seeing Birmingham depicted in the national media as fighting to hold onto a status that doesn’t exist is quite sad.
The whole debate is redundant and, more damagingly, old-hat. No-one needs to hear Brummies moaning that their home isn’t universally regarded as the Second City any more. I’m not sure endless talk about the city’s historic status as No.2 is what the world wants to hear from a city that also markets itself internationally on a premise of a youthful population and outlook.
Even Lord Jones’s reference to Oasis, a now defunct band whose best days coincided with that of Our Price record stores, seems anachronistic.
Energies would be better spent on being forward-focused about Birmingham, rather than looking over our shoulders to see if an unkempt Mancunian is about to surreptitiously nick a Second City medallion from our back pocket.
For example, why cast a covetous eye over Sir Alex Ferguson’s trophy cabinet when our civic leaders and ambassadors should be banging the drum for the city’s own considerable achievements? For the sake of argument, it would be better if the following quote was made by Gerard Houllier or Alex McLeish, but ho-hum – Sir Alex himself made an eminently valid point, following Manchester United’s latest Premier League success, when asked about how he felt passing Liverpool’s record of titles won.
He said, “It is not about passing Liverpool. It is more important that United are the best side in the country in terms of winning titles.”
This mentality would serve Birmingham well.
There are plenty of opportunities for Birmingham to big itself up, without having to worry about what Manchester, Liverpool or even Biggleswade is up to. The city’s GDP remains the best in the country outside the obvious exception of the capital. The HS2 train link promises to improve our region’s already enviable connectivity, with the obvious benefits this should provide to both trade and tourism.
The region’s engineers continue to innovate. Our legal sector, as reported in this paper last week, shows signs of thriving once more, with companies like the recently rebranded Gateley bearing the fruits of its decision to pick up the Halliwells business in Manchester. Yes, Manchester.
Supposedly creeping-up-on-the-sidelines Manchester.
Even Mancunians themselves, stereotyped as swaggeringly confident, realise Birmingham has plenty to set itself apart from other cities in the UK. I worked up in Manchester earlier this year, and took smug, vicarious pride in the fact Manchester’s business folk envied Brum’s finer selection of restaurants where clients could be impressed, deals could be made and contrived expenses claims could be racked up. However, the salient issue is you’ll rarely see this type of direct comparison between the two cities made by Manchester’s ambassadors in the public domain. The debate tends to be stoked by the national media or, worse still, by Birmingham itself.
It’s time to leave behind the ‘Second City’ debate. Let’s put an end to fuelling the media perception of a city clinging on to an intangible reminder of the past. As we crawl slowly towards the probability of an elected Mayor of Birmingham, on appointment the successful candidate is likely to peer into his or her in-tray and see a memo that simply reads ‘Improve people’s perception of Birmingham.’ On reading this memo, I hope the immediate reaction is ‘right – let’s tell people what makes our city great’ opposed to ‘hmm. Let’s just hope the Oasis boys aren’t doing a reunion tour, eh?’
* Keith Gabriel is a Birmingham-based PR account manager. Any views expressed are his own and do not represent his employers.
