![\"Jamie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1_JS92958445.jpg\")
Jamie Ward grew up an Aston Villa fan and played for their academy(Image: PA Wire)<\/p>\nJamie Ward wanted to join Birmingham City when his move to Nottingham Forest turned sourJamie Ward grew up an Aston Villa fan and played for their academy(Image: PA Wire)<\/p>\n
Jamie Ward is a die-hard Aston Villa<\/a> fan who came through the ranks at his boyhood club \u2013 but there was a time when he was desperate to join Birmingham City.<\/a><\/p>\n The former Northern Ireland international spent most of his career in the Championship with Derby County and Nottingham Forest, and it was during his time with the latter that Blues came onto his radar.<\/p>\n Ward was out of favour at the City Ground and formed part of a bomb squad during his four-year stay in Nottingham.<\/p>\n There were loans at Burton Albion, Cardiff City and Charlton and Birmingham-born Ward wanted to join Blues.<\/p>\n Asked whether he would have been willing to join Blues, Villa fan Ward told Undr The Cosh: \u201cI tried to go there when I was trying to leave Forest. I said to my agent, \u2018Just get me there\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to leave the family and Birmingham’s<\/a> training ground is an hour from where I live. Again it goes back to\u2026 it\u2019s a job.\u201d<\/p>\n Ward had no qualms about moving directly to Forest from fierce rivals Derby after being released in 2015.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIf it\u2019s right for me and the family, why does it matter to anyone else? Football is our job. The bigger picture, as much as I love the fans, is about the people in my house.\u201d<\/p>\n If you were a footballer could you play for your team’s rivals? Let us know HERE<\/a><\/p>\n Everyday, the BirminghamLive football desk strive to deliver all manner of news, features and transfer-related stories as a part of our overall package of Birmingham City content.<\/p>\n Our dedicated reporters Alex Dicken and Brian Dick – you can follow Alex on X here<\/a> and Brian here<\/a> – follow Blues around the country and they offer you comprehensive coverage from matchdays, press conferences and everything that happens in between.<\/p>\n So much happens day to day and sometimes you can struggle to keep on top of the very latest updates as and when they occur – that’s why we have produced a daily newsletter which you can sign up to, for free, and which means you’ll have a round-up of the key stories land in your email inbox. Sign up to the Blues newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also get all your favourite content from BirminghamLive’s Blues team on WhatsApp. Click here<\/a> to sign up for breaking updates about the biggest stories and insight from in and around the club.<\/p>\n If you prefer reading our Blues stories on your phone, consider downloading the BirminghamLive app, in which you can personalise the content you see by selecting Blues as one of your designated topics. You can get it from Apple here<\/a> and for Android here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our weekly Birmingham City podcast, Keep Right On, is also available to watch and listen on all major streaming services. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel here, while you can access the podcast on Spotify here<\/a> and via Apple here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie Ward wanted to join Birmingham City when his move to Nottingham Forest turned sourJamie Ward grew up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[422,855,1205,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-230679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-aston-villa-fc","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114780895001675890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}