Birmingham City's annual player of the year awards dinner last night would have been very fruity if David Sullivan and Franck Queudrue were sitting on the same table.
The Blues co-owner launched a broadside against former manager Steve Bruces summer signings and claimed they were a 'pile of rubbish'. The French defender was upset by Sullivan's stinging criticism and rang national radio station TalkSPORT to vent his anger.
With supporters ripping down the goalposts at St Andrew's and verbally abusing Sullivan after Birmingham's relegation back to the Championship was confirmed on Sunday, there is a nasty atmosphere hanging over the club.
Chairman David Gold has already admitted the club is in turmoil and offered to resign whilst Sullivan wants to sell his shares immediately.
New manager Alex McLeish must be looking on in amazement at the public slanging match that is developing in front of his very eyes but he will have to focus on revamping his squad for an assault on the title next season.
However, all eyes have been on Sullivan after his outburst produced a day of bitter recriminations in the Second City. The first section of the club to feel the multi-millionaire's wrath were the supporters. He said: "I've got my young kids with me, my kids are in tears. I can't repeat what was chanted.
"It's all f's and c's and w's, and things like that, which I don't need in my life. It isn't part of the game, as far as I'm concerned. It isn't acceptable. It's the venom. It wasn't just half a dozen people.
"At the end, you've probably got 1,000 people, 1,500 people on the pitch that ripped down goalposts. Those people ruined it for everybody. We've never had it before, in 16 years," he added, after arriving at the club in 1993 with Karen Brady in a takeover package with the club in administration.
"We've given our all for the club. The club was bankrupt when we got there. We've been relegated by one point. We just missed out."
Sullivan then turned his anger towards the players and in particular the summer acquisitions made by Steve Bruce. "We bought a pile of rubbish," he said. He named Queudrue - a £2million signing from Middlesbrough - and goalkeeper Richard Kingson - a free transfer from Ankaraspor - as two of the worst buys.
Birmingham's other close-season signings were Fabrice Muamba for £4million, Olivier Kapo for £3million, Garry O'Connor for £2.6million, Liam Ridgewell for £2million and free transfers Stuart Parnaby and Daniel De Ridder. He continued: "Bottom line, we didn't improve the team last summer."
However, Sullivan refused to lay the blame for those acquisitions solely at the door of Bruce, who became Wigan boss in November. "He thought he needed numbers - we went for numbers," Sullivan said. "We'd probably have been better just signing three players and going for better-quality players.
"What people forget is that prior to the arrival of Alex (McLeish), we'd lost seven of the last eight games," he said in a show of support for the current manager. "Things didn't go wrong when Alex arrived. I think we would have gone down with or without Steve with the team we had."
Meanwhile, Queudrue decided he wasnt going to take Sullivans criticism lying down and rang up TalkSPORT to put his forward his response.
"It's horrendous. Obviously I cannot stay in a club where the chairman makes comments like that about the players," said Queudrue, who made just 14 league starts this term. "I stayed fit, I played all the reserve games that I could - I have nothing to worry about when it comes to my professionalism.
"You can ask anyone who comes to see us train or you can ask the players and they will tell you the truth. I cannot accept that criticism from someone I have not seen all year."
Gold said: "The board made lots of mistakes this season and I carry the mistakes heavy on my shoulders at this moment in time. On reflection we could have done more in January. Alex McLeish brought in good signings like James McFadden and David Murphy but we could have done with a couple more players."
