BIRMINGHAM have been up and down in recent years more often than Vanessa Mae’s arm, and the bookmakers make them favourites to bounce back to the Premier League at the first attempt.

On yesterday’s evidence it won’t be pretty, but it might just be done like this – with steel rather than style, and the predatory expertise of Kevin Phillips. The stopwatch was showing 92 minutes 45 seconds when Phillips, the veteran whose goals shot West Brom to promotion last season, opened his account for the Blues. He controlled Garry O’Connor’s headed flick on his chest and turned adroitly before scoring with a shot from 12 yards which arrowed past Paddy Kenny’s extended left hand.

United were both deflated and hard done by. They had defended well and created more goal attempts, only to be beaten the first and last time their ’keeper was tested.

Until Phillips’ late intervention, Championship football had returned to St Andrews with a yawn rather than a bang, but the audience, who braved a drenching downpour, couldn’t say they hadn’t been warned. A pre-match comment from the Birmingham manager, Alex McLeish, to the effect that his players “can’t think they can play the beautiful game and just soar straight through to the Premier League” had hardly hinted at a feast for the eyes, and what transpired was anything but.

Both these teams are still in receipt of parachute payments after their respective demotions from the top division, and are therefore flush by Championship standards and expected to do well. Those of a charitable disposition will put their shortcomings here, in a scrappy game littered with unforced mistakes, down to early season rustiness, while others will question how players who were performing at the top level so recently could suddenly lose the ability to pass the ball from A to B.

For McLeish, the three points vindicated an eve-of-season mission statement, in which he had said: “The players will have to go through the battle and the rigours that come with being promotion favourites. They know they are there to be shot at. It will be a measure of their character, belief and attitude. I want players with a bit of character and steel. We’ll need those qualities.”

After a frantic, pellmell game almost devoid of noteworthy incident, McLeish added: “That was a perfect example of what I meant. I knew it was never going to be a walk in the park, and I was preparing the players mentally for that. We had to grind out the result. We’d love to have played Sheffield United off the park and scored a few goals, but football’s not as easy as that. We lacked that bit of quality in the last third of the pitch, and given who we had on the field I’d have expected a bit more from them. They didn’t show the guile that is required from them, but I think that will come.”

The culprits he had in mind were James McFadden, Marcus Bent and Gary McSheffrey, all of whom have Premier League pedigree but kept it pretty well hidden under the proverbial bushel here. Goal attempts were few and far between, errors abundant. For United, Gary Speed had a 25-yard volley tipped over and Billy Sharp a shot saved. For Birmingham, Bent was denied by a last-ditch block by Matt Kilgallon – and that was the sum of things until the introduction of Phillips, who got on for McSheffrey after 65 minutes.

“By that stage it had turned a bit anxious for us, which was understandable”, McLeish said. “It was our first game, everyone wanted to do well and it wasn’t happening.”

Enter the matchwinner. Just turned 35, Phillips was disappointed to be refused the new contract he wanted after scoring 24 goals for West Brom last season. McLeish said: “What happened out there sums him up. He’s a born finisher.”

Explaining that Phillips had been signed to replace the departed Mikael Forssell, the Birmingham manager added: “We felt we needed a goalscorer and Kevin was one who stuck out a mile. I knew he had issues with West Brom and waited patiently in the wings to get him.

“I’ve got a quality finisher and a guy I’d have liked to have worked with a few years ago. Mind you, compared with Teddy Sheringham he’s still just a boy.”

United missed their own principal goalscorer, James Beattie, who has had surgery on a knee, and without him, their manager, Kevin Blackwell, acknowledged that Phillips had been the difference between two well-matched teams.

“It was very frustrating to lose in the 93rd minute”, he said. “Paddy Kenny hadn’t had a save to make until then.”