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Birmingham made an instant return to the Premier League after winning at Reading to claim the Championship's second automatic promotion place.

Keith Fahey's crisp first-half opener and Kevin Phillips' composed finish looked to have promotion sown up.

A minute after Phillips scored, Royals substitute Marek Matejovsky cut inside and drilled the ball home.

But Birmingham survived the Reading rally and Blues substitute Garry O'Connor's shot hit the post late on.

Birmingham had not been lower than third all season and manager Alex McLeish can now look forward to another go at managing in the Premier League after he failed to prevent Blues from relegation last May.

Reading could have snatched second place if they had defeated Birmingham and Sheffield United had drawn at Crystal Palace but Steve Coppell's side have to be content with a play-off semi-final against Burnley.

Yesterday was the first soccer game of the new AYSO season. I've been off the field since the end of the high school playoffs back in February, and was looking forward to getting back out there, and my first game was as a referee for a Boys U16 game between teams from Pasadena and Temple City.

The ARs were first rate, the breeze kept the heat down to a manageable level, and the game was fun. My sprinting faded a little towards the end, but otherwise I kept a good position all game. The teams were pretty evenly matched, but Pasadena had some finishers that Temple City lacked, and came away with a 3-0 win.

Premier League finale as it happened

AS IT FINISHED:
Champions: Manchester United
Champions League: Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool
Uefa Cup: Everton
Intertoto Cup: Aston Villa
Relegated: Reading, Birmingham, Derby

PREMIER LEAGUE RESULTS
Birmingham 4-1 Blackburn
Chelsea 1-1 Bolton
Derby 0-4 Reading
Everton 3-1 Newcastle
Middlesbrough 8-1 Man City
Portsmouth 0-1 Fulham
Sunderland 0-1 Arsenal
Tottenham 0-2 Liverpool
West Ham 2-2 Aston Villa
Wigan 0-2 Man Utd

CHAMPIONSHIP PLAY-OFF SEMI-FINAL FIRST LEG RESULT
Watford 0-2 Hull

From the BBC: Birmingham and Sunderland will play in the Premiership next term after Derby's defeat by Crystal Palace sealed the pair's promotion from the Championship.

The Rams started the day four points adrift of Sunderland and five behind leaders Birmingham and were unable to close the gap, with one match to play.

That means they must be content with a place in the play-offs.

Birmingham go to Preston and Sunderland visit Luton on the final day of the season as they battle for the title.

And Birmingham chairman David Gold says the club's promotion justifies the faith the board showed in manager Steve Bruce, even when fans were calling for him to be sacked in mid-October when Blues were 11 points adrift of then leaders Cardiff.

"A few months back people were looking to see Steve Bruce go from the club," said Gold.

"They were saying to us 'you should do certain things' but forgive me if I now say we have been vindicated for refusing to panic and in keeping faith in Steve.

"It is rare for clubs to go straight back up and it is a great performance to achieve that.

"There have been some dark days but Steve has been outstanding. He was determined to bounce back. He has rebuilt the team and now we are all back where we want to be."

And Blues managing director Karren Brady confirmed there will be funds to strengthen the team during the summer.

"Of course there will be funds," she stated.

"There is a lot of money coming into football next year from the broadcasting deal and we have all learnt that the Premiership is the only place to be.

"We have learned from our mistakes, we understand what needs to be done and that is going to take an enormous amount of investment.

"The board has got to stump up that money and has got to invest that money in the club's future."

The BBC web site just changed over for the upcoming season, moving Birmingham City from the Premiership pages to the Championship. Woe is me.

My kids and I have enjoyed soccer for many years. Jason started playing in the local youth league back in 1987, and both Jason and Jeremy played on their high school teams. (Justin spent a year on a select team in junior high and it burned him out.)

A few years ago, I finally got fed up with my local cable company, and dumped them. For a couple of years I used a semi-satellite service offered by the local phone company. Instead of a satellite transmitter, they used an antenna on the top of Mt. Wilson, so my dish pointed north almost horizontally, instead of up to the south.

When that service went belly-up, I switched to DirecTV, and never looked back. Over the years we've added receivers, and now have two TiVos and two regulars all over the house. One of the benefits of DirecTV is their sports channels, including what's now known as the Fox Soccer Channel (and used to be named Fox Sports World).

When I first started watching FSC, it was at the end of the season in England. Normally they only show games from the Premier League (EPL), but this weekend was the final of the First Division playoffs.
The winner would be promoted up to the EPL for next season. (At the end of the season, the bottom three teams in the EPL are relegated to the First Division, and three teams from the First Division are promoted to the EPL. The top two teams in the First Division standings go up automatically, and the next four teams have a playoff to determine the last promotion. The First Division is now known as the Championship, but the process is the same.)

Anyway, back to the First Division playoffs. I watched the game, which wound up going to KFTPM to decide the winner, and saw a team called Birmingham City take the win. They had never been in the EPL, and their fans were just ecstatic.

I decided that BCFC would be my soccer team in England. Over the years I got to see ten or more BCFC games each season - the big teams in English soccer had exclusive TV deals that limited FSC's ability to show their games, so smaller teams tended to get more exposure in the US.

A few of the games were fantastic. BCFC's local rivals are Aston Villa, and for their first three years in the EPL Birmingham did not lose to Villa. In the first season, BCFC won both games, which each featured horrendous blunders by the Villa keeper, along with tantrums and red cards from Villa players. In the second season, Clinton Morrison scored deep into second half injury time to salvage a tie at St. Andrews (BCFC's home field). Good times.

This year, things should have been good. The team invested in proven goal scorers, and the defense looked solid. BCFC would not vie for the league title, but looked good for a spot in the middle of the twenty team league standings.

Early season injuries resulted in a awful start to the season. The team clawed back, but whenever momentum looked positive, another top player would get an injury. As the season progressed, we hit a tough section of the schedule, and things were looking bad.

Sunderland established themselves early as one of the teams going down. In late March, they were joined by West Bromwich Albion (also from the Birmingham area) as relegation certainties. The last spot was a toss up between BCFC and Portsmouth, who had rehired coach Harry Redknapp away from their archrival Southampton mid-way through the season.

Last weekend, Portsmouth played Wigan, and BCFC played Newcastle. BCFC had to at least match Portsmouth's point total to stay alive. A late flurry of chances by Mikael Forsell were turned away by Shay Given, Newcastle's keeper, and the game end in a 0-0 draw. A late goal by Portsmouth gave them a 2-1 win over Wigan. With one game to play, Portsmouth had a four point lead, and BCFC was officially relegated.

I'll continue to follow my team as best I can - reading about them on the web, cheering them on from afar. When they come back up to the EPL, I'll be there. While they're down, I'll choose another team to root for (no, not Villa; NEVER!) - probably one of the newly promoted teams. But BCFC will always be MY team in English soccer.

Tom Rios of CD Chivas USA sent me this logo. It's posted here for future reference.