Thursday 5 March 2015 20:08, UK
Lee Clark admitted keeping Blackpool up would be football's "biggest miracle" after defeat at Birmingham.
Andrew Shinnie's first-half winner sealed a 1-0 win for the hosts in a dire game that left the rock bottom Tangerines 15 points from Sky Bet Championship safety.
Darren Randolph denied Gary Madine and Tom Barkhuizen in the second half but Blackpool, who were on top for long spells, were made to pay for switching off for Birmingham's winner.
It was Clark's first return to St Andrew's since being sacked in October and despite Blackpool's position at the bottom he vowed to keep fighting.
"It'll be the biggest miracle in football if we stay up now," he said. "We have 11 games to go and we're 16 points behind with our goal difference really.
"We need to get five wins and a draw more than three of our rivals. When we have only won four so far it's a tough one.
"We're still in there fighting and I'm prepared to fight myself. I have one eye on next season and the rebuilding job of the club.
"We want to get the days back under Ian Holloway when they lived the dream. The first part of that will be to bounce back.
"With each game that passes it becomes harder and harder, even more impossible than it was.
"It was a bit weird coming back, a bit surreal. It's a place which will always be special to me.
"I wish it was more successful, but the time myself and my family had at this football club will always remain with us."
Birmingham rose to 13th after back-to-back 1-0 home wins but boss Gary Rowett was unhappy with two challenges from Jamie O'Hara which went unpunished.
He said: "They were two very poor challenges which were the most unsavoury part of the evening. One was a forearm smash on David Davis and the other was a stamp on Clayton Donaldson.
"I'm not here to whine about that but it's not nice when it goes unpunished. The referee didn't see either of them but I find it hard to believe when he is five yards away."
But Rowett was pleased with the victory, which took Birmingham beyond their points total for last season when they survived on the final day.
He said: "It wasn't a classic performance from us. We seem to struggle when we play Saturday and mid-week, we can't replicate the intensity.
"But with 11 games to go we have one more point than last season. It's been a good week, we started hoping we could win at least one of them and we have won two.
"We can go with our tails high to Derby."
