Last week, I looked at a former Norwegian Blues player after the signing of Erik Huseklepp, and I’m going to continue in a similar vein with taking a look at one of the four Greek-descended players to play for Blues after Andros Townsend (an English-Greek Cypriot) signed on loan last week.

Vasilios Kalogeracos

Probably one of the biggest names to grace Birmingham City reserve team football (along with Marco Randrianantoanina), Vas came to Blues as an 18-year-old fresh out of the Australian Institute of Sport in 1993. The pacy striker stayed at Birmingham for eighteen months before leaving to try his luck elsewhere, having not made a single first team appearance during his spell at St Andrews (or on loan at Stevenage Borough).

Since Vas left us in 1995, he’s taken the Marcus Bent approach to football in playing for lots of clubs but never quite showing the full amount of his talent at any of them. His glory years were probably at Perth Glory, where he spent four years to general acclaim from the fans, or at South Melbourne where he played in the 2001 Grand Final, losing 2-1 to Wollongong Wolves.

However, it’s not all been bad for Kalogeracos. After spending a two-year stint playing for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia immediately after leaving Blues, Vas returned to his native Australia to play for Floreat Athena of the Western Australia Premier League, based in Perth. Floreat had had another famous Greek-Australian playing for them in the left winger Stan Lazaridis some years before – both of whom being club legends if the name of the player’s tunnel is anything to go by.

After a short stint with Perth Glory Kalogeracos tried his luck in England again, moving to Stockport County for £150,000. It didn’t work out for him though, and within a year he was back at Perth Glory where he spent two years (with a useful loan spell at Ham-Kam of the Norwegian top flight in the middle). However, there were issues with the coach at Perth, and in 2000 he moved on to South Melbourne. After the Grand Final defeat he moved to New Zealand and Football Kingz (who bizarrely played in the Australian Leagues) but he left after a month to go back to Australia. Kalogeracos wasn’t happy; there were rumours he hadn’t settled but he denied them vigorously, stating he’d had five training injuries in three weeks and that the Auckland-based club had basically accused him of lying.

The remainder of Kalogeracos’ career was spent playing for teams that you’d find on the Aussie football coupons, in the various state leagues around Australia; never playing for more than a season, scoring a few goals but continually struggling with injuries. Having signed for Dianella White Eagles in the Victoria Premier League in 2009, he was forced to retire without playing a game as persistent niggles and problems caught up with him.

All in all, Vas Kalogeracos had the true journeyman career; bit of early promise but never really showing it and never staying at any club long enough to put down roots. Still, it’s not every player that has a tunnel named after them – and I bet you didn’t know that there was a football ground in Australia with a feature named after two ex-Blues.

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