ENGLISH LEAGUE PLAY-OFF Blackpool 1 Birmingham City 0:Curtis Davies' unfortunate own goal gave Blackpool a slender advantage over Birmingham in the first leg of their semi-final.

The hosts broke the deadlock 44 minutes into an evenly-matched first half when Tom Ince’s speculative low drive took a significant deflection off Blues captain Davies.The Bloomfield Road faithful had their hearts in mouths when King clipped the outside of the post in stoppage time. Birmingham head into Wednesday’s second leg at St Andrew’s – their 62nd game of a season punctuated by runs in the Europa League and FA Cup – needing to bounce back from a first defeat in 10 outings, while Blackpool are now unbeaten in eight.