Birmingham City's Jay Stansfield breaks silence on bittersweet Exeter City return | OneFootball

Jay Stansfield has spoken out after making a bittersweet goal-scoring return to Exeter City's St James Park.

It just had to be him, didn't it?

An emotional Jay Stansfield returned to St James Park for the first time as an opposition player on Tuesday and duly stole all the headlines.

The Exeter City academy product, now at Birmingham City, fired the Blues' second goal of the game to wrap up a 2-0 win and consign his boyhood club to consecutive losses in League One.

Blues dominated from start to finish and comfortably got their promotion push back on track following their shock loss to Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.

Stansfield was kept fairly quiet in open play but no-one was taking the ball off him when Ilmari Niskanen was adjudged to have handled inside the box in front of the away end with eight minutes to play.

Stansfield sent Exeter keeper Joe Whitworth the wrong way to make it 2-0 and pointed to the sky before being engulfed by his team-mates in front of Blues supporters.

As the celebrations died down he blew a kiss towards the Adam Stansfield stand after a moment to himself.

Before the game Exeter's the giant 'Stansfield 9' shirt was carried over the heads of the Grecian faithful in the Adam Stansfield stand, a tribute to his late father who died of cancer while a City player in 2010.

The home fans sang their 'Sing a song for our Stanno' song with extra gusto and Jay's family watched on from the stands.

Stansfield's message to Exeter fans

On his Instagram after the game he posted a story with an image of him looking emotional and the caption: "This place means the world to me and thank you for welcoming me back and was good to see you all again. That was for you Dad."

It was always going to be interesting to see what happened when Stanno Jnr scored and the controversial nature of the penalty might have soured the mood a little, but some sections of the Exeter support reacted badly to what they considered as a celebration.

Many expected a muted 'hands up' celebration but Jay is an emotional guy and St James Park is clearly an acre of grassland that holds a special place in his heart.

Stansfield then went down injured a couple of times and was eventually withdrawn late on with a small minority deciding to boo the academy product as he departed

Stansfield's mixed Exeter response

However, when Stanno went on a bit of a lap of honour of his former home after the final whistle, he was given a warm reception from the overwhelming majority of the Grecian faithful once the red-hot heat of the match had died down.

Next up for Stansfield and his colleagues is an FA Cup Second Round tie at Blackpool on Saturday.

Exeter need to regroup after the weekend's 3-0 reverse at Wrexham was quickly followed by Tuesday's 2-0 home defeat.

They've got Chesterfield in the FA Cup on Saturday and another reunion of sorts, though Exeter boss Gary Caldwell might not get such a warm reception from the supporters of his former club.