History of Birmingham City F.C.

This article deals with the history of Birmingham City Football Club, a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. For a season-by-season breakdown of the club's performance, see Birmingham City F.C. seasons.

1875–92: The early years

In 1875, when members of the cricket team based at Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, on the east side of Birmingham, decided they wanted something to do in the winter months, they formed a football team. Playing under the name of Small Heath Alliance, their early games took place on a piece of waste ground off Arthur Street. As interest grew, they moved to an enclosed field in the Sparkbrook area where admission could be charged. In 1877, they decamped again, this time paying £5 a year to the family of a team member to rent a field adjacent to Muntz Street, in the Small Heath district, which became their home for the next 29 years.

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Muntz Street and surroundings in 1890

For the first thirteen years of their existence, there was no league football, so friendly matches were arranged on an ad hoc basis, supplemented by cup competitions organised at local and national level. During the 1880s, they played between 20 and 30 matches each season. They played Aston Villa, the team that would become their main local rivals, for the first time in 1879; Small Heath won by "a goal and a disputed goal to nil". They first entered the Birmingham Senior Cup in 1878–79, made their debut in the national cup competition, the FA Cup, in 1881–82 – Billy Slater scored their first goal in nationally organised football as Small Heath beat Derby Town 4–1 – and won their first trophy, the Walsall Cup, the following season. In 1885–86, Small Heath reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, in which they faced West Bromwich Albion in front of 10,000 spectators at Aston Lower Grounds. According to the Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, Small Heath, who were by no means one of the foremost teams in the Birmingham area, had had a fortunate draw in the competition, whereas their opponents, fellow members of the Birmingham Football Association, were among the strongest in the country. Albion won easily, by four goals to nil, and the game was ended early after the losing supporters invaded the pitch and pelted the Albion goalkeeper with snowballs.

As soon as payment of players over and above their actual out-of-pocket expenses was permitted by the Football Association for the first time, in 1885, the Small Heath club turned professional. The players did not receive a salary, but instead shared half the gate money. Three years later, at the suggestion of Walter Hart, the president of the Birmingham F.A. who had once been the club's honorary secretary, it became the first football club to structure itself as a limited company with a board of directors, under the name of The Small Heath Football Club Limited. The original company listed its objects as "to acquire a Football Club to play the game of Association Football and the doing all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment of the above", set its nominal capital at £500, to be divided into ten-shilling shares, and its memorandum of association listed seven initial subscribers who between them took up 35 of the 1000 shares. These included Hart, who became the first chairman of its board, Alfred Jones, honorary secretary, and William Starling.

Caesar Jenkyns, captain in the 1890s

Small Heath were not among the select twelve clubs invited to join the Football League, which was to begin in 1888. Instead, they joined the Football Combination, a second league formed to provide organised football for such excluded clubs. This was not a success; poor organisation caused it to fold in April 1889 with many fixtures still outstanding. For 1889–90, Small Heath were accepted into the Football Alliance, a new second league whose committee adopted the more successful aspects of the Football League's organisation, including limiting team numbers to a manageable twelve, and arranging and publishing the fixture list before the season began. After two tenth-place finishes, and elimination from the 1890–91 FA Cup for fielding an ineligible player, they finished third in 1891–92, helped by Fred Wheldon's 21 goals from the 22 matches and Caesar Jenkyns' captaincy and physical centre-half play. Jenkyns became the first man to play a senior international match while a Small Heath player when selected for Wales for the 1892–93 Home Internationals. They also progressed through four qualifying rounds and one round proper to reach the last 16 of the FA Cup. Drawn first, and therefore having choice of venue, Small Heath accepted Sheffield Wednesday's offer of £200 to forfeit home advantage and play the match at Wednesday's Olive Grove ground; they lost.

1892–1905: Small Heath in the Football League

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Small Heath F.C. pictured in 1893 with the Football League Second Division trophy

The Football League decided to expand its membership for the 1892–93 season by forming a Second Division. Although Small Heath's application for admission to the enlarged First Division failed, they were one of eight Football Alliance teams accepted into the Second. The directors appointed Alfred Jones as the club's first paid secretary, and William Starling was elected to the Football League Management Committee as one of two representatives of the Second Division. During the season, the team scored 90 goals at an average of 4 goals per game, beat Walsall Town Swifts 12–0 to set a club record League victory which, as of 2015, still stands, remained undefeated on their own ground, and won the last nine matches of the season to take the inaugural Second Division title. Goalkeeper Chris Charsley, a policeman who played as an amateur and went on to serve as chief constable of Coventry, became the first Small Heath player to be capped by England. Promotion to the First Division was not automatic, even for the champions, but depended on the results of test matches between the top three Second Division and bottom three First Division teams. Small Heath lost to 16th-placed First Division team Newton Heath (the future Manchester United) after a replay, so were not promoted, although the teams placed second and third were. Their success at the second attempt, as 1893–94 runners-up and victors over Darwen in the test match, was met with relief as well as celebration. The club had been in serious financial difficulty during the season, during which it added a loss of £222 to an existing deficit of some £350; the Birmingham Daily Post believed that "defeat would in all probability have meant the disbanding of the club", ambitions of promotion having sustained the committee's efforts throughout the season to raise enough funds to keep going.

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The Muntz Street end of the Coventry Road ground

Ahead of their first season in the top division, and in anticipation of increased attendances, the club began work on a grandstand and relaid the pitch. Over the next few years, they purchased the remaining eleven years of the lease on the Coventry Road ground, and bought the grandstand from Aston Villa's Wellington Road ground to use as a terrace cover, providing more covered standing accommodation. Despite the misgivings of the Daily Post that the squad was too small, the team finished 12th of 16. They opened the 1895–96 campaign with six defeats, spent most of it in the bottom two places, conceded more goals than any other team in the division for the second consecutive season, and scored fewer than all but bottom club West Bromwich Albion. The directors were criticised for failing to improve the team and for their selection policy: making too many changes to the team from one game to the next, and playing men when they were unfit. A draw from the final match of the season, at home to Sunderland, would have secured their First Division status for another year, but they lost, finished 15th of the 16 teams, and were relegated. Following the relegation, Fred Wheldon, who had scored 116 goals from 175 matches in league and FA Cup, left for League champions Aston Villa for a fee of £350, which was reported to be a national record.

Five seasons in the Second Division followed. Small Heath started 1896–97 badly but finished frustratingly well, in fourth position. After coming sixth in 1898, they were only two points off the promotion positions with four matches of the 1898–99 season to play; they lost three, drew one, and finished eighth. Walter Abbott set club records that still stand, of 34 league goals in a season and 42 in all competitions. In 1899–1900, Small Heath were never out of the top four in the division but rarely in the top two, and finished third. Both income and expenditure had doubled over the two First Division seasons. The local press criticised the "penny wise and pound foolish" approach to the signing of players after relegation, and the 1898–99 accounts illustrated an over-reliance on gate receipts: Woolwich Arsenal took £360 less on the gate, but their profit exceeded Small Heath's by nearly £3,000. After an £875 loss the following season, the directors made it clear they could not continue funding a loss-making enterprise, and suggested that a reduction in players' wages was the only course of action.

Two defeats at the end of the 1900–01 season deprived Small Heath of a second divisional title, but not of promotion as runners-up. They also reached the quarter-final of the FA Cup, losing to Aston Villa after a replay. The board's decision to reject Villa's offer of "a big transfer fee and a benefit match in addition" for the services of centre-forward Bob McRoberts was vindicated when he top-scored with 17 goals. Average attendances rose from 5,500 to 13,000 for 1901–02, but finishing the season with a six-match unbeaten run was not enough to escape relegation. A fifth change of division in eleven seasons – they reached the top two places by mid-November 1902 and remained there for the rest of the campaign – gained Small Heath the reputation of a yo-yo club. This time, a late run proved enough to keep them in the division, in contrast to 1904–05 when they reached second place in mid-February, one point behind Everton, but lost six of the last ten games to finish seventh.

1905–15: New name and new home

With William Adams as president and former player Harry Morris on the board, the club adopted a more enterprising approach. An extraordinary general meeting in March 1905 heard a proposal that, Small Heath being the only major football club in the city since Birmingham St George's had folded in 1892, the club should be renamed Birmingham City F.C. The shareholders were not in favour, though they were prepared to go as far as plain Birmingham Football Club. That name was approved by the Football Association, after consulting the Birmingham F.A., and by the League, and was formally adopted ahead of the 1905–06 season. It was still a step too far for some; one reporter referred to "the Small Heath club now masquerading as Birmingham", and the Manchester Courier reported their assuming "the more pretentious name of Birmingham".

The inadequacies of the Coventry Road ground, which was by then surrounded by tightly-packed housing, were highlighted by events surrounding the February 1905 match with Aston Villa. The official attendance was given as 28,000, though with the gates closed before kick-off, thousands scaled walls or forced entrances in order to gain admission, and the actual attendance was estimated at anything up to 35,000. The Birmingham Daily Mail commented that had space been available, another ten or fifteen thousand spectators might well have attended, as "hundreds of people found the doors closed against them, and probably there were thousands who would not go to the ground in view of the inevitable crush." The landlords had raised the rent, but would neither sell the freehold of the ground nor allow its expansion, and the directors estimated that remaining at Coventry Road was losing the club as much as £2,000 a year in revenue. Morris identified the site of a disused brickworks, three-quarters of a mile (1 km) nearer the city centre, as suitable for a new ground, the directors signed a 21-year lease, and construction began in January 1906. On 26 December of that year, after volunteers spent all morning clearing the snow, 32,000 spectators witnessed the official opening of the 75,000-capacity St Andrew's Ground and a goalless draw with Middlesbrough.

The Football Association used the ground for a semi-final of that season's FA Cup, but Birmingham's play failed to live up to the new surroundings. They were relegated in 1907–08, prompting the resignation of Alf Jones, who had been secretary-manager since 1892. Successor Alex Watson's two seasons in charge ended with Birmingham bottom of the Second Division and having to apply for re-election to the league. After Hart's address, in which he stressed the club's age and longstanding league membership and assured his audience that inexperienced directors to whom the team's present position could be attributed had retired in favour of men of experience, the meeting voted Birmingham back into the league as top of the poll. Responsibility for team affairs passed to former player Bob McRoberts, who became the club's first dedicated team manager. Birmingham remained in the second tier for the five seasons before League football was suspended because of the First World War.

1915–39: Birmingham in the First Division

Frank Richards had taken over as secretary in 1911, and also acted as Birmingham's team manager for the various wartime competitions. When the Football League resumed after the war, he retained the post, and it was under his management that they returned to the First Division, in which they would remain for eighteen seasons. Birmingham placed third in 1919–20, and in 1920–21, driven by Frank Womack's captaincy and the creative skills of Scottish international Johnny Crosbie, they reached the last day of the 1920–21 season needing to beat Port Vale away to be sure of maintaining their position ahead of Cardiff City and thus clinch the division title for the second time. They did so. A 19-year-old called Joe Bradford scored on his competitive debut on Christmas Day 1920 at West Ham United; he went on to set goalscoring records for the club of 467 goals, 414 in the league, was their leading scorer for twelve consecutive seasons from 1922 to 1933, and scored seven times in twelve appearances for England. Off the field, the club bought the freehold of St Andrew's in 1921 for around £7,000.

Birmingham finished 18th out of 22 in the first season back at the top level, but did not take part in the 1921–22 FA Cup. The club failed to submit the entry form in time to be granted exemption from qualifying, and the Football Association refused to bend the rules in their favour. Although that decision did not preclude their entering the competition in the qualifying rounds, the directors chose not to do so. In 1922–23, the team set an unwanted record sequence of eight league defeats, since equalled but as of 2015 not beaten. Off the field, the club made a £13,000 saving on wages and general expenses to end the season with a profit of £3,000.

This had been Richards' last season as secretary-manager. He was succeeded by Billy Beer, who had played 250 matches for the club in the 1900s. He led the team to three mid-table finishes before, in early 1927, a boardroom dispute over transfer policy came to a head. Writing in the Sports Argus, the pseudonymous "Argus Junior" described one faction as "anxious to secure talent at almost any price" and the other "desirous with 'going slow' as its motto", and believed that "the former are now in the ascendancy and that they mean business". Three directors resigned, followed a few days later by Beer, who had reportedly found it impossible to work with some members of the board. Over the next few months, further departures included secretary Sam Richards, former player Billy Harvey, who had acted as team manager, and the long-serving Womack, who made his Birmingham debut in 1908 and set club appearance records of 491 league games, a record which as of 2015 still stands, and 515 games in senior competition, since overtaken by Gil Merrick. The Argus suggested a better course of action and "the clear duty of the present board [would be] to resign and test the feelings of the shareholders".

Instead, it appointed former Arsenal manager Leslie Knighton as secretary-manager in June 1928. He was able to stabilise the team and in 1931–32, led them to their first FA Cup Final. Between semi-final and final Birmingham lost six of their nine league matches, and The Times reminded its readers that "sickness and injury had played havoc with their men for weeks past. They had no regular practice together for the great match." Opponents West Bromwich Albion were heading for promotion from the Second Division, youthful and full of confidence. Bradford had played only once since the semi-final and declared himself fit on the morning of the match. Birmingham had a goal disallowed early on, then fell behind; the clearly unfit Bradford was able to equalise, but W. G. Richardson went upfield straight from the kickoff and scored his side's winner. Knighton's team finished in the top half of the division in 1932, and he signed a contract extension, but when Chelsea made him an offer he could not refuse, he left, to be replaced by George Liddell, recently retired from playing.

Birmingham remained in the top flight for 18 seasons in all, but most of them were spent in the bottom half of the table. Consistency of selection played a part in the 1920s; six – Womack, Bradford, Crosbie, Dan Tremelling, Percy Barton and Liddell – of the as of 2015 fifteen men with more than 300 league appearances for the club played most of their matches in that decade. Much reliance was placed on Tremelling and then on England goalkeeper Harry Hibbs to make up for the lack of goals, Bradford excepted, at the other end. Under Liddell's management, the makeup of the side never settled. He used 70 players over his six seasons in charge (in contrast to the 55 used in the first six First Division seasons in the 1920s), and after narrowly avoiding relegation three times in 1934, 1935 and 1938, Birmingham were finally relegated in 1938–39, the last full season before the Second World War. The club's record attendance of 67,341 was set that season, in the fifth round of the FA Cup against Everton.

1939–65: Birmingham City and post-war success

When war was declared in September 1939, the government banned public gatherings until safety implications could be assessed. Most football grounds reopened soon afterwards, even those in built-up or strategically significant areas, but Birmingham's Chief Constable ordered the continued closure of St Andrew's because of its proximity to probable air-raid targets such as the BSA munitions factories. The matter was raised in Parliament, but the Home Secretary felt unable to intervene in what was perceived as a local issue, and the Chief Constable did not bow to public pressure until March 1940. The ground suffered 20 direct hits from Luftwaffe bombing, bringing down the roof of the Kop terrace, and fires damaged the railway end stand, scoreboard and clock, and destroyed the main stand, including board room, gymnasium, treatment room and offices. The club's current name of Birmingham City F.C. was adopted in 1943. When nationally organised football resumed in 1945, Harry Storer was appointed manager. In his first season the club won the Football League South title, ahead of Aston Villa on goal average – the 1945–46 Football League North and South included teams from the pre-war First and Second Divisions, and were an interim step between the highly regionalised and mixed-ability wartime leagues and the Football League itself, which restarted in 1946–47 – and reached the semi-final of the first post-war FA Cup. Two years later they won their third Second Division title, conceding only 24 goals in the 42-game season.

Bob Brocklebank succeeded Storer as manager in 1950. Though unable to prevent them being relegated, he and chief scout Walter Taylor laid the foundations for the club's successes of the 1950s. Brocklebank was responsible for introducing future England internationals Trevor Smith and Jeff Hall to the side, and for bringing in several mainstays of Birmingham's teams through the 1950s. Arthur Turner took over as manager in November 1954 with the club mid-table in the Second Division. By the end of the season they had scored 92 goals, with all five first-choice forwards reaching double figures, beaten Liverpool 9–1, a result which remains that club's record defeat, and were confirmed champions with a 5–1 win in the last game of the season away to Doncaster Rovers.

Birmingham's sixth position in their first season back in the First Division remains their highest league finish. They also reached their second FA Cup Final, but lost 3–1 to Manchester City in a game best remembered for City's goalkeeper, Bert Trautmann, playing the last 20 minutes with a broken bone in his neck. City won using the Revie Plan, in which their centre-forward Don Revie played in a deep position, disrupting the Birmingham defence accustomed to the era's conventional playing positions. Goalkeeper Gil Merrick attributed to the defeat to a half-time failure to discuss how to stop Revie, and outside left Alex Govan blamed the absence of the "utterly ruthless" Roy Warhurst through injury and a poor choice of replacement. It was during this FA Cup campaign, in which all Birmingham's games had been away from home, that Harry Lauder's "Keep right on to the end of the road" was adopted as the fans' anthem. The following season the club lost in the FA Cup semi-final for the third time since the war, beaten 2–0 by Manchester United's "Busby Babes".

For the inaugural edition of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, a football tournament set up in 1955 to promote international trade fairs, invitations were extended to host cities rather than to clubs. Aston Villa rejected the opportunity to supply players for a combined team to represent the city of Birmingham, so Birmingham City became the first English club side to play in European competition when they played their first match on 15 May 1956. They were also the first English club side to reach a European final, the 1960 Fairs Cup Final, in which they lost to Barcelona 4–1 on aggregate. They reached and lost in the 1961 final as well, to Roma 4–2 on aggregate.

In February 1958, three days after Birmingham lost 8–0 at Preston North End, former Bristol City manager Pat Beasley joined the club. He was expected to be Turner's assistant, but chairman Harry Morris Jr. announced his appointment as joint manager, that Turner had recommended him, and that secretary Walter Adams was also to have input into team matters. At the time, Turner was quoted as being happy with the arrangement, but was later reported to have only found out about it from the press and to have needed persuading not to resign. The experiment did not work. Turner and the board found themselves at odds over aspects of managerial policy, the players unsure as to who was in charge. With the team lying 21st after a 6–0 defeat against West Bromwich Albion, Turner quit in September 1958. Beasley was named acting manager, and would have to submit his team selections to the board for discussion, though not for alteration: Morris insisted that "The manager and not the directors will pick the team as long as I am chairman." He led the team to a 9th-place finish.

Towards the end of the season, two weeks after playing in a match at Portsmouth, Birmingham full-back Jeff Hall died of polio. The realisation that a young, fit, England footballer could die of a preventable disease sparked a massive rise in demand for vaccination, and a memorial fund launched in his name by the club and local newspapers endowed a research fellowship in the University of Birmingham's Department of Medicine.

Gil Merrick joined the club in 1939 and kept goal during and after the war through the 1940s and much of the 1950s. He won 23 caps for England, and set a club record of 551 appearances in all senior competitions, as well as coaching the reserves. After Birmingham finished 19th in 1959–60, having been in or just above the relegation places throughout the season, Merrick was appointed first-team manager. He was unable to improve the team's league performance, but did lead them to the first major trophy in the club's history. Entry to the new League Cup competition, introduced in 1960–61, was optional; several top-flight clubs chose not to enter, but Birmingham did so from the first year. In 1962–63, while avoiding relegation only by winning two of their last three matches, they showed their best form in reaching the League Cup final, which was played over two legs on the grounds of the competing clubs. Opponents Aston Villa were pre-match favourites, having beaten Birmingham 4–0 in their most recent league meeting. But in the home leg Birmingham "served up a treat of attacking football ... controlling the game with such assurance that their supporters must have wondered why the team had performed so badly in the First Division", and came out comfortable 3–1 winners, with two goals from Ken Leek and one from Jimmy Bloomfield. Under the captaincy of Trevor Smith, a solid defensive performance in a goalless draw saw Birmingham lift the trophy at the home of their local rivals. After the fourth consecutive bottom-six finish – they won the last two matches of 1963–64 to escape relegation – the board felt a "complete reorganisation" of the club was necessary, and asked Merrick to resign. He complied, but thought he had been ill treated, and had nothing more to do with the club for more than thirty years. In 1964–65, Birmingham finished seven points away from safety and returned to the Second Division.

1965–79

The board approached Clifford Coombs, founder of home credit company S&U, for a loan. He agreed to put money into the club, but only if he could run it himself. He duly bought out the Morris family, promised to "find all the money I can afford. My heart is in Birmingham City and now my pocket will be as well", became chairman in January 1966, and lured Stan Cullis, manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in their glory days, out of retirement. Cullis's team played attractive football, and average attendance doubled between 1965–66 and 1967–68. Cullis led Birmingham to the semi-final of the League Cup in 1967, and in the 1967–68 FA Cup, they beat Arsenal and Chelsea in front of crowds in excess of 50,000 at St Andrew's before losing to West Bromwich Albion in the semi-final. Cup success was not restricted to the first team: the youth team reached the final of the FA Youth Cup in 1967, losing to what was described as an experienced Sunderland team. Fourth place in the division in 1967–68 and seventh in 1968–69 preceded a slump towards the bottom of the table, and Coombs decided it was time for a change. He persuaded Cullis back into retirement in March 1970, and approached top-class managers – including Brian Clough and Peter Taylor and Don Revie – without success, before appointing Brighton & Hove Albion manager Freddie Goodwin.

Goodwin strengthened the spine of the team, bought in Carlisle United forward Bob Hatton – a club record signing at £82,500 – to play up front alongside the home-grown Bob Latchford and introduced the 16-year-old Trevor Francis to first-team football. In 1971–72, Birmingham were not in the promotion places at any time during the season until after the last match, a win away at Orient that took them to the First Division as runners-up, overtaking Millwall, who had been in the top two for most of the campaign and whose supporters attended the match in large numbers to encourage Orient. They also reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, playing skilful, aggressive football that attracted the fans; average home league attendance rose to over 32,000.

Goodwin had converted the attractive but inconsistent football of Cullis's teams to a skilful, aggressive game capable of drawing crowds – average home league attendance rose to over 32,000 – and maintaining top-flight status. Yet five years later, the Birmingham Mail sports editor, Dennis Shaw, wrote what a colleague described as a "a dossier of despair on the wasted seventies at St. Andrew's. It was a chronicle of lack of achievement, sales of star players and unsuccessful replacements, growing disenchantment among the fans." Seven wins and a draw in the last eight matches took Birmingham to a mid-table finish in 1972–73, but by February 1974, the team lay 20th, the club needed to raise money, and Bob Latchford was sold to Everton in a part-exchange deal – £80,000 cash plus players Howard Kendall and Archie Styles, valued at a British record fee of £350,000. Without a goalscorer of Latchford's quality, the team struggled, but they avoided relegation, and stayed up again in 1974–75, as well as reaching another FA Cup semi-final. This time they lost to Second Division Fulham in a replay when, in the last seconds of extra time, a goalkeeping clearance rebounded off a Fulham player and trickled over the line.

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Trevor Francis, pictured the year after he left Birmingham

In September 1975, Keith Coombs, who had recently succeeded his father as chairman, sacked Goodwin and appointed his long-time first-team coach Willie Bell as manager. Financial reasons forced the sale of players such as Peter Withe and Kenny Burns – both helped Nottingham Forest win the league title in 1977, and Burns was voted Footballer of the Year for 1977–78 – although Francis's written transfer request was rejected. The team struggled, and after two years in post, Bell was replaced by England's World Cup-winning manager Sir Alf Ramsey, who had been on the board at Birmingham since January 1976, and who agreed to take over so long as the job title was not manager but consultant. After six months, during which time the team remained near the foot of the table, star player Francis made increasingly public his desire to leave a club he saw as lacking ambition, and captain Terry Hibbitt spoke of what the Guardian's Patrick Barclay dubbed a "crisis of morale", Ramsey recommended that both Francis and defender Joe Gallagher be sold. After the board backtracked on Francis, Ramsey left the club. Meanwhile, an action group known as the "Blue Revolution" had formed in an attempt to channel the increasing discontent off the field towards forcing change in the boardroom. Its public meetings were well attended, it organised a walkout of supporters from a match against Arsenal, and it publicly offered £250,000 to buy out the Coombs' holding in the club.

The appointment of Jim Smith, who as Blackburn Rovers manager had earned a reputation for playing attacking football, and the team's subsequent top-half finish went some way towards deflecting the criticism. Coombs also brought in Dennis Shaw as commercial manager, with the additional brief of improving the club's relations with press and public. Smith created a stir by signing Argentina's World Cup-winning full-back Alberto Tarantini. With relegation a certainty – the first league win came nearly three months into the season – Coombs finally accepted that the only way to clear the club's £500,000 overdraft was to sell Francis, who had scored a total of 133 goals in 329 appearances over his nine years at Birmingham. He joined Nottingham Forest, becoming the first British footballer to be transferred for a fee in excess of £1 million; within weeks, he scored the winning goal in the European Cup Final.

1979–93: Decline and fall

Smith invested the proceeds of the Francis sale in experienced players and took Birmingham straight back to the First Division in 1980. After a poor start to the 1981–82 season, he was dismissed, to be replaced by Ron Saunders who had just resigned from league champions Aston Villa. The appointment did not go down well on either side of the city, and the comedian Jasper Carrott resigned from the board in protest. Saunders assembled a team full of "hard men" which struggled to score goals; in two years, average attendance had dropped by nearly 20%, to just over 14,000, and they were relegated again.

They bounced back up, but promotion came at a cost. The last home game of the 1984–85 season, against Leeds United, was marred by rioting, and a 15-year-old boy attending his first match died when a wall collapsed on him. This was on the same day as, so largely overshadowed by, the Bradford fire, and the events at St Andrew's formed part of the remit of the Popplewell inquiry into safety at sports grounds.

The club was in trouble financially; the Coombs family sold out to scrap metal dealer and former Walsall F.C. chairman Ken Wheldon, who publicly contemplated leaving St Andrew's in light of the £2.25 million debts. After a long period without a win, and defeat to Altrincham in the FA Cup, Saunders quit, claiming the club was "committing total suicide". Staff cuts followed both on and off the field and the training ground was sold. By 1989, average attendance had fallen to 6,200 and the team was playing in the Third Division for the first time in their history.

In 1989 Wheldon sold the club to Kumar Brothers, a Manchester-based clothing chain, whose owners claimed they would invest in the team. Dave Mackay replaced Pendrey as manager. His first season was one of getting used to lower-division football, the second brought the prospect of further relegation, terrace protests, and the resignation of Mackay and his staff. Lou Macari led the team on a successful trip to Wembley in the Associate Members Cup, then walked out to join Stoke City. An action group was formed to try and remove the chairman, and many of the playing staff were out of contract and reluctant to renew.

Mackay's successor, Terry Cooper, delivered promotion via a combination of a professional approach and sound signings, some of which were paid for with money raised by supporters. Off the field, Cooper and Kumar were at odds: the team needed the promised investment but the club was heavily in debt and losing money. The collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) put the Kumars' businesses into receivership; in November 1992 BCCI's liquidator put up for sale their 84% holding in the football club. Although several groups expressed interest, the club remained in administration for five months.

1993–2002: Reconstruction

On 6 March 1993, Sport Newspapers' proprietor David Sullivan bought the Kumars' 84% for £700,000. Sullivan installed the 23-year-old Karren Brady as managing director and allowed Cooper money for signings. On the last day of the season, the team avoided relegation back to the third tier. A poor start to the 1993–94 season saw Cooper's resignation, to be replaced by Barry Fry, at the cost of a Football League fine and compensation order after being found guilty of poaching Fry and his staff from Southend United. The change of manager did not prevent a return to the third tier. At the end of the season, the Kop and Tilton Road sections of St Andrew's were demolished, to be re-opened in 1994–95 as all-seater stands. For a change, improved surroundings were reflected in success on the pitch, with promotion back to the second tier and victory in the Football League Trophy at Wembley. Birmingham beat Carlisle United with a golden goal scored by Paul Tait, the first time this method had been used to settle a senior final in England. Fry was sacked in 1996, as the directors did not see him as the right manager to take the club forward; in his place the club appointed former player Trevor Francis, who had just left a relatively successful spell managing Sheffield Wednesday.

Fry had used no fewer than 47 players in his last season; Francis set about introducing some stability. He mixed top-flight experience, including signing Manchester United captain Steve Bruce, with promising youth, and in his second season the club narrowly missed out on a play-off position. There followed three years of defeats in the play-off semifinals, to Watford on penalties, Barnsley on aggregate, then Preston North End, again on penalties. Off the field, Birmingham City plc, of which the football club was a wholly owned subsidiary, was floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 1997 with an issue of 15 million new shares, raising £7.5 million of new investment. and the third side of the ground, the Railway End, was modernised.

They reached the 2001 League Cup final against Liverpool, the first major final played at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium during the construction of the new Wembley Stadium. Birmingham equalised Robbie Fowler's opening goal with Darren Purse's penalty in the last minute of normal time, then referee David Elleray failed to award another penalty during extra time when Andrew Johnson was fouled. The match went to a penalty shootout which Liverpool won.

By October 2001, lack of progress had made Francis's position untenable. After a 6–0 League Cup defeat to Manchester City, he left by mutual consent. A period of caretaker management followed while the battle to secure Steve Bruce's release from employers Crystal Palace reached the High Court. Bruce shook up a stale team, taking them from mid-table into the play-offs. This time they were successful, beating Norwich City in the final, again at Cardiff; the decisive penalty was scored by the 18-year-old Birmingham fan Darren Carter.

2002–present

Bruce strengthened the team significantly, adding Kenny Cunningham, Clinton Morrison, Senegal World Cup captain Aliou Cissé and the combative Robbie Savage. After starting the season well, they faded when the small squad was hit by injury and suspension. Further reinforcement in the January transfer window, buying Matthew Upson, Stephen Clemence and Jamie Clapham and signing the inspirational Christophe Dugarry on loan, resulted in a comfortable finish in 13th place, above local rivals Aston Villa whom they had beaten home and away.

The start of the 2003–04 campaign saw Birmingham never out of the top six. Loan signing Mikael Forssell's 17 League goals helped them to a top half finish, but performances and results tailed off badly towards the end of the season. First-team coach Mark Bowen was sacked and replaced by former Coventry City manager Eric Black. International class players were signed – Jesper Grønkjær, Emile Heskey, Mario Melchiot – but an injury to Forssell left them struggling for goals. Aided by transfer window loan signings Jermaine Pennant, Mehdi Nafti and Walter Pandiani, another mid-table finish ensued.

In 2004 a proposal was put forward to build a 55,000-capacity City of Birmingham Stadium on the site of the nearby Wheels Park banger racing and karting circuits, to be funded partly by the sale of St Andrew's. The initial plans, of a "sports village" comprising the stadium, other sports and leisure facilities, and a super casino, jointly financed by Birmingham City Council and the casino group Las Vegas Sands, fell through. For a time, club and council continued what proved a fruitless search for alternative sources of finance. Before the 2005–06 season, chairman David Gold said it was time to "start talking about being as good as anyone outside the top three or four" with "the best squad of players for 25 years". Forssell, Nafti, Pandiani and Pennant had signed permanently, Nicky Butt and Jiří Jarošík joined on loan, but the first seven home games produced just one point. Injuries, lack of form, and a lack of investment during the transfer window saw them facing the second half of the season with a strike-force of Heskey, an injury-prone Chris Sutton and the lively but inexperienced DJ Campbell. They suffered a 7–0 home defeat to Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-final and by the last game of the season were already relegated.

Heskey and Pennant left for record fees, many more were released, though Bruce was not. The board concluded that "Steve is the right man to achieve this ambition" of immediate promotion. A new recruitment strategy was adopted, combining young "hungry" players – Cameron Jerome, Gary McSheffrey – with loan signings – the Arsenal trio Nicklas Bendtner, Fabrice Muamba and Sebastian Larsson – and free-transfer experience – Radhi Jaïdi, Bruno N'Gotty. An up-and-down season had calls for the manager's head in October, topping the table and beating Newcastle United 5–1 on their own ground in January, no league games for a month due to freak postponements, culminating in automatic promotion.

In July 2007, Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung became the biggest single shareholder in the club when he bought 29.9% of its shares, via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK)-listed company Grandtop International Holdings Limited (GIH), with a view to taking full control. The protracted and eventually aborted takeover process destabilised the club, and Bruce, concerned for his prospects under possible new owners, left in mid-season to become manager of Premier League rivals Wigan Athletic. Alex McLeish stepped down as Scotland national team manager to succeed him, to the surprise of broadcaster Roddy Forsyth, who suggested Scotland's supporters would be "baffled by McLeish's choice of Birmingham, a club with a modest fanbase and an uncertain future." Birmingham finished 19th and were relegated. Antipathy towards the board provoked hostile chanting and a pitch invasion after the last match of the season. Afterwards, chairman David Gold "[made] it absolutely clear, the board would never walk away from their responsibilities as custodians of Birmingham City Football Club. If we were to leave or pushed out, then we would only do so be putting it into the hands or people who would be capable of taking it further than we have."

The team were promoted back to the Premier League at the first attempt, and GIH completed the takeover in October 2009 at a total cost of £81.5M, re-registered the club as a private company, and renamed the holding company Birmingham International Holdings (BIH). The team achieved a 12-game unbeaten run, a club record in the top division, on their way to a ninth-place finish, their best for 51 years, in 2009–10. The following season, they beat favourites Arsenal 2–1 in the League Cup final with goals from Nikola Žigić and Obafemi Martins to win their second major trophy. McLeish's "greatest achievement" was swiftly followed by "probably the worst moment of [his] career" as the team were relegated back to the Championship. Three weeks later, amid rumours of his being favourite for Aston Villa's managerial vacancy, he emailed his resignation to the club. It was not accepted. Birmingham threatened to report Villa to the football authorities for "tapping-up", and to take legal action to prevent his appointment at Villa unless compensation were paid. The League Managers Association supported McLeish's claims that lack of communication with the board and failure to consult over player transfers could constitute constructive dismissal. Nevertheless, Villa considered him a free agent, interviewed him and appointed him. In mid-July, by which time Chris Hughton had been appointed manager of Birmingham, Villa agreed to pay compensation reported at £3m. This coincided with trading in BIH shares being suspended after Yeung's arrest on charges of money laundering.

The League Cup win qualified Birmingham for the UEFA Europa League. In their first appearance in a major European competition for 50 years, they beat Portuguese club Nacional in the playoff round to reach the group stages. Wins against Maribor home and away, and a win at Club Brugge and a draw at home, gained Birmingham 10 points, but defeats to Braga allowed that club and Brugge to play out a draw which gave each 11 points and qualification for the knockout rounds. They reached the play-off semi-finals, but lost on aggregate to Blackpool. Marlon King and Chris Burke – both of whom were signed by McLeish before his resignation – reached double figures in both goals (18 and 14 respectively) and assists (12 and 19); Burke played in 61 of the 62 matches that season. Publication of financial results was repeatedly delayed, which led the Football League to impose a transfer embargo. Hughton left for Premier League club Norwich City at the end of the season, and offers were invited for the club.

The embargo was lifted in time for new manager Lee Clark to strengthen the team, abeit with free transfers and loan signings. A possible sale of the club to a Chinese consortium fell through in December, and ahead of the January 2013 transfer window, acting chairman Peter Pannu confirmed that the club was open to offers for any player, as sales were necessary to stave off the risk of administration. The only departure was England goalkeeper Jack Butland, who joined Stoke City for a fee considerably less than had been rejected the previous summer, but Birmingham were able to loan him back for the remainder of the season. A mid-table finish preceded a narrow escape from relegation to the third tier in 2014. Birmingham extended their winless run at home to a second-tier record of 18 games, and needed at least a point from the last match, away to Bolton Wanderers, and for other results to go in their favour. Two goals down after 76 minutes, a goal from Žigić and Paul Caddis's 93rd-minute headed equaliser combined with Doncaster losing was enough to avoid relegation on goal difference. Continued poor form, with only one home league win in more than a year, brought Clark's dismissal in October 2014. After a brief period of caretaker management, in which Birmingham equalled their club record home defeat by losing 8–0 to AFC Bournemouth, Burton Albion manager and former Birmingham player Gary Rowett took over with the team 23rd in the table, and led them to a tenth-place finish. On 17 February, the BIH board voluntarily appointed receivers from accountants Ernst & Young to take over management of the company. Their statement stressed that no winding-up petition had been issued and the company was not in liquidation, and the receivers assured the League that the club was not in an "insolvency event" of the type that could trigger a ten-point deduction.

External links

• Small Heath, Birmingham, and Birmingham City at the Football Club History Database