Birmingham City

Small Heath Alliance, and a ground kept for 120 years

The club was formed in September 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, in the industrial east of the city. It became Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905 and Birmingham City only in 1943. The grounds moved with the names: Muntz Street from 1877, then a shift to St Andrew's on Boxing Day 1906, where the club has stayed ever since. The stadium was damaged by bombing during the Second World War and rebuilt afterwards.

Since 2024 it has carried the sponsored title St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park, with a capacity of 29,409. The record crowd of 66,844 was set at an FA Cup tie against Everton in February 1939, a figure that says as much about the limits of the present ground as about the size of the following. Supporters are the Blues, or Bluenoses, and the local rivalry that defines the calendar is the Second City derby with Aston Villa.

Four second-tier titles and two cups

The honours board is a record of a club that has spent roughly half its history in the top flight and the other half getting back to it. Four Second Division championships — 1892–93, 1920–21, 1947–48 and 1954–55 — bracket the eras. The best top-flight finish came immediately after the last of those, sixth in the First Division in 1955–56.

The mid-1950s to early 1960s remain the high point. Birmingham were FA Cup runners-up in 1931 and again in 1956, and lost in the final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in both 1960 and 1961. The two pieces of silverware that actually arrived were League Cups, won in 1963 and again in 2011 — a gap of forty-eight years that gives the measure of how thin the trophy record is against the size of the support.

The 2011 win was followed by relegation from the Premier League in the same season, and the club has not been back since. That is the context for everything the current owners say.

Knighthead, Chris Davies and the record third tier

In July 2023 Shelby Companies Ltd, a subsidiary of the American investment firm Knighthead Capital Management co-founded by Tom Wagner, took a controlling stake. Tom Brady came in as a minority owner. Knighthead bought out the remaining shares in November 2025, giving it outright control.

The first season under the new owners ended in relegation to the third tier. Chris Davies, previously an assistant and taking his first job in charge of a club, was appointed for 2024–25 and answered emphatically: 34 wins from 46 matches, 111 points, the League One title and automatic promotion. The spending behind it was conspicuous for the division. Jay Stansfield returned from Fulham permanently on 30 August 2024 for a reported £15m, rising towards £20m with add-ons — a record fee for a third-tier club — and scored 19 league goals, 23 in all competitions.

Possession football did most of the work that year. Davies has since spent two seasons trying to make it survive contact with the Championship.

Tenth, and then a run of draws

The return to the second tier in 2025–26 produced a mid-table finish rather than a promotion push: tenth place, 64 points from 17 wins, 13 draws and 16 defeats, with 57 goals scored and 56 conceded. Marvin Ducksch, signed for £1.75m from Werder Bremen, and Stansfield shared the club's league scoring lead on 10 goals each; Ducksch finished on 11 across all competitions. The wider recruitment was continental — Kyōgo Furuhashi from Rennes, August Priske for £6m from Djurgårdens, Carlos Vicente for £6.94m from Deportivo Alavés, Kai Wagner from Philadelphia Union. The cup runs were short: out of the EFL Cup in the second round to Port Vale, and out of the FA Cup in the fourth round to Leeds United on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

Speaking to Sky Sports on 13 August 2026, Davies framed the fix as an addition rather than a rebuild — keeping the pressing and the ball retention while adding directness, arguing that "as a team that can keep the ball, it is a lot easier to then move into a more pragmatic or direct style". He set a target of roughly 70 goals to match the top six, and named set pieces as the cheapest source of the six or seven extra he wants.

The summer of 2026 brought Jhon Solís from Girona for £6m on 15 June, Dael Fry on a free from Middlesbrough on 3 July, Kristoffer Lund from Palermo on 30 July, Luis Vázquez from Anderlecht for £3m on 28 July and Max Bird from Bristol City on 14 August. Kai Wagner left for Philadelphia Union for £3.85m on 17 July and Furuhashi went to LA Galaxy on 21 July.

Eight league games in, the ledger reads two wins, five draws and one defeat: 11 points, 12 goals scored and 11 conceded, tenth place. The unbeaten start ended at Carrow Road on 9 September in a 1-2 loss to Norwich City; a 2-1 comeback win at Derby County on 12 September pushed them up to eighth briefly; a 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough at home on 19 September, the last match before the international break, dropped them back. The cup exit was heavier — Swansea City beaten 1-0 on 8 August, then a 1-6 defeat by Brentford on 25 August.

The Powerhouse Stadium and the Sports Quarter

The larger project is a new ground. First images of a 62,000-capacity stadium designed by Heatherwick Studio and MANICA Architecture were released on 20 November 2025, with further visuals following on 7 May 2026. The design has a retractable roof, a moveable pitch and a steep single-bowl geometry; the South Stand is intended to hold around 20,000 home supporters, and an approach route branded Blues Way would funnel crowds in from the surrounding development. The club calls it the Powerhouse Stadium.

It sits inside a wider East Birmingham Sports Quarter scheme, with consultation running through 2026 ahead of a planning application, and the ambition stated as completion for the start of the 2030–31 season. The UK government's approval of a Birmingham East Mayoral Development Corporation, reported in May 2026, is meant to speed the regeneration through. Chief executive Jeremy Dale said in July 2026 that the work was progressing at speed. Nothing has been built yet, and the team plays in a 29,409-seat ground in the meantime.

The ground as it stands

St Andrew's is a four-stand, all-seated box: the two-tier Kop and the single-tier Tilton Road Stand behind the goals, the two-tier Gil Merrick Stand and the older, smaller Main Stand along the sides. The Tilton end holds the noisiest home support and has had rail seating installed in its lower tier; large LED screens have gone into the Kop and Gil Merrick stands, and the pitch is a SISGrass hybrid surface.

Away supporters get the lower tier of the Gil Merrick Stand, around 2,000 seats for league fixtures, expanding to over 4,000 in cup ties when the full lower tier opens. Sightlines are unobstructed. Adult league tickets were priced between £27.50 and £37.50 for the 2025–26 season, with concessions down to £12.50 for juniors. Average home league attendance in the third-tier title season of 2024–25 was 26,283.