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Tue 04 January 2022 | 20:29

Everything about Birmingham City FC

Blues supporters were planning a journey to Wembley for the Carling Cup Final against Arsenal ten years ago; now they're on the edge of falling to league one. What has Birmingham city gone through throughout these years? We welcome you to E\everything about Birmingham City FC.

Birmingham City Football Team

is an English professional football club based in the city of Birmingham. Everything about Birmingham City F.C. started from Small Heath Alliance which was founded in 1875, and the city was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943.

Since 2011, the first team has participated in the

EFL Championship

, English football's second division.

Before becoming foundation members and inaugural winners of the Football League Second Division, they played in the Football Alliance as Small Heath.

In their history, the 1950s and early 1960s were their most prosperous years. In the 1955–56 season, they finished sixth in the First Division and advanced to the FA Cup Final for the first time. Birmingham City FC appeared in two Inter-Cities Fairs Cup finals: the first in 1960, when they became the first English club to reach a major European final, and the second the following year.

They won the League Cup twice, in 1963 and 2011. Birmingham has spent over half of their existence outside of English football's top flight, with two brief periods in the third tier between 1986 and 2002, during which time they won the Football League Trophy twice.

Since 1906, they have called St Andrew's home. They have a long and bitter rivalry with their nearest neighbors, Aston Villa, with whom they play the Second City derby. The fans are known as Bluenoses, while the club's nickname is Blues, after the color of their uniform.

Everything about Birmingham City FC that you need to know

In the "

Everything about Birmingham City FC

” article, a full coverage of the team’s history and general information has been provided.

The text has been separated into sections to make it simpler for you to obtain the information you need. It concentrates on the team's history and the famous players that have ever played for the team, as well as information about the supporters, the team's logo, and the stadium.

Now without any further introduction let's hop into the article and learn everything about Birmingham City FC

Birmingham City F.C. history

Let us start from the fundamentals as it is the best way of paving the path of learning everything about Birmingham City F.C.

Birmingham City was formed in 1875 as the Small Heath Alliance and began playing their home games at Muntz Street in 1877. In 1885, the club went professional, and three years later, under the name of Small Heath F.C. Ltd., it became the first football club to become a limited company with a board of directors.

They competed in the Football Alliance, which operated concurrently with the Football League, from 1889 to 1890. Small Heath was asked to join the newly established Football League Second Division in 1892, along with the other Alliance members.

The first professional football taste

As we are beginning to explore everything about Birmingham City FC it is appropriate to talk about the club's first taste of professional football league.

They were champions but failed to gain promotion through the test match system; promotion to the First Division was gained the following season after a second-place finish and a test match victory against Darwen.

In 1905, the team changed its name to Birmingham Football Club, and the following year, they moved into their new home, St Andrew's Ground. On the field, things didn't live up to their surroundings. Birmingham was relegated in 1908, had to run for re-election two years later, and stayed in the Second Division until after WWI.

After first world war

Birmingham City F.C. was established in 1943. The team won the Football League South wartime league and advanced to the semifinals of the inaugural postwar FA Cup under Harry Storer, who was named manager in 1945. They won their third Second Division championship two years later, allowing only 24 goals in 42 games.

When Birmingham played their first group game in the inaugural Inter-Cities Fairs Cup tournament on 15 May 1956, they became the first English club to compete in a European competition.

They were also the first English club to reach a European final, losing 4–1 on aggregate in the 1960 Fairs Cup final to

Barcelona

and 4–2 to A.S. Roma the following year.

They overcame Internazionale at home and away in the 1961 semifinal; no other English team won a competitive game at the San Siro until

Arsenal

did so more than 40 years later.

Gil Merrick's team kept their finest performances for cup tournaments. Though local rivals Aston Villa were pre-match favorites in the 1963 League Cup final, Birmingham lifted their game and triumphed 3–1 on aggregate to win their first major prize. After 10 years in the Premier League, they were relegated to the Second Division in 1965.

The rocky road and current days

Not everything about Birmingham City F.C has been great throughout the years. From 1970 until 2000, the Blues suffered several setbacks as they bounced about the leagues, failing to stay still in the second division.

Carson Yeung, a Hong Kong billionaire, purchased 29.9% of the club's shares in July 2007, making him the club's largest single stakeholder, with the intention of eventually gaining complete control.

In 2009, Yeung's business finalized the acquisition, and the squad, now led by Alex McLeish in the Premier League, placed ninth, their greatest result in 51 years.

In 2011, they won a second League Cup, defeating Arsenal 2–1 with goals from Nikola Zigic and Obafemi Martins, and qualified for the Europa League, but were relegated to the second division, prompting McLeish to depart and join Aston Villa.

Despite a 14-match losing streak at the close of the season and the possibility of a further points deduction, the team survived relegation in the 2019–20 season, which was halted from March to June 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After academy product Jude Bellingham was sold to Borussia Dortmund for a club record for up to £30 million in the summer, Aitor Karanka served as head coach for eight months until being replaced by former Birmingham player Lee Bowyer.

Birmingham City F.C. supporters and rivals

Football teams need fans like humans need oxygen, that is why in this section of everything about Birmingham city we are going to talk about the fans of the Blues.

Birmingham's primary opponents are

Aston Villa

, their geographically closest neighbors, with whom they compete in the Second City derby. Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion, both from the West Midlands, are less well-known rivals.

Birmingham fans are commonly referred to as "Bluenoses" in the media and among the fans; the term is also used disparagingly by fans of other teams.

The football club has a variety of fans' clubs, both in England and overseas.

Antipathy towards the board provoked hostile chanting and a pitch invasion during the final match of the 2007–08 season, yet when the club was in financial difficulties, supporters contributed to schemes that funded the purchase of players Brian Roberts in 1984 and Paul Peschisolido in 1992. In 2012, under the aegis of Supporters Direct, a supporters' trust was established.

Several fanzines have been published by supporters. Made in Brum, which was initially released in 2000, was the only one that was usually available in 2013.

The Zulu started a few years ago and lasted at least 16 seasons. The Zulu Warriors, a hooligan group linked with the club, were rare in that they had multi-racial membership at a period when many such groups had ties to racist or right-wing organizations.

Birmingham City F.C. stadium

St Andrew's had a capacity of 75,000 people at one time, with 4,000 seats in the Main Stand and 22,000 seats undercover. By 1938, the official capacity had risen to 68,000, and the fifth-round FA Cup encounter against Everton in February 1939 established a new attendance record of 66,844 or 67,341.

The Chief Constable ordered the ground's closure due to the threat of air raids when WWII broke out; it was the only ground to do so, and it was only reopened when the issue was addressed in Parliament.

During the Birmingham Blitz, it was extensively damaged: bombs destroyed the Railway End and the Kop, while a fireman mistaken fuel for water and set fire to the Main Stand.

The new Main Stand had a supported cantilever roof, which meant there were fewer pillars in the way of fans' views of the ground. In 1956, floodlights were erected, and they were turned on for a friendly match against

Borussia Dortmund

in 1957.

By the early 1960s, the Railway End had a stand erected to the same style as the Main Stand, the Kop and Tilton Road End got roofs, and the ground capacity had dropped to around 55,000.

The stadium capacity was stated as 29,409 on the club website in 2019 owing to renovations and development.

Birmingham City Council approved the Birmingham City Supporters' Trust's application to identify St Andrew's as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) under the Localism Act 2011 in 2013. The club's owners agreed to a three-year sponsorship contract in 2018, and the stadium's name was changed to St Andrew's Trillion Trophy Stadium.

Birmingham City F.C. logo and colors

The members of the Small Heath Alliance agreed that their colors would be blue; at the beginning, they wore whatever blue shirt they could find. A dark blue shirt with a white ribbon and white shorts was the original uniform outfit.

Several blue-themed versions were tested; the one that remained was the royal blue shirt with a white "V," which was adopted during WWI and lasted until the late 1920s. The royal blue stayed the same despite the design changes.

There were some oddities, such as the 1992 kit, which was sponsored by Triton Showers and was constructed of a blue cloth with multicolored splashes that looked like a shower curtain. Only once have stripes appeared on the home shirt: in 1999, the blue shirt had a front central panel of small blue and white stripes, comparable to the Tesco supermarket carrier bag of the time.

The club acquired the city's coat of arms as its crest when it changed its name from Small Heath to Birmingham in 1905, however it was not always featured on the jerseys. The initials "BCFC" were entwined in the center of the breast of the 1970s "penguin" shirt.

The club announced a four-year contract with Nike as a uniform supplier in June 2020, with the emblem of the team's main sponsor, Irish bookmaker BoyleSports, on the back.

The home kit for 2021–22 has a blue shirt with a patterned front in two shades of blue, white shorts, and blue socks, while the away kit features a yellow shirt with blue pinstripes and trim, similar to the Europa League jersey from 10 years ago, with blue shirts and white socks.

Birmingham City F.C. legendary players

Every team has those big names among the history of its players' list and Birmingham City is no exception, but who are those legendary players who had once played for this amazing club? Let us meet them in this section of everything about Birmingham City F.C.

Joe Bradford

Joseph Bradford was an English footballer who played as a center forward in the Premier League. Bradford, who was born in Peggs Green, Leicestershire, near Coalville, made over 450 appearances for Birmingham City in all competitions, scoring 267 goals. He played for England 12 times, scoring seven goals, and five times for a representative Football League XI.

He has scored the most goals in Birmingham's history. Between 1921–22 and 1932–33, he was the club's top scorer in all but one First Division season, and if goals in all competitions are added, he was the top scorer in all twelve of those seasons.

Birmingham's sole goal in the 1931 FA Cup Final, which they lost to

West Bromwich Albion

, was scored by Bradford.

He died at the age of 79 in Birmingham.

Trevor Francis

The best of Birmingham City is Trevor John Francis who was a former English football forward. Following his transfer from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in 1979, he became Britain's first £1 million player. In the 1979 European Cup final against Malmö, he scored the game-winning goal for Forest.

The next year, he helped the team win the European Cup for the second time. Between 1976 and 1986, he played 52 times for England, scoring 12 goals, and he was a member of the 1982 FIFA World Cup squad.

Trevor Francis was a tremendously skilled forward blessed with terrific quickness, outstanding dribbling skills, spectacular movement, and an eye for goal. He was considered the best Blues player of all time.

He was a football manager from 1988 until 2003, most notably with Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham City. Crystal Palace was his final management job, which he quit in 2003.

Birmingham City F.C. women

If we claim that we have prepared a full article about

everything about Birmingham City FC

 then we should include the women team of this club also in the article.

In 1968, Birmingham City Ladies Football Club was founded. The first team progressed through the levels until 2002 when they were promoted to the FA Women's Premier League.

The club was only able to continue due to a personal contribution after Birmingham City F.C. lost financial backing in 2005. In 2010, they re-affiliated with Birmingham City, becoming founding members of the FA Women's Super League the following year, and won the FA Women's Cup in 2012.

They qualified for the 2013–14 Champions League after finishing second in the 2012 FA WSL, where they reached the semi-finals. TTA acquired Birmingham City F.C. in November 2016, and the women's team became a key component of the organization.

It was renamed Birmingham City Women in 2018 and will continue to be known as Birmingham City unless it causes confusion with the men's squad.

Birmingham City F.C. honors

Birmingham does not have a long list of achievements but what it does have is two football league cups for 1962-63 and 2010-11 seasons.

Additionally, the First and Second Division clubs from the previous pre-war season were divided geographically between the Leagues North and South for 1945–46, in preparation for the Football League's resumption in 1946–47.

Aston Villa was top of League South going into the last day of the season, although they had ended two points (one victory) ahead of the chasers, but with a worse goal average.

Charlton Athletic finished second, 0.002 of a goal ahead of Birmingham City. While Charlton drew with Wolverhampton Wanderers at home, Birmingham triumphed at Luton Town and won the title by 0.3 of a goal.

Other than that, this club has become second in most of the championships that it has participated in.

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everything about Birmingham City FC

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