Birmingham City are on the rise and, ahead of their 150th anniversary season, focus now shifts to the next big target: promotion back to the Premier League.
Birmingham City are on the rise and, ahead of their 150th anniversary season, focus now shifts to the next big target: promotion back to the Premier League.
After securing a swift Championship return, smashing countless records on the way, Birmingham’s ambitions remain sky-high under American owners Knighthead Capital. The buzz of excitement around the Elite Performance and Innovation Centre training ground, near the market town of Henley-in-Arden, was tangible this week.
On Friday, the eagerly awaited documentary Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues launches on Prime Video. It tells the story of Knighthead’s journey so far with NFL legend and minority shareholder Tom Brady a prominent figure. The new season then kicks off next Friday against relegated Ipswich Town at St. Andrew’s, with tickets sold out over a month ago.
.@TomBrady with lesson #1 to being a blue. 🔵
— Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) July 18, 2025
Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues premieres August 1 on @PrimeVideo. pic.twitter.com/jHPsvMdbNr
Under the management of Chris Davies, who secured the League One title in his first season as a head coach, Birmingham know expectations will be huge. Yet Tom Wagner, the club’s chairman, insists the pressure of being one of the favourites for promotion should be fully embraced.
Wagner tells Telegraph Sport: “After relegation [in 2024] we took that moment as an opportunity to create a winning culture, and really re-set the club in so many different ways. We’ve now taken it on to put Birmingham City in what we view as its rightful place. If you were to remove the television revenue differential, and look at our revenue, we’re a top-20 club in England.”
Knighthead’s goal is to have Birmingham competing at the highest level in England and Europe. This season is a crucial step in the three-year plan for Premier League football which was set out at the time of their takeover in July 2023.
Telegraph Sport understands that finishing in the top two is a clear target, and the chances of that happening have been backed up by internal data and analytics.
Eight new signings have arrived so far this summer, with eye-catching captures such as Demarai Gray, Kyōgo Furuhashi and Tommy Doyle. In this transfer window, there has been a focus on securing players in their mid to late 20s who have lots of experience.
Gray is a former Birmingham player who emerged from the same academy that produced Real Madrid and England midfielder Jude Bellingham. The winger has Premier League experience with Leicester City and Everton, and jumped at the chance to leave Saudi Arabia and return to the Second City. There is also huge optimism over the expected impact of Furuhashi, a Japan international who was recommended to Davies by Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers.
Birmingham already had a solid base to work with. Their recruitment model in League One was to sign players who could easily make the step up, and the likes of England Under-21 international Jay Stansfield, Christoph Klarer and Tomoki Iwata will be key players.
Davies has been counting down the days until the new season. Previously a long-serving assistant to Rodgers, before then spending one year with Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham Hotspur, the 40-year-old is now establishing a reputation of his own.
“I had a really good education and it’s only since I got this role that I’ve appreciated the journey I went on,” Davies tells Telegraph Sport. “I was working at big clubs as an assistant manager and seeing things really close up for years and years.
“I didn’t probably realise how well that prepared me, for all the different scenarios that you face as a manager. I’ve always slept pretty well, but I definitely don’t lose any sleep being a manager.”
Davies’s game model is based primarily on ball-dominating possession and a fast tempo: last season Birmingham came out on top for pressing the ball quicker than any other team in England’s top four leagues. He believes the new rule to clamp down on ‘time-wasting’ – a corner will be awarded if a goalkeeper holds the ball for more than eight seconds – will make his team even more dangerous.
The mad world of the Championship will represent a tougher challenge, but Davies is ready. “Pressure is a privilege because if you’ve got that, it means you’re at a good club that’s trying to do something,” he says. “We’re a sleeping giant and we’ve got to be the ones that wake it up.
“I knew Birmingham was a big club, but I’d never really seen it in full force. Just look at our support – last season there was a storm in Barnsley [Storm Darragh] and we had 5,000 fans there. That shows you what we’ve got here.”
Last season’s title triumph was a moment to savour for the ‘Bluenoses’, who had grown accustomed to annual relegation battles and a permanent sense of crisis.
In the corridor near the training-ground entrance, photographs of key moments from last season now line the wall as inspiration. In the gymnasium, one of the walls now has a huge banner reading: “Have you done enough?”
For Knighthead, the investment company based in New York, this season represents another opportunity to grow the club and increase revenue. As Wagner has said on numerous occasions, more revenue ensures more money can be spent on transfers and wages.
Since their takeover, Knighthead’s investment can be seen all over the club’s three primary locations. Over £35m has been spent on the stadium, training ground and academy. St. Andrew’s is now unrecognisable from the unloved, under-invested stadium that it became in the final months under previous owners Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited.
More than £1m was spent on a new pitch last season, while there are now four corporate hospitality restaurants which include The Garrison, themed on TV show Peaky Blinders. There is a 1,200-capacity fan park. The average spend per fan on a matchday is up more than 700 per cent.
Then, of course, there is the proposed Sports Quarter in East Birmingham. At a projected cost of £3bn, Knighthead has already purchased more than 60 acres and continues to accumulate the land required to make the project a reality.
There is little doubt that promotion back to the Premier League, for the first time since 2011, remains the next big step.
“You have to have that undefeatable optimism in order to do things that are big,” says Wagner. “We’re competing against every other form of entertainment that’s available to our fans, so we have to deliver something that is worthy of their time and money.
“Now we’re back in the Championship we will be highly competitive on a revenue basis, as compared to any other team. We’re always planning for the future and while it would be nice to be promoted in our 150th anniversary year it’s even more important to remember that it’s always about the next match.”
Category: General Sports
