Birmingham City 2024/25: The Shock That Never Came
Loud owners. Big money. League One Champions. EFL and World record points holders. The story of the shock that never came.
Birmingham are in for a serious shock this season.
Seen a few Birmingham fans who are in for the shock of their life next season.
Any Birmingham fan who think they will walk out of that league is in for a big shock.
These Birmingham fans are pissing me off. In for a hell of a shock.
Some shock, that.
On Tuesday 8th April, Birmingham City secured promotion back to the EFL Championship.
On Saturday 12th April, Birmingham City were confirmed as League One title winners despite having six games left to play, a League One record.
On Sunday 27th April, Birmingham City lifted the League One trophy in front of a packed out St.Andrews having broken Wolverhampton Wanderers’ League One points record.
On Wednesday 30th April, Birmingham City broke the Reading’s EFL points record of 106.
On Saturday 3rd May, Birmingham City broke the Football League record for most wins in a single season and the world points tally for a professional season.
Numerous League One and EFL records broken. Countless club records broken. Transfer record broken. Manager of the season. Unbeaten at home. A Wembley final. Manager of the Season. Three players named in Team of the Season. Birmingham City entered League One with the intent of leaving a mark on the division. Mission accomplished and then some.
And as fans return receipts online to those who doubted us or simply willed that we would fail spectacularly, it’s time to look back at a campaign we will never see the likes of again.
People will throw stones at us but we’re okay with that. We’re okay with people doubting us. Because it’s us against everyone else. For those who come on the journey with us, they’ll be richly rewarded.
It's 10th April 2024 and Blues release a 10-minute video with Tom Wagner and Garry Cook explaining initial plans for the Sports Quarter and opening up on their ambitions once more.
That evening, we would lose 1-0 at home against Cardiff City in a game that could hardly be described as a football match.
Wagner stuck around after, doing his best to lead the charge against relegation amid a void of leadership but it wasn’t enough. Eight points from the final four was a solid return but with everybody else around us picking up results, we finished in the bottom three.
After years of circling the drain, Birmingham City were back in the third tier of English football.
But this wasn’t a sad relegation. Unlike most clubs that face the drop, there was a wave of positivity from the stands and online, perhaps best summed up by @BloosHarry_ on the day we were relegated.
Sure, we are relegated. But we will have:
The biggest transfer budget in the division
The best manager in the division
The best owners in the division
A solid basis of a championship squad
Largest stadium/fanbase in the division
Up the league one blues!
After years of mismanagement and systemic and cultural issues running through the club, there was a clear path ahead as the route back to the Premier League was planned.
The sports quarter plans were announced. The stadium had been fixed up. The training grounds were sorted out. Money was being put into the academy and women’s teams. And the men’s team was going to be backed by a budget unheard of at League One level.
As you’ll see from the response to Harry's tweet, people weren't convinced. They thought we were arrogant. Thought we were going to fall to the same fate as so many clubs beforehand.
But our relegation, ultimately, was a sporting failure. We weren’t like Leeds United, Sunderland, Southampton or Sheffield Wednesday, who were relegated amid numerous off-field problems. We were a year ahead of all that. If anything, we were coming down akin to our Black Country foes Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Ah, Wolves. Holders of that League One points record. That’s the aim.
And so the club set about addressing a myriad of sporting problems. A number of overpaid footballers were released at the end of their contracts. Keshi Anderson and Lukas Jutkiewicz stuck around.
Tony Mowbray wasn’t fit enough to continue on as manager so interviews took place to find his replacement. Rather than listen to friends or agents, the club acted properly, ensuring the right person was selected for the job. Welcome, Chris Davies.
Changes in the footballing department continued with Frank McParland and John Park moving on despite no announcement of it, leaving Joe Carnall, Craig Gardner and Chris Davies seemingly in charge of recruitment.
Jordan James, Juninho Bacuna, Siriki Dembele and Koji Miyoshi were allowed to leave on loan. Emmanuel Longelo, Romelle Donovan, George Hall and Tyler Roberts departed on loan.
Ryan Allsop, Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Alfie May and Emil Hansson was a low key start to the window ahead of our trip to Austria.
Alex Cochrane, Willum Willumson, Christoph Klarer, Marc Leonard and Luke Harris arrived before the opening day against Reading, a number playing a part in a thumping 4-1 win over local rivals and Championship promotion hopefuls West Bromwich Albion.
Ayumu Yokoyama, Alfons Sampsted, Taylor Gardner-Hickman, Ben Davies, Lyndon Dykes, Scott Wright, Tomoki Iwata and Jay Stansfield followed.
Two players for each position, with an extra body or two up front. A number of players with experience of levels better than League One. Many well versed in the English game. A number of leaders. Big money spent as promised.
Objective one complete.
They’ll lose the first game and they’ll lose the second game and they’ll sack their manager and all hell will break loose.
Who would have had somebody from a Peterborough United podcast going down as one of the least intelligent people we would come across this campaign?
Of course, he may have fancied himself right as Blues toiled away in front a sold-out St.Andrews on opening day against Reading.
The visitors were enduring all kinds of off-field problems that would blight what has otherwise been a successful campaign but they had one thing we didn’t have: a settled manager and team ready to attack the new season.
While we were busy finding our feet in League action with a largely brand-new group, Reading were up for the battle, full of energy in an organised system and with the power and pace to cause damage. We deservedly fell behind.
The early signs were positive as we attempted to claw the game back, however. We didn’t panic. Our subs enhanced us while Reading were bringing on teenagers. We had 18 touches in the Reading box for the final half hour compared to 0. Eight shots to two. And the pressure told as a handball gave Alfie May the chance to fire home his first Blues goal from the penalty spot and secure a point.
Game one, not lost.
Game two, first win.
Wycombe Wanderers, who would step up as our title challengers during the first half of the campaign, netted first but Blues responded positively with May, Harris and Willumson all on the scoresheet. Leyton Orient were beaten in a game defined by defensive errors and Wigan Athletic also succumbed after injury left them with ten men, Scott Wright creating the first truly memorable moment of the campaign as he celebrated an injury time winner in front of a packed out stadium.
Meanwhile, we had also beaten Charlton Athletic with a much-changed XI courtesy of a wonderful Brandon Khela curling effort from distance and went toe-to-toe with Premier League Fulham in the EFL Cup, ultimately succumbing as a certain Jay Stansfield completed a 2-0 win.
There was a clear pattern in our first nine league games. The opening four were against sides with settled managers, squads and ways of playing, making them tricky to navigate and providing a solid test.
The five that followed would be the next level up, at least on paper, as we took on five of the pre-season promotion favourites.
I’ve not heard an atmosphere like that for a long time
Birmingham City v Wrexham. Live on Sky. Monday night. Rob McElhenney, Tom Brady, David Beckham and Gary Neville in attendance as part of a sold-out crowd.
For many, it was seen as the Hollywood derby and with all the media leading into the game, it was hard to get away from. Yet the atmosphere on and off the pitch that night was anything but American as a feral, raucous home crowd blew the proverbial roof off the place and had David Beckham waxing lyrical during and after the game.
It helped that this was a night where everything came off.
Sure, there was the early setback as Wrexham took the lead but the response came quickly with Jay Stansfield, billed as the £20 million man, re-announcing himself to the home faithful on his second full debut. Tomoki Iwata, another debutant, fired home from distance and Stansfield headed home the third. Taylor Gardner-Hickman felt the love after a whopping challenge on perennial pantomime villain James McClean and golden boy Paul Mullin was caught trying to take a chunk out of Alex Cochrane. They were losing their heads and we were popping them off the park.
Any concerns around how the players would handle the pressure disappeared with every passing minute. Wrexham’s second shot of the game came on 70 minutes and their final three shots came from distance against ten men after Bielik dived into a needless challenge. The first huge occasion of the season could not have gone any better.
There was no immediate comedown. Steve Evans and Rotherham United offered little resistance as the same duo found the net. Peterborough United gave us a bloody nose but still walked away empty headed. A 1-0 loss flattered Huddersfield Town, who tried to go toe-to-toe but faded badly after a bright start.
Eight games. Seven wins. One draw. Seven sold-out allocations. Four expected promotion contenders beaten. And there was still a sense that there was more to come.
In six months time we’ll be a Championship team and a different animal. We stay humble and keep our feet on the ground and we don’t want to choke on it, but the reality is we’re too good for League One.
Brian Dick often says Krystian Bielik is good for a quote and when he was interviewed by BBC WM on Monday 30th September, the newly appointed Birmingham City club captain did not disappoint.
We had already received plenty of strong words owing to the bravado of our owners while Chris Davies had been one-eyed at times, but this was the comment. The cardinal sin. The already enormous target on our backs had just increased some more.
We beat Huddersfield Town the following day but you can’t say things like that without comeuppance following. By the weekend, Blues has suffered their first loss of the season away at Charlton Athletic. This wasn’t just a loss either – we were outplayed, outfought, barely mustered an effort at goal and were comfortably second best.
There were reasons for it, perhaps namely that this was the first three-game week a brand-new group of whom many hadn’t had a full pre-season were ending. But to be honest, we just weren’t at it. We played against opposition that went man-for-man, and we took too many touches, didn’t rotate and shift them around enough and allowed ourselves to be pressed and overran by a side managed by a bloke who lives for games of this nature.
It was the start of our one truly tricky spell.
We hammered Shrewsbury Town in the Vertu Trophy a couple of days later but returned from the international break to beat Lincoln City and Bolton Wanderers in matches that showcased some unnerving signs. We led in both matches by one goal but stepped off the gas and let our opposition back into the game, getting away with big moments (a penalty saved by Ryan Allsop and a big James McAtee chance) before managing to get the clincher a few minutes later.
We weren’t so lucky at Mansfield Town. We should have been out of sight by half-time but having failed to take our chances, we conceded a tame free-kick and things became chaotic thereon with Chris Davies’ side under the cosh. To rescue the game, he had to make a triple change which involved taking off a striker for a midfielder to regain some control and secure the point.
Fulham’s kids were comprehensively put the sword in a match-up that simply felt unfair and we squeezed past non-league Sutton United at their place in the FA Cup First Round, a game that we never made as comfortable as it should have been.
We were punished again in our next league game. Northampton Town turned up to St.Andrews injury-hit and with no intention of leaving their own half. They sat in a 5-4-1 shape and Blues were able to gradually ramp up the pressure, taking the lead in the second half. We had 23 shots, created 2.72xG, had numerous chances within 12 yards of their goal and yet we drew. In the final seconds, Dion Sanderson and Tomoki Iwata failed to deal with a long ball and Mitch Pinnock fired home.
International break. Time for reflection. A chance to get some coaching done and refresh. Bottom of the league Shrewsbury Town away, a team we’ve already beaten twice since the start of July. Sure, Gareth Ainsworth has now taken charge but we should have fire in our belly following the previous couple of results. We’re too good for this level, remember?
Nope.
We didn’t just lose. We deserved to lose. We looked like we were running through treacle when broke on and every mistake was punished. There was a late fightback but it wasn’t enough and for the second time this season, we were beaten in the league.
Without question, this was the most humiliating result of the year. We were being humbled.
A number of clubs would be okay with a run of six games, two defeats and eight points, as well as progression in the EFL Trophy and FA Cup but for Blues, the visual of it leaving us in 4th (with games in hand) wasn’t one anybody anticipated. We needed to sharpen up.
If you watch us, we’re not just a nice footballing team – I wouldn’t have it that way. That’s not how I see the game. We’re a team that can mix it. We can be physical. If teams want to fight us we can fight them. If teams want to play football we can play football. And that’s why we’re looking more like what I’d class as a proper team.
It’s 16th January 2025 and Chris Davies has sat down with Blues TV for a mid-season review, looking back at his time with the club, the summer window, his squad and the quality of the division as a whole.
The interview is chock-full of quotes. From Davies claiming he doesn’t block the noise out because he doesn’t listen to it to how this group have required fewer fines for poor behaviour than he’s ever seen in football (and he’s been working in the game for around years on that side of it now).
It’s clear when you listen to Davies’ pre and post-match interviews that he is blissfully unaware of the noise surrounding him and the club. Either that, or he doesn’t care. He has a single-minded focus on his job, his players, what we did well and he scarcely gives opponents praise, often brushing it off by stating that it was a small period of pressure or that his goalkeeper had little to do. His annoyance at referees for not enforcing time wasting or clamping down on persistent fouling while ignoring his own team getting away with the dark arts.
Whatever you think of him and the way he speaks, it's clear that the man knows and understands football and footballers. And the response to the loss at Shrewsbury Town showcased why Chris Davies is likely to have a successful managerial career.
He could have gone down the route of abandoning what was making his team successful. He could have persevered with a shape that was beginning to show cracks. He could have lost his head amid a vocal minority claiming it wasn’t good enough.
Instead, Davies found the balance. He persevered with what made us good but adapted it so his side could be pragmatic, a quality he alluded to in pre-season. He adapted when necessary in-game, happy to go more direct or play with more width. He tasked his midfielders to play different roles within to help control things.
Exeter City v Birmingham City. Ethan Laird and Luke Harris dropped, replaced by Ben Davies and Alfie May. Experience. Krystian Bielik moved to right-back while Alex Cochrane played with more width. Keshi Anderson shifted to the right-hand side and Jay Stansfield to the left. Blues had 19 shots to 3. Exeter managed just two touches in the Blues box over the 90. Tomoki Iwata and Stansfield score. Blues win 2-0.
A much-changed XI dispatched Blackpool in the cup before Stockport County visited St.Andrews and left empty-handed. The new shape worked out as Keshi Anderson twice teed up Alfie May for a brace and when we were tasked with defending our box in the second half, we did so, everything from the visitors throwing what they could at us but from a distance.
Barnsley away followed and this was one of the most important wins of the season. Our fifth game in two weeks, four of which were on the road. Stormy weather. Awful pitch. Strong and direct opposition. No Dykes, Willumson, Hansson, Wright, Anderson meaning minimal height and width. This was where Chris Davies was going to earn his money.
We switched to a 3-4-3 with Laird and Harris brought back in, but Cochrane was injured after six minutes meaning Laird on the left and Gardner-Hickman on the right. We had managed one shot at goal and were regularly being hit down the same area of the pitch. At half-time, Davies threw Lukas Jutkiewicz on for Luke Harris. It worked as couple of aerial duels opened space for Stansfield to fire in from distance. At 1-1, striker May was replaced by midfielder Leonard to give us more control and we shifted to 3-5-2. Adam Phillips was sent off, Stansfield scored from a corner. Blues leave 2-1 winners.
The run would continue. We beat Exeter City away in the EFL Trophy despite a goalkeeping error and a 2-0 win over Bristol Rovers was as simple as they came. The response to that Shrewsbury Town defeat? Six wins in all competition. Three goals conceded.
After seven games in 21 days, the players received a well-earned break ahead of playing five matches in 12 days over Christmas and New Year. Three of those would be played on the road. And unlike some, we wouldn’t get a postponement owing to a bad pitch. Time for the players to step up once more.
It was fairly brutal. We lost Lee Buchanan, Krystian Bielik, Tomoki Iwata, Paik Seung-Ho, Willum Willumson, Keshi Anderson, Emil Hansson and Jay Stansfield to injury during that run and were fortunate that two cup games followed. Yet we came away with 11 points and conceded just one goal.
Crawley Town put up a good fight despite minimal opportunities on our goal and it was only after captain Dion Conroy went off injured, forcing a change of shape and personnel, that we punished them as Stansfield found space in the area to head home. Burton was simpler but we did need a controversial penalty and own goal to get the job done. We got away with it against Blackpool, losing three players to injury on the day and again having to swap a striker for a midfielder to regain balance on a tricky afternoon. We took an early lead against Stockport County before enduring serious second half pressure and coming away with a point.
By the time the game at Wigan Athletic came around, it felt like everybody was ready to be done with this run. It was exhausting as a fan, let alone as a player. Shout out to Iwata and Willumson who started all five matches. We struggled early doors but our quality showed as Laird answered calls from Davies to be more impactful in the final third and Willumson scored what would be his last goal for a while.
Davies played almost completely changed teams for Lincoln City in the FA Cup and Swindon Town in the EFL Trophy, Blues winning both games 2-1 with Dykes’ moment of sheer brilliance against Lincoln standing out.
We had played 14 games in 55 days since that Shrewsbury loss. We won 12 and conceded just six goals.
Now came the tough tests.
SHOOOOOOOOOOOT.... YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH
Between Thursday 23rd January and Saturday 15th March, Blues would play 15 matches, a run that would see us play twice a week for seven weeks in a row.
This wasn’t just any run of fixtures, however. The first 12 matches of this run would see us play seven of League One’s top nine at the time, Premier League Newcastle United and two cup games that gave us a shot at Wembley. Never has Chris Davies’ penchant for stating “the next game is the most important” felt more valid.
It started at Wrexham away. Our hosts wanted revenge after we played them off the park at our place and this remained a key match in the fight for the title. The move to a Thursday night didn’t hamper the atmosphere and Blues had to stand up to the test having lost our entire first-choice midfield.
We stood up to the test. Both goals came inside the first 20 minutes and Blues were having the better of the game for an hour or so. However, the enforced changes and lack of obvious first-choice talent on the bench meant we were undercooked as the game went on and the hosts smelt blood. Davies once again showed his pragmatic side, bringing on Jutkiewicz and Bielik to help see the game out amid a flurry of set-pieces and long throws.
On Tuesday we played Huddersfield Town. The tempo of the game was probably the sharpest League One had seen as both sides squeezed the pitch, went hard on individual battles and were forced to move the ball sharply. Blues stepped up to the challenge, had the better of the chances then Keshi Anderson produced one of the goals of the season in the second half, a dipping volley into the top corner. Grant Hanley and Kieran Dowell made their debuts and Blues hung on for a huge three points.
We came from behind to beat Rotherham United, a Stansfield brace giving us another three points. A much-changed side competed with Stevenage in the EFL Trophy in a tight game won thanks to the quality of the substitutions we were able to make as Leonard set Stansfield away for the winner and a spot in the semi-finals.
Newcastle United at home. BBC cameras on. A pre-match performance from Jaykae. A feral, hostile atmosphere of the likes unlikely to have been seen around the country this season. A topsy-turvy encounter in which both sides had big spells. A nasty-looking injury and a player launched over the hoardings. A goal that probably shouldn’t have been. A thunderbolt that would be given as our goal of the season. A night neither set of fans are likely to forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, the quality of a side pushing to play Champions League football were able to get the win.
Tuesday night. Relegation-threatened Cambridge United at home. Possibly a few changes ahead of a big week. Not a chance. Paik Seung-Ho was back. Willum Willumson was back. Ryan Allsop was back. Chris Davies picked his strongest XI and got a performance worthy of his selection as Blues put them to the sword in a 4-0 win.
Saturday. Charlton Athletic. A chance to enact some revenge. We played with an air of control we lacked in the reverse fixture, beating the press by moving the ball quicker but defences were on top in a tight game. It took a moment of brilliance to make the difference, Stansfield nicking the ball on the right, driving towards goal and thumping the ball into the roof of the net.
Tuesday. Bradford City. Semi-final. A sold out St.Andrews. Two changes as Gardner-Hickman and Wright got the nod. A good battle and Stansfield gave Blues the lead with a fine effort as a set-piece was recycled. Then he should have won a penalty but the ref didn’t give it. Bradford went straight up the other end and scored. Stansfield looked like his season might be over. The cavalry arrived with Laird, Anderson and May stepping on. Then Dykes. Cross into the area, Dykes leaps highest and sends Blues to Wembley.
Saturday. Reading. Burnout. Horrific pitch that wouldn’t look out of place at Sunday League level. Scott Wright lasted five minutes before his season, and probably his 2025, was ended. Lyndon Dykes popped his calf in the second half. Keshi Anderson pulled up at the end of the game. We rode a bit of luck. Finished strongly enough. Couldn’t find a winner and Reading became the first side all season to avoid defeat against us. Not undeserved either. Given their issues, fair play to them.
Tuesday. Leyton Orient. Early red card. Complete domination. A well earned 2-0 win. Saturday. Wycombe Wanderers. Our opposition are poor. We are at it. Take the lead. Red card before half-time. Lovely job. Only, we come under the cosh a little second half. Lukas Jutkiewicz is dwarfed when he comes on, which tells you the size of their backline. Ryan Allsop is forced off with injury. Ethan Laird is forced off with injury. Blues survive.
Since that defeat against Shrewsbury Town, Birmingham City had played 25 matches. We had won 20. Of that 25, 18 were in the league. We had won 14 and drawn four. We had conceded just four goals.
But it had to come to an end at some point, right?
It does take its toll, but it’s the mental fatigue as well as the physical fatigue. They have done well throughout the time and it’s important they rest and recover now and re-energise ready for a big push towards the end of the season.
Davies continued to roll out positives when discussing his side and their form over the course of this period. The ability to defend. The ability to play against pressure. The ability to keep winning. The quality of the goals. The way he suggested any pressure we came under was less of a threat than it may have appeared. Character.
But there were signs that we were beginning to run our race. The difficulties we faced late on against Charlton when they brought on the big men. Being fairly sluggish at Reading. Being up against it vs ten-man Wycombe. Then came Bolton.
We came into it undercooked. Allsop was out, and therefore we lacked competence in net. Laird, Wright, Anderson and Stansfield were all missing, the four players that give us speed and dynamism, and Dykes’ physicality. It meant we had no way of going over what was an impressively energetic, organised and tenacious press. We were reaching the end of this crazy run of games and “mental fatigue” as Davies would put it was catching up with us. Gardner-Hickman should have been sent off. We were slow to react to second balls and pressing triggers across the pitch. Not even the return of Stansfield from the bench could spark life into us.
We’ve never been in a position to make excuses in League One and we had to hold our hands up – we were beaten by the better team. The early lead never felt sustainable and we were put to the sword by a good team showing why they were promotion favourites before a ball was kicked.
Perhaps this is just me, but it felt like the loss helped. The tension of keeping this run going had popped and we could move forward with the rest of the campaign knowing the best the division had to offer were behind us.
Davies refreshed a little for the visit of Lincoln City with captain Bielik returning to the XI in place of Willumson, who desperately needed a rest, while Stansfield led the line. Anderson also returned to the squad and after a solid opening hour, we stepped up, won a penalty and won a game perhaps best remembered for the look on George Wickens’ face when he realised his former Fulham youth team-mate Stansfield was handing the ball to Dowell, who promptly found the top corner.
It was back to normal for the visit of Stevenage with Sampsted getting a rare start and impressing. Another penalty, dispatched again by Dowell, and a long overdue first goal of the season for Paik Seung-Ho enough to seal the win despite an impressive late finish from Jake Young.
The final game before the international break was at Northampton Town and it was probably our worst 45 minutes of the season. It was everything we hadn’t been all season. We were caught on numerous occasions by a side in need of the points in their bid for survival and didn’t respond at all, gifting them the opener with a hilarious own goal and thankful for Anderson’s sharp finish in the second half. We finished the better team but were always chasing.
The players looked like most people associated with Blues felt at that point. Bloody exhausted.
They’ve been threatening it all year – they are all talk apparently. I thought there would be a few on there!
Chris Davies said there was never any chance his side were playing during the international break, instead opting to take the opportunity for a much-needed break.
It was an understandable decision but left us with a problem: we had 11 matches to fit into five weeks.
Time to take things one game at a time.
The positive of the international break was that only four players left the club. Paik Seung-Ho unfortunately suffered a small injury that would rule him out upon return while Willumson, Harris and Hanley also went away with their nations. Otherwise, the group remained together and were able to rest and recover with the big benefit being the returns of Laird, Anderson and Stansfield to something akin to full speed.
We returned from the break to play a Shrewsbury Town side under new management.
Would history repeat itself? Not a chance.
Blues were on their game, sharp and able to take apart a disorganised side on their way down to League Two. Tuesday was much tougher as fellow strugglers Bristol Rovers put up a real fight and arguably deserved to walk away with a result but a late handball gave Stansfield the chance to win the game.
We welcomed Barnsley on the Saturday for a game that will remain in the memory for one moment: Lukas Jutkiewicz’s final goal in a Birmingham City shirt.
The game itself was chaos. There was an early red card. Blues conceded twice against ten men. Stansfield scored a penalty. May got himself two goals and two assists. Corey O’Keeffe was withdrawn at 5-2 and decided to turn and cup his ears to the Tilton. Strange bloke.
But the best moment was saved for last as Dowell played in Jutkiewicz. His first effort was saved, his second effort bounced the right side of the post and the stadium erupted as though we had just scored the winner in a play-off final. Every player, including Allsop, went steaming towards the corner flag to celebrate, including one fan which made for a cracking photo. The big man was expecting more of us given the chants throughout the campaign.
For all the incredible goals and moments over the season, this one ranks right at the top.
For all those people that say we can’t fill 60,000 seats, we have an acronym for that don’t we? FEA
Those three wins meant we were potentially in for the perfect week.
It began on Tuesday away at Peterborough United, our Wembley opposition. Barry Fry ensured more tickets were made available for fans to potentially witness promotion be secured in front of their own eyes.
A much-changed team did the job with May and Gardner-Hickman scoring either side of a fine Kwame Poku strike. Sampsted came off and celebrated in front of the away fans behind the goal on his way round. Promotion secured.
On Thursday, the club announced that there would be a documentary coming out on Amazon Prime, being made available to over 150 countries globally with some big names behind the making of it.
And as the team travelled down to Wembley for the EFL Trophy final, they were finding out that they were now officially title winners after Wigan Athletic held second-place Wrexham at home.
Could we end the week in perfect fashion, celebrating a trophy in front of around 50k Blues fans inside of Wembley?
No.
It was too good to be true.
We did a lot of our normal stuff okay but the energy, tenacity and quality that turns us from a good side to an exceptional one was missing on the day. We were second best. We couldn’t close gaps quick enough. We succumbed to two sensational strikes and couldn’t find that real moment of quality ourselves. Aside from seeing Jutkiewicz play his one and only game at Wembley, this wasn’t a day to look back fondly on.
Why did it happen? Looking back just under a month on, I think the occasion and everything surrounding it got to us.
It felt like the game meant a lot more to us than it did Peterborough. We were favourites. Big expectation. The documentary announcement. The want to replicate the 1995 double winners. The noise leading into the game from key figures. The interviews and selling of the club. All that on top of us playing our 54th game of the season at the end of a really emotional week. It was a game too far. It happens.
That’s a lot of years of football, a lot of clubs starting off and finishing it with a certain amount of points but no one’s got more than 106.
Attentions switched back to league football and officially, there was nothing left to play for. We were League One title winners. The EFL Trophy was done. Even most of our upcoming opposition had nothing to play for.
The records were there in plain sight. But we’ve seen how other clubs under no pressure to win have fared at this time of the season. Reading drew six and lost one of their last 13. Burnley probably should have broken it the other year but took their foot off the gas.
We wanted the records and we were open about it. Wagner, Davies, players and fans alike had alluded to it. But we didn’t need the records, and playing with a need and want are two different things.
To break those records, we would have to win three, four and five of the final six. The problem was that they were being played within 15 days of each other at the end of the longest of seasons. We weren’t going into these fresh and at full strength.
Crawley Town was first up. They needed a result if they were to give themselves an unlikely shot at survival and credit to them, they got it. They weren’t afraid to give it a go, played some nice stuff but probably rode their luck a bit as Blues failed to put one of several good chances away.
Burton followed and we got another standout moment as Alfons Sampsted scored his first goal for the club, firing home via a deflection to give us the lead. A true clubman. We led 2-0 until the final seconds when something happened that I believe re-focused minds: we conceded a crap goal from a defensive point of view. You could see Allsop, Klarer and Hanley debating it after the fact despite the team winning. They weren’t happy.
I think something else important happened to re-focus us when we travelled to Stevenage on the Thursday. We let a team trying to bully us get away with it in the first half and came out with more intent in the second. The quadruple substitution gave us zip and tenacity. Cochrane scored with a gorgeous strike from 25-30 yards and we kept that clean sheet.
Mansfield Town at home. The day we lifted the League One title in front of our fans. Our opposition were safe and we up for it, scoring four in the first hour and giving Jutkiewicz an appropriate send off – pumping balls into the box for him to attack in the hope he might score. He didn’t, but we celebrated anyway. And broke Wolves' League One record in the process.
Blackpool away. Professional job against a side who had just seen their miniscule play-off hopes vanish. A strong first half and goals a few minutes either side of half time. Blues were EFL points record holders.
And the final day against Cambridge United. They were relegated. We were done. The hosts gave it a good go and deservedly equalised as a changed Blues side tried to get going one last time. We found the rhythm and an own goal thanks to pressure from Jutkiewicz, who is rightly trying to claim that as the perfect send off, was enough for one final win and one more record.
Forty-six matches. Thirty-four wins. One hundred and eleven points. Good luck beating that.
We don’t just want to go back to the Premier League. We want to go and get into the Champions League. We want to win the Premier League then we want to win it again.
Rob McElhenney joked recently that he didn’t know the meaning of the word consolidation. You can be rest assured that Tom Wagner doesn’t either.
This is a guy that has been proclaiming to anybody that will listen things such as:
We won’t rest until we’re at the very, very top – that’s the objective. It’s wonderful what we’ve done, but we’re not going to pat ourselves on the back. If you pat yourself on the back you risk spraining your arm, so don’t bother!
But think about this, for every young person that walks into that training ground to become a member of our academy, soon they will see images of where they will play when they come of age. It will be a place unlike any that exists in European Football.
A lot of people say you can build that when you get there. I would argue that you can’t get there without building it. Maybe I’m too Americanised and have this fanciful view that this is like Field of Dreams, the American baseball movie, where you build it and they will come. But I believe it’s right.
And then we got Craig Gardner’s quotes towards the end of the Category One academy announcement.
Steady on.
Actually, wait. That’s the point, isn’t it?
The sky isn’t the limit. There is no limit.
I can’t lie, I’m still adjusting. Going from being a Birmingham City fan whose ambition went as far as hoping to avoid a relegation scrap to one who sees endless possibilities of what we could become isn’t easy.
But then, I’m the type of person for whom seeing is believing. I’m a working class lad from a council estate, like many of our fanbase, and seeing this future where we are fighting towards the top end of the Premier League seems so farfetched.
When I wrote after the cup final about gut feeling, it was because my heart and my head had experienced this stuff before. I had learned and my body was responding. But I’ve never seen us win a league title. Break records. I was 17 the last time we were in the Premier League and 18 the last time we were any good in the Championship. I’m looking ahead to next season knowing we will be good but I’m having a hard time picturing and understanding what that will look like.
This season has been an adjustment. Being the noisiest club in the division. Being the biggest club in the division. Being the team everybody wants to beat or pop at. Praise being met with criticism or mockery from others and constructive comments being met with the idea that we spent a made up amount of money and we can’t dare suggest we might have an issue to deal with.
I understand why people don’t like us, even if I think people looking at Wagner (and Reynolds/McElhenney amongst others) as the bad guys in the game is wrong in the face of owners such as The Kumars, Carson Yeung, Mr.King, Dr.Xia, Dai Yongge, Ken Anderson and so many others. But we are noisy, the Americanisms do rub people up the wrong way, we are confident bordering arrogant and we’ve been the two things people dislike most in football this season – rich and successful.
The adjustment has come more in response to conversation about the club and its staff. I’m okay stepping away a little bit after games and ensuring I don’t get too high or too low when discussing what I’ve seen. But I know during the campaign I’ve been a little over excited, a little too defensive, a smug prick, bored of the conversation, guilty of playing into the noise, too concerned by what others are saying. And while all that may be natural, I’ve definitely struggled to hit the right balance at times. Learning to care less about what people say about us, and what they say in response to what I say on social media amongst other places is the balance I would like to strike going into next year. And even when I do care, learning when and how to respond.
I do think part of the problem is how quickly everything has happened, both in terms of the growth of the club and also the amount of games we have played. Hopefully I, and perhaps others in the fanbase, will enjoy having that extra breathing room next year to settle down and take in what will hopefully be another successful season.
I say hopefully. The challenge has been set by the ownership. And this is probably where we get back to the conversation around understanding that there is no limit to what we can achieve.
Wagner has spelled it out already. We are going to have a revenue in line with the parachute payment clubs because it gives us a 1 in 4 chance of promotion. We are going to spend big money. We don’t like losing. We will be aiming for top spot and if we fall short, we should hit the moon if not the stars.
I think deep down, I know we are going to be in the throes of a promotion race but there’s that part of me that doesn’t want to acknowledge it until I’m seeing it. Yet when you’ve got everybody rooting for us to fail, people telling us we’ll be in for a shock or, as one fan site put it, more likely to be relegated than finish in the top half, there’s a part of me that wants to bite.
I’m quite happy to allow others to use their bookmark buttons and cash in receipts for a later date.
For now, let’s enjoy knowing we will be a properly competitive Championship club next season.
KRO.
KRO , FEA , bring on the Championship , thanks Ryan
A lovely write up of the season, like you I am still trying to get to grips with having optimism. It's not in the nature of being a blues fan and we always feel the wheels will drop off at some point. Yes, there are still areas of the club that can be improved, ie ticketing and catering but they will be resolved. Let's hold on and see where the ride takes us, it's great to be able to be proud to be a blues fan. KRO!