Birmingham City

Also written as Birmingham.

The club

Birmingham City were founded in September 1875 as Small Heath Alliance and took their present name in 1943. They play at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park, which holds 29,409. They are the Blues, and play in royal blue shirts with white trim.

Recent seasons

Birmingham finished 17th in the Championship in 2022/23 with 53 points from 14 wins, 11 draws and 21 defeats. In 2023/24 they were relegated, finishing 22nd with 50 points, a record of 13 wins, 11 draws and 22 losses. The response was emphatic: they won League One in 2024/25 with 111 points and a goal difference of plus 53, going up as champions ahead of Wrexham. Back in the Championship in 2025/26 they finished tenth with 64 points from 17 wins, 13 draws and 16 defeats, scoring 57 and conceding 56. Earlier seasons than 2022/23 were not established from the sources read.

The 2025/26 cup record was slight: out of the EFL Cup in the second round, beaten 1-0 by Port Vale, and out of the FA Cup in the fourth round on penalties against Leeds United after a 1-1 draw. Marvin Ducksch and Jay Stansfield shared the scoring lead with ten league goals each and 11 in all competitions. The highest home crowd was 28,082 against Derby County on Boxing Day; the lowest was 16,367 for the EFL Cup tie with Sheffield United.

The club has been controlled since July 2023 by Shelby Companies Ltd, the vehicle of Knighthead Capital Management, which took full ownership in November 2025. In 2026 a 97 per cent stake in the women's team was sold to an investment group including Karen Carney and Kim Clijsters.

Honours and landmarks

Birmingham have won the League Cup twice, in 1962/63 and 2010/11, the second of those against Arsenal. They were FA Cup runners-up in 1930/31 and 1955/56, and Inter-Cities Fairs Cup runners-up across the 1958-60 and 1960-61 editions, which makes them one of the few English clubs to have reached a European final without winning a major league title. They were Second Division champions in 1892/93, 1920/21, 1947/48 and 1954/55, and League One champions in 2024/25. The Football League Trophy was won in 1990/91 and 1994/95.

The record attendance is 66,844 against Everton in the FA Cup fifth round on 11 February 1939. Gil Merrick made the most appearances, 551 between 1946 and 1959, and Joe Bradford scored the most goals, 267 between 1920 and 1935. The record fee received is the £25m Borussia Dortmund paid for Jude Bellingham on 23 July 2020. The record fee paid is the £10m, potentially rising to £15m, given to Fulham for Jay Stansfield on 31 August 2024.

Notable scorelines

The record victory is 12-0, achieved three times: against Nottingham Forest in the Football Alliance on 8 March 1889, against Walsall Town Swifts in the Second Division on 17 December 1892 and against Doncaster Rovers in the Second Division on 11 April 1903. The record defeat is 1-9, suffered four times: against Sheffield Wednesday on 21 December 1889, Newton Heath on 7 April 1890, Blackburn Rovers on 5 February 1895 and Sheffield Wednesday again on 13 December 1930. The club's own article gives the 8-0 defeat at Bournemouth in the Championship in 2014 as the heaviest of the modern era. In 2025/26 the best results were 4-0 wins over Portsmouth and Millwall and a 4-1 win over Norwich City; the heaviest defeats were 3-0 to Coventry City, Sheffield United and Watford.

Head-to-head notes

The Second City derby against Aston Villa is the one fixture with a published all-time record: Villa 57 wins, Birmingham 38, 31 draws, from 126 meetings. The clubs last met on 10 March 2019 in the Championship at St Andrew's, Villa winning 1-0 through Jack Grealish, a match remembered for a supporter running onto the pitch and assaulting him. Villa's biggest win in the fixture is 6-0 in the Full Members Cup on 9 November 1988; the highest-scoring meeting was Villa's 7-3 win in the First Division on 7 September 1895. Villa are in the Premier League in 2026/27, so the derby can only happen in a cup.

No published all-time record was established for any of Birmingham's 2026/27 Championship opponents, West Bromwich Albion included.

Right now (2026/27)

Chris Davies has been head coach since June 2024 and has taken the club up as champions and then to a top-half Championship finish.

The summer's incomings were: Jhon Solís from Girona on 15 June 2026 for £6m; Dael Fry from Middlesbrough on a free transfer on 3 July; Junior Wilson from Aston Villa on 8 July; goalkeeper James Beadle on loan from Brighton and Hove Albion on 17 July; Finn McGreevy from Hampton and Richmond Borough on 27 July; Luis Vázquez from Anderlecht on 28 July for £3m; and Kristoffer Lund from Palermo for an undisclosed fee on 30 July. Outgoing were Byron Pendleton to Shrewsbury Town on 30 June for an undisclosed fee, Kai Wagner to Philadelphia Union on 17 July for £3.85m and Kyogo Furuhashi to LA Galaxy on 21 July for an undisclosed fee.

Pre-season produced four wins: 3-1 over Huddersfield Town, 3-0 over Solihull Moors, 1-0 over Burton Albion and, on the same day, 2-1 over Crewe Alexandra and 2-0 over Northampton Town with two separate sides.

Birmingham were drawn against Swansea City in the first round of the EFL Cup on 8 August 2026. The Championship season opens away to Sheffield United on Saturday 15 August 2026 at 17:30.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.