Birmingham City, a club with a vast history was initially formed in 1875 as the Small Heath Alliance and renamed Birmingham City in 1935. The club’s home ground of St Andrews has been its home since 1905 adding to the club’s extensive history. Birmingham City could be noted as a sleeping giant sitting in league one during the current 24/25 season. However, the acquisition of the club by North American subsidiary Shelby Companies Ltd fronted by its co-founder Tom Wagner. Along with this Birmingham City shattered the League One transfer fee record by paying Fulham £15 million with a potential of £5 million in add-ons for striker Jay Stansfield. The question at hand is, could Birmingham City achieve promotion from League One this season and then go one step further to achieve promotion from the Championship to the promised land all EFL teams dream to be, this being the Premier League?
History Of Back-To-Back Promotions
A club to obtain a back-to-back promotion is a very difficult thing to achieve. A club must go from being one of the best in the division it currently resides in to once again being one of the best in the division the club has been promoted into. In fact, across the history of the EFL, only five clubs have managed arguably the biggest gap in quality to jump from EFL League One to the Premier League. This includes Watford from 1997-1999, Manchester City from 1998-2000, Southampton from 2010-2012, Norwich from 2009-2011, and most recently the 2022-2024 campaign of Kieran McKenna’s Ipswich Town. It cannot be understated the difficulty of achieving this type of back-to-back promotion as a club must successfully recruit to be able to compete in a higher division but not only that, recruit to be again one of it not the best side in the division.
Birmingham In The Transfer Market
In the summer window before the 24/25 season Birmingham recruited heavily to blast past the competition and achieve promotion back to the Championship. Most notably, Jay Stansfield took over the media headlines as City shattered the transfer fee record but, they also acquired many other players for around the £1 million mark which doesn’t sound like much in comparison yet the league one transfer fee record before the purchase of Stansfield, Sunderland’s purchase of Will Grigg for £3.4 million was the highest fee paid in League One. Therefore, the signings of Christoph Klarer and Willum Thór Willumsson would have also broken and equalled that record respectively. Birmingham also picked up some players in the summer who had the quality to play in League One but without the huge price tag in comparison such as Alfie May from Charlton Athletic and Tomoki Iwata from Celtic for around £750,000 each.
Does Birmingham Believe?
Birmingham City currently sits atop League One and is nine points clear of Wycombe who currently occupy second position, and Birmingham also holds a game in hand over them. City have only conceded 22 goals all season in the league only leading to three defeats, most recently coming in a 3-1 away loss to Bolton. However, this shouldn’t scupper Birmingham’s promotion hopes as even if they weren’t to win the league, they are still eleven points clear, therefore it is probably fair to suggest that Birmingham is certain to be promoted out of League One, the question is can they go one step further and make the jump from the Championship to the Premier League.
As long as Birmingham City can recruit as well as they did this previous summer and can obtain some more talent to bolster their ranks to compete at the top of the Championship, with the likes of Sheffield United, Burnley, and Sunderland amongst those that could reside in the Championship again next season and also Birmingham will have to contend with the relegated Premier League sides, which amongst those is most likely to be Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton. It is quite possible with the funds that will most likely be made available to Birmingham by their American owners that they will be able to recruit well enough to compete at the top end of the championship and possibly get into the playoff places. However, with parachute payments the relegated Premier League clubs will receive it will be hard for Birmingham to obtain the players they will require to achieve promotion to the Premier League for the first time since the 08/09 season.
