Birmingham City
Formed 1875
Founder member of Division Two 1892
Kit History
Small Heath Alliance
1875
1875a
1882-1885b o
1885-1888j x
Small Heath
1888
Sept-Dec 1888b x
Jan 1889-1890a j s
Sept 90-1899b i v w
1901-1905j
Birmingham
1905
1905-1912b o
1912-1913b
circa 1913b k n o
1914-1915u
1919-1922n o
1922-1923o
1924-1925u
1925-1926t
1932-1933n
1933-1934n
1934-1935b
1935-1938b g o
1938-1939h
1939-1940b
Birmingham City
1944
1945-1946b
1946-1947o
1947-1949b o
1949-1955b
1955-1956b o
1956-1958g o
1958-Nov 1960b o
Nov 1960-1961r
1961-1962k
1962-1963 earlyb k
1962-1963 lateb k
1963-1964b
1964-1965h
1965-1967a h
1967-1970b h
1970-1971b h
1971-1975b p
1975-1976a
1976-1977b
1977-1980b
1980-1982b
1982-1983b
1983-1985a
1985-1986c
1986-1987d
1987-1988d
1988-1989b
1989-1990b
1990-1991f
1991-1992f
1992-March 1993b f
March-May 1993h
1993-1994b
1994-1995f
1995-1996f
1996-1997c
1997-1998c
1998-1999c
1999-2000c
2000-2001c
2001-2002c
2002-2003e
2003-2004e q
2004-2005e q
2005-2006e
2007-2008e
2008-2009e
2009-2010e
2010-2011e
2011-2012e
2012-2013e
2013-2014e
2014-2015e
2015-2016e
2016-2017e
2017-2018e
2018-2019e
2019-2020e
2020-2021e
2021-2022e
2022-2023e
Background
Although Birmingham City wereformed only a year after their great rivals, Aston Villa, the club haveremained firmly in the shadow of their illustrious neighbour. City hadhumble beginnings and were originally formed by a group of cricketersas Small Heath Alliance in order to provide a winter activity. In 1885the club became professional, the players receiving half the gate receipts.Three years later Small Heath became the first football club to became a limited company and dropped "Alliance" from their name.
The club started out wearing dark blue jerseys but switched to amber and black after turning professional.An experiment with black tops in 1889 proved unpopular,players and spectators complaining that the team were virtually invisible. A set of royal blue jerseys were ordered for the following season but these were not delivered in time so the team turned out in their old gold-trimmed black tops for the first few games of the 1890-91 season. Although the shirts in the photograph above appear to be pale blue this is an illusion caused by the orthographic film stock used. All contemporary references describe the team as playing in "royal blue."
The Blues became founder members of Division Twoin 1892 and won the championship at the first attempt only to miss outon promotion by losing to Newton Heath in the test matches. In 1893 the club were promoted to Division One after finishing second (beating Darwen in their test match). They madelittle impression and were relegated in 1896 after which the Heathens regularly bounced between the two divisions.
In 1905 the club changed its name to BirminghamFC ("City" was not added until 1944) in a bid to gain widersupport and a year later moved into St Andrews, the club'spresent home. After the First World War, wearing a darker shade of blue,the club became established in Division One, reaching the FA Cup Finalin 1931. 1939 brought relegation and after the Second World War, BirminghamCity, as they now styled themselves, moved between the two top divisions with some frequency.The change in name was no doubt engineered to encourage support from throughout the city and to emphasise this, the coat of arms of Birmingham now appeared on their shirts regularly although these had been the club's official crest since 1905 and made an appearance in the 1938-39 season. In 1956 Birmingham City finished sixth in Division One and were beaten finalists in the FA Cup for the second time - their most successful season to date.
In 1963 City won the League Cup their first majortrophy. Although the competition was not taken very seriously at thattime, their victory was all the sweeter because they overcame Aston Villa over the two-leg final.
A monogram was adopted in 1970-71 but was replaced the following season by the famous intertwined lettering that appeared on the much-loved penguin strip.
After a spell in Division Two City returned to the top flight in 1972. To celebrate this achievement, theSports Argus newspaper ran a competition to design a new crest for the club. The winning entry, by Michael Wood was a globe and a football entwined with ribbon bearing the club's name. This proved a design classic and is still in use today. It did not, however, appear until 1976, when plain royal blue shirts were reinstated and it has appeared, with
various backgrounds, basically unchanged ever since.
The late Eighties brought disaster as they slipped all the way down to Division Three for the first time in 1989. In April 1989 the Kumar brothers, owners of a clothing chain, bought the club. Their regime brought a rapid turnover of managers and a threat from the players en masse to refuse to renew their contracts. On the other hand, the club
won the Associate Members Cup at Wembley and once Terry Cooper took charge as manager, promotion was secured. The collapse of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International (BCCI) in 1992 put the Kumars out of business and the football club was put into administration while BCCI's liquidator put their 84% shareholding up for sale. This was bought by David Sullivan of Sports Newspapers, who installed Karren Brady as Managing Director and dropped the unpopular "paint box strip" (with its multicoloured
crest and colours of India on the socks).
The Nineties brought a return to the second leveland by the new millennium, the Blues were regularly in contention forpromotion to the Premiership. Traditionalists, however, pointed outthat the shade of blue then in vogue was not the rich royal blue that is associated with the club. A version of the old monogramme crest made a brief reappearance in the 1996-97 season before
the popular 1976 design was restored.
The latest version of the "penguin" kit, unveiled in 2007 to mark City's brief return to the Premier Division, proved very popular. Relegation followed but City bounced back in 2009 and in October of that year David Sullivan and David Gold sold their controlling stake to Hong Kong business man Carson Yeung for £81m.
In 2010 City signed a contract, reported to be worth £7.8m over five seasons, with Xtep, a Chinese sportswear manufacturer. That season they beat Arsenal 2-1 to win the Carling Cup (formerly League Cup) to bring some rare silverware to St Andrews and were then relegated. Even so City had a Europa League place, the first time the team had played competitive football in Europe in almost fifty years. Disaster, however, lurked in the wings when the club's owner, Carson Yeung faced charges of money laundering in Hong Kong. If convicted, Yeung's 23% shareholding could be confiscated by the courts, precipitating a financial crisis that the club, with a £24m hole in its accounts, would be unlikely to survive. Because the club failed to file accounts for 2010-11 they were handed a transfer embargo that was eventually lifted in July 2012. Meanwhile Yeung's prosecution rumbled on. To make matters worse, Xtep's sponsorship was cancelled at the end of the 2011-12 season and allegations of dubious financial transactions emerged in 2013.
In February 2014, Yeung stepped down from all involvement in Birmingham City and a
month later was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for money laundering by the Hong Kong courts. As a result share trading in the club's holding company, Birmingham International Holdings (BIH), suspended since 2011, resumed and efforts to sell the club intensified.
To mark the club's 140th anniversary in 2015, a special crest was introduced that incorporated the 1970 monogram to be worn on a kit that was based on the original Small Heath Alliance colours from 1875.
Sources
- (a)BCFCArchive Site
- (b) Birmingham City FC(Images of Sport - T Matthews)
- (c)SportingHeroes
- (d)kitclassics
- (e)BirminghamCity Official Website
- (f) True Colours(John Devlin 2005)
- (g)Pete'sPicture Palace
- (h) Russell Mann
- (i)Association of Football Statisticians - provided by Pete Wyatt
- (j) Rob Horton
- (k) Peter Moor
- (l) Willie Kay
- (m) Kjell Hanssen
- (n) Simon Monks
- (o) Keith Ellis (HFK Research Associate)
- (p) Derek Fairlie
- (q) Harry Meadows
- (r) Alan Whatton
- (s) Sporting Life (23 January 1889) submitted by Brian Webb
- (t) @pics_blues
- (u) Michael Gluck
- (v) Athletic News (23 Oct, 19 Nov 1894, 20 April 189) submitted by Brian Webb
- (w)Age Fotostock
- (x) Charles Alcock's Football Annuals 1869-1891 researched by Robin Horton
Photograph by courtesy of Birmingham City FC(Images of Sport - T Matthews). Crests are the property of Birmingham City FC.