With ownership issues, ground issues, a downgraded academy and a ghost manager, Birmingham City have a lot on their plate this summer.
There was a point towards the start of the season when it felt as though Birmingham City may just defy the gravity imposed upon them by their shoddy ownership. Three wins and just one defeat from their first six games lifted them to fourth place in the Championship, and those victories had included an opening day win over freshly relegated Sheffield United and a 5-0 away win at Luton Town.
Birmingham, not normally a club prone to optimism, had cause to look up on the second weekend of September.
Birmingham City ended the season in 20th place, just two above the relegation positions. Had Derby County and Reading not been docked 21 and six points respectively by the EFL – and Birmingham were docked nine themselves in 2019, so this is an area in which they have expertise – they’d have stayed up only on goal difference. Repair work on St Andrew’s, which rendered half of the ground completely inoperable for a considerable period of time and which continues to render it partly unusable, is still not done. The ownership of the ground is unclear, the manager doesn’t even seem sure whether he is the manager or not, the academy has been downgraded and, with takeover talk having curdled into a circular swirl of rumour and counter-rumour, now there are questions over the ownership structure of the club.
Birmingham City’s new owners, REVEAL YOURSELF!!!! #BCFC pic.twitter.com/QZXPguU51b
— Tom (@BrummieTom) May 28, 2022
It’s not that Lee Bowyer has exactly been tearing things up. Birmingham won just four games throughout the second half of their league season and were knocked out of the FA Cup at home to League One Plymouth Argyle. They conceded six goals twice – to Fulham and Blackpool – and failed to win any of their last six matches. But since the end of the season Bowyer has been effectively a ghost manager, still…
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