​The Club’s 3rd Open House took place on Wednesday with the theme of growth. Prior to the start of the event, Jeremy Dale revealed the next Blue Nose day on Saturday December 14th where fans can sleep over at St.Andrew’s@Knighthead Park after the Bristol Rovers game and enjoy a League Cup win themed evening in exchange for committing to raise at least £200 for the Birmingham City Foundation to help towards Christmas gifts for the needy in the area – an excellent cause.

The evening kicked off formally with Garry Cook referencing the upcoming Football Governance bill and the importance of engaging fans through events like the Open House. Garry highlighted the impressive growth of the club since the Knighthead takeover citing Blues having the 12th most social media hits of any English football team and the 6th highest average attendance outside the Premier League this season. Revenues have increased 51% this year with a projection of a further 78% next year – this is important to try and compete in the Championship next year (if we are promoted) with those clubs with parachute payments. He also mentioned the impressive increase in fitness levels this season which he partly attributed to Tom Brady’s influence. His general theme was that the new owners and management team had delivered on their initial growth promises and would continue to invest and grow the club further – mistakes had been made on the way, but the club were learning from those and the long-term ambitions for the club were undiminished.

Garry also spoke about events to commemorate the life of Blues legend Trevor Francis. The statue of him was due to be unveiled at the start of next season and there will be an annual Trevor Francis schools cup competition starting next year with the final played at St.Andrew’s@Knighthead Park. Jasper Carrot is also organising a memorial concert for Trevor at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham on March 27th next year.

Next up was Head of Infrastructure, Nick Smith, who went through some of the past and future infrastructure developments at the club. £15m had been spent over the Summer to add to the £20m spent last year. Overall, there had been 47 separate projects including the development of 6 restaurants at the ground within 11 weeks. The new fan park by the Tilton and Main Stand is due to open for the Stockport game on December 4th. There had also been much investment at the Knighthead Performance Centre at Wast Hills where the women’s team and men’s U21 and U18s train – it was vital to support both the women’s team and the drive to attain Category 1 status for the male Academy.

Hope Powell and Amy Merricks then gave an update on the progress of the women’s team who currently are top of the Women’s Championship. Hope reminded us all of the team’s past glories – being founder members of the WSL, runners up of the WSL and FA Cup winners. She now felt the team was on the rise again following the Knighthead takeover. Amy talked about the style of play she had introduced for the team and how this was bearing fruit with the team being top scorers and having the most deep completions (passes in the final third) in the Women’s Championship. Both Hope and Amy stressed the importance of increased attendances at women’s matches to help the team in what was a very competitive Championship.

Tom Wagner then dialled in from a flight somewhere in the world to give a brief overview from his perspective. His main message was that Knighthead had kept their promises and will continue to invest – they are in it for the long term and were fully committed to the Sports Quarter where progress was steady. He emphasised that they had a well-conceived plan and fans should keep the faith despite media reports (which I took to mean don’t be concerned about the recent media flurry around transport issues in the UK and Government support).

Mike Rigg was next up talking about the ambition to restore Category 1 status for the male Academy and join the other 26 English teams who currently have this status. He highlighted the process needed to do this (a bit like an Ofsted inspection) and how well he thought they were prepared for this.

The evening ended with a Q&A session – some of the questions being;

• When will Knighthead own 100% of the club? – there is commercial confidentiality around this but potentially 2025
• What is a rough timescale for the Sports Quarter? – can’t say because it is a complex project with lots of moving parts currently. Masterplan designs are being developed and a lot of work going on multiple fronts.
• Will you be redeveloping the Main Stand? – No but are looking at redecoration etc.
• Why are Academy products no longer getting first team opportunities in the League – the bar has been raised for the First Team but opportunities will still be available

Neil Cottrell
Chair, Blues Trust