Birmingham City Football Club - Ownership

Small Heath F.C. became a limited company in 1888; its first share issue was to the value of £650.^[90] The board was made up of local businessmen and dignitaries until 1965, when the club was sold to Clifford Coombs.^[91] By the mid-1980s the club was in financial trouble. Control passed from the Coombs family to former Walsall F.C. chairman Ken Wheldon, who cut costs, made redundancies, and sold off assets, including the club's training ground. Still unable to make the club pay, Wheldon sold it to the Kumar brothers, owners of a clothing chain.^[30] Debt was still increasing when matters came to a head; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) put the Kumars' businesses into receivership. The club continued in administration for four months until Sport Newspapers' proprietor David Sullivan bought the Kumars' 84% holding for £700,000 from BCCI's liquidator in March 1993.^[32][33] Birmingham City plc, of which the football club was a wholly-owned subsidiary, was floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 1997 with an issue of 15 million new shares,^[92] raising £7.5 million of new investment.^[93][94] It made a pre-tax profit of £4.3M in the year ending 31 August 2008.^[95]

In July 2007, Hong Kong-based businessman Carson Yeung, via the company Grandtop International Holdings Limited ("GIH"), which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, bought 29.9% of the company from its directors. He became the largest single shareholder,^{[96][97][98][99]} In August 2009, GIH announced a cash offer of £1 per share for the plc, confirming that they had "received irrevocable undertakings" from directors to accept the offer in respect of approximately half the shares at issue.^[100] When acceptances took their holding past the 90% mark, GIH re-registered Birmingham City as a private company with effect from November 2009,^[101] and confirmed that the board of both the holding company and the club would comprise Yeung as club president, Vico Hui as chairman, and Michael Wiseman as vice-president.^[102][2] but his stated intention to take full control of the club came to nothing.

[edit] Honours

Birmingham City's honours include the following:^[103][104]

• Second Division / Division One / The Championship (level 2)
  • Champions: 1892–93, 1920–21, 1947–48, 1954–55
  • Runners up: 1893–94, 1900–01, 1902–03, 1971–72, 1984–85, 2006–07, 2008–09
  • Play-off winners: 2001–02
• Third Division / Division Two (level 3)
  • Champions: 1994–95
  • Runners up: 1991–92
• FA Cup
  • Runners up: 1931, 1956
• League Cup
  • Winners: 1963
  • Runners up: 2001
• Inter-Cities Fairs Cup
  • Runners up: 1960, 1961
• Associate Members Cup / Football League Trophy
  • Winners: 1991, 1995
• Birmingham Senior Cup
  • Winners: 1905

[edit] Statistics and records

For more details on this topic, see List of Birmingham City F.C. statistics and records.

League positions since the 1946–47 season.
Coloured horizontal lines indicate league divisions.

Frank Womack holds the record for Birmingham league appearances, having played 491 matches between 1908 and 1928, closely followed by Gil Merrick with 485 between 1946 and 1959. If all senior competitions are included, Merrick has 551, less closely followed by Womack's 515 which is the record for an outfield player.^[105] As of June 2008, the player who has won most international caps while at the club is Maik Taylor with 39 for Northern Ireland.^[106]

The goalscoring record is held by Joe Bradford, with 249 league goals, 267 altogether, scored between 1920 and 1935; no other player comes close. Walter Abbott holds the records for the most goals scored in a season, in 1898–99, with 34 league goals in the Second Division and with 42 goals in total.^[107] Bradford holds the record for league goals scored in a top flight1927–28.^[1] season with 29 in

The club's widest victory margin in the league was 12–0, a scoreline which they achieved once in the Football Alliance, against Nottingham Forest in 1899, and twice in the Second Division, against Walsall Town Swifts in 1892 and Doncaster Rovers in 1903. Their heaviest league defeats were 9–1, both in the First Division, against Blackburn Rovers in 1895 and Sheffield Wednesday in 1930. Their record FA Cup win was 10–0 against Druids in the fourth qualifying round of the 1899 competition; their record FA Cup defeat was 0–7 against Liverpool in the 2006 quarter final.^[108]

Birmingham's home attendance record was set at the fifth-round FA Cup tie against Everton on 11 February 1939. It is variously recorded as 66,844 or 67,341.^[B] As the current ground capacity is around 30,000, it is unlikely that this record will be broken in the foreseeable future.

The highest transfer fee received for a Birmingham player is £6.7 million, possibly rising to £8m, from Liverpool for Jermaine Pennant in July 2006,^[1][109] while the most expensive player bought was David Dunn, who joined from Blackburn Rovers in July 2003 for a fee undisclosed by the club, though widely reported as £5.5m.^[A] James McFadden was bought from Everton in January 2008 for a fee of £5m, possibly rising to £6.5m depending on appearances; if the full fee becomes payable, this will be the club's record purchase.^[110] A fee of £6.2m rising to £9m was agreed in June 2009 for Christian Benítez of Santos Laguna,^[111] but problems revealed at the medical prompted a renegotiation of the deal, such that the club would pay an initial $2m (£1.2m), with an option to abort the deal on medical grounds after the first year; thereafter the fee could eventually rise, depending on appearances and success, to a club record $12.5m (£7.7m)