Wheels in motion for Blues’ big masterplan
BIRMINGHAM City’s new stadium will be big enough to host major sporting events according to Tom Wagner – who wants to bring NFL events to the Second City.
Knighthead this week unveiled plans to build a new ‘Sports Quarter’ in the heart of Birmingham and Blues chairman Wagner wants the project completed within five years.
The Sports Quarter will comprise a stadium, training ground and academy facilities for all of Blues’ teams, as well as alternative entertainment venues.
The club’s current home, St Andrew’s, is limited in size and space which has forced Knighthead to switch stadiums.
Wagner wouldn’t reveal the size of the stadium the club is planning to build but he wants it to be suitable to host large-scale events.
“That gets into the planning but ideally something that would allow us to host international sporting events,” he said.
“World Cup and Champions League football, the Euros and looking at rugby, NFL, ideally something that would allow you a great level of diversity.
“A lot of that will come back to what we are able to accomplish in planning.
“The stadium will have the capacity to serve the club for many decades to come.
“That’s the bare minimum. From there, we have higher ambitions given the size and scope of the project. We will do our best.”
Given the fact that seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady is one of Blues’ investors, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the new stadium could become a venue for NFL fixtures.
Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium and Wembley have hosted NFL matches in the UK in recent years.
Brady – who played elite sport well into his forties – has been advising Blues on nutrition and wellness techniques since joining the club’s advisory board last year. He will no doubt have a role to play in luring the NFL to Birmingham.
On Brady, Wagner said: “We have had long conversations about what the infrastructure can do to benefit player performance and I’m not going to get into Tom’s trade secrets but he has a lot of views on how to use that as a significant competitive advantage in a pursuit of excellence on the pitch. Listening to his comments they really resonate and he has given a lot of thought of what we can do to make that infrastructure to support the players.
“The hope and objective is for Birmingham City for players to come and extend their careers, play for a long time, because we will be helping them to do those things with the same processes Tom used throughout his career.
“What he did was unprecedented but it doesn’t mean it can’t be replicated.”
The deal has been 12 months in the making and reaffirms Knighthead’s commitment to Blues and the city of Birmingham. Not only will this world class facility enhance Birmingham’s appeal, it will also create an estimated 3,000 new jobs.
But what should a new stadium look like? There have been good and bad examples of stadium switches in recent years.
The pinnacle is Manchester City’s Etihad Campus, which comprises a 53,000-seater stadium, training facilities and an academy all within a stone’s throw of one another. Blues have taken some inspiration from City’s state-of-the-art facility when drawing up proposals for their own
Brentford have recently left Griffin Park for the less traditionally named Gtech Community Stadium and managed to retain an atmosphere. That is easier said than done in new builds where the supporters tend to be further away from the action.
West Ham is a case point. They have struggled to recreate the noisy atmosphere that Upton Park provided in the Olympic Stadium which, let’s not forget, was built to host athletics at the 2012 Olympics.
There are few grounds as noisy and hostile for opposing teams as St Andrew’s when it is really rocking. Wagner will have noticed that when he attended the 1-0 win over Leeds United in August. It was even more evident during recent home wins over Sunderland and Preston. Boxing up that atmosphere and transporting it up the road to a new site will be one of Knighthead’s biggest challenges.
They need to create a stadium that helps to generate a racket.
There are other things they will no doubt be looking at. Fan experience is clearly important to Knighthead and St Andrew’s has never really lent itself to that outside of privately owned drinking spots.
The Wheels site is located near Curzon Street Station, where HS2 trains will arrive in Birmingham from London.
Encouraging people to take public transport to and from the Sports Quarter will help ease traffic which has plagued Blues’ home games at St Andrew’s in recent years.
Finding a way to make that journey from the station to the Sports Quarter pleasurable is important, as is maintaining a link to Digbeth where so many Blues fans have gathered before and after matches for years.
The one thing the Wheels site gives Blues that St Andrew’s never could is space.
Knighthead now have a site where quite literally anything is possible.
Depending on the size of the stadium Knighthead build, it could also be used to host NFL matches.
Imagine the interest an NFL fixture outside of London would generate.
The possibilities are endless now that the wheels are set in motion. This could change the landscape of Birmingham City.