Dear Tom,
So, the 24th and final members of next season’s League One are known. Crawley Town and their 6,134-capacity Broadfield Stadium will host your Birmingham City in the third tier of the EFL at some point in the next 12 months after triumphing in Sunday’s League Two play-off final.
Crawley is handy for travel from the United States, admittedly, with Gatwick Airport on their doorstep. But, if further proof was needed of Birmingham’s diminished status following relegation, this is surely it.
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Not quite what everyone envisaged last August when a 1-0 victory over Leeds United seemed the perfect way to mark your first game as a board member.
Still, as is made abundantly clear by the words of the club’s adopted anthem Keep Right On To The End Of The Road, overcoming adversity is nothing new.
For all the rancour and recriminations over what went wrong last season under Birmingham’s new American owners — and, yes, we’ll come to Mr Rooney later — now is a time to look forward. And, as part of that, we wondered if there was anything you guys at St Andrew’s could learn from how two other big names from across the Atlantic have re-energised an imperilled British football club.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are still basking in the glow of a second promotion in as many seasons for Wrexham, taking the Welsh team from non-League to join you in the third tier.
Like yourself and the rest of the American group at the helm of Birmingham, the two actors have known crushing disappointment since pulling off what at the time, in February 2021, felt like perhaps the strangest takeover in British football. None more so than the play-offs defeat to Grimsby Town at the end of their first full season.
Overall, however, Reynolds and McElhenney have enjoyed way more happy days than sad during a truly transformative few years.
This hasn’t happened by accident. Reynolds and McElhenney have had a plan from the start. Both love their sports. McElhenney is such an avid fan of the various Philadelphia teams he once declared the Eagles’ 2018 Super Bowl triumph — sorry to bring that one up, Tom! — as “the best day of my life”.
Crucially, though, the pair admitted from the very start to knowing next to nothing about what is referred to more commonly on your side of the pond as ‘soccer’. Reynolds even played up to this in the first series of behind-the-scenes documentary series Welcome To Wrexham. Just before kick-off during his first game in the stands, he jokingly asked: “So, which team is Wrexham?”.
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They made a point of bringing people on board who did know the game inside-out. Hence Phil Parkinson, a serial promotion winner in the English pyramid’s lower divisions, was appointed manager and Shaun Harvey, a former chief executive of the 72-club EFL, was brought in alongside Fleur Robinson, who joined after 25 years as a director at Burton Albion, another side who rose from non-League and got as high as the second-tier Championship.
Reynolds and McElhenney continue to make the big decisions, but Parkinson and Harvey have driven recruitment these past three seasons. Robinson overhauled the off-field operations at a club that had just a handful of permanent staff members when Hollywood first arrived in town.
She will leave later this month and be replaced by the hugely experienced Michael Williamson, the former Inter Milan executive.
At Birmingham, of course, the new owners took a similar approach. They appointed Garry Cook, the ex-Manchester City CEO who played such a pivotal role in the early years of their Abu Dhabi-led regime.
Where things subsequently fell down, however, was by going down the ‘celebrity’ route. Ditching a perfectly good manager in John Eustace last October, at a time when Birmingham were sixth in the 24-team table, to turn to former England striker Wayne Rooney is a decision that will surely haunt the board for years to come.
What were they thinking? Sure, by bringing yourself on board, the clues were there as to how the reflected glory of a true sporting icon might appeal at St Andrew’s. But this turned into an own-goal of epic proportions, Rooney lasting just 83 days as irreparable damage was inflicted on the team’s season.
Contrast this with how Wrexham, first, opted for a lower-league specialist when appointing Parkinson rather than a ‘name’. Then, even after an initially rocky start, they crucially stuck with him.
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In fairness, Tom, we suspect you’re a step or two removed from day-to-day operations. As was revealed late last week via documents posted at Companies House, your shareholding in Shelby Companies Limited — the holding company, a nod to Birmingham-based TV show Peaky Blinders, used to purchase the club last July — is a minority one.
Those 330 Class B shares of yours hold no voting rights and are dwarfed by the other 9,670 shares, classed as A and carrying voting rights, that are split between Knighthead Annuity & Life Insurance Company and Knighthead Master Fund, L.P. This points towards the big calls being made by others.
Nevertheless, along with your valued input on nutrition and recovery — clearly an area you know well judging by your remarkable sporting longevity — there is the role as chairman of the club’s ‘advisory board’ to consider.
“They should be challenging the executive, challenging the board, because they come from a place of knowledge,” Cook said last year, when asked about the advisory board you head.
Considering how the Rooney debacle played out, I’m sure any future executive decisions will be placed under an intense microscope. At Wrexham, Harvey has overseen all the big decisions ‘on the ground’ in conjunction with the club’s Hollywood owners.
These include the ongoing attempts to build a new Kop stand — work should have started last year — and develop a training ground. Everything from needing to move a sewer that wasn’t shown on the original plans through to what a frustrated Reynolds has described as “the thick buttress of bureaucracy” has conspired to delay Wrexham’s attempts to improve the club’s infrastructure.
Birmingham’s American owners are no less ambitious. That much is clear from the plans to build a new stadium around a mile away from their traditional St Andrew’s home.
Purchasing the 48-acre site that used to house the Birmingham Wheels racetrack won’t have been cheap. Nor will the remedial work required to fully reopen two stands that had previously seen their lower tiers closed on safety grounds.
Like Wrexham, Birmingham have not been overly blessed with good owners recently. This, and an ability of many fans to see the bigger picture, perhaps explains why, jibes about the Rooney appointment aside, this season’s relegation has not brought the usual fan revolt against chairman Tom Wagner and company.
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Also, no doubt acting as a counter-balance to any anger felt over Birmingham dropping into the third tier for the first time in almost three decades is how the owners have commendably engaged with the community, very much taking a leaf out of the Wrexham playbook and how the Welsh club donate free tickets to charities and local food banks.
This work to help underprivileged families in the West Midlands may not enjoy the spotlight that Wrexham’s efforts are afforded by their documentary series. But it’s no less important or valued.
That said, Tom, there is now a need to deliver on those big promises, including the new stadium. Patience only lasts so long in a sport where the adage ‘you’re only as good as your last game’ is spouted regularly.
Even at a club such as Wrexham, where supporters remain in dreamland following those back-to-back promotions, there is pressure to keep things moving forward at pace.
To finance that push, Reynolds and McElhenney have already sold off the first minority shareholding (five per cent). As was confirmed in the club’s latest set of accounts for 2022-23, more such deals are likely to follow.
All the while, though, the pair will very much remain the public faces of Wrexham, much to the relief of supporters who not only trust them implicitly but also know neither actor can afford to harm his public image.
The same surely goes for your position at Birmingham, with fans recognising that the last thing a seven-time Super Bowl winner will want to do is tarnish such a stellar sporting legacy.
Which is why we’re so excited for what Birmingham might achieve in the 2024-25 season — plus how those two games against Wrexham could attract the sort of celebrity gathering normally only seen on the sofa of a late-night chat show.
League One is unlikely to have seen anything like it.
(Top photos: Getty Images)