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<!-- Birmingham City Football Club are an English football club based in Birmingham, in the heart of the West Midlands. They play in the English Premier League.

Originally known as Small Heath Alliance, the club has had several name changes: to Small Heath in 1888, to Birmingham F.C. in 1905 and finally to Birmingham City F.C. in 1945.

They were FA Cup losing finalists in 1931 and 1956. They won their only major silverware to date in 1963 when they lifted the League Cup beating local rivals Aston Villa 3-1 on aggregate. The club's darkest era came between 1986 and 2002, when the club was consistently outside the top flight of English Football and also suffered the indignity of two brief spells in the third tier of the English League during this period.

The club is nicknamed Blues, due to the colour of their kit, and their fans are known as Bluenoses.

History
Birmingham were founded as Small Heath Alliance in 1875. The club turned professional in 1885, and in 1892 joined The Football League as founder members of the Football League Second Division. In their first season Small Heath were Second Division champions, but were denied promotion after losing test matches against Newton Heath. The following season promotion was secured after a second place finish and a test match victory over Darwen.

In 1905, a proposal was made to rename the club Birmingham City F.C., as they were the only Football League club in the city since Birmingham St George's folded in 1892. However the shareholders were not in favour, so the club became plain Birmingham Football Club instead. They moved to their current ground, St Andrews, a year later.

In 1931 the club reached the final of the FA Cup for the first time, but were defeated 2-1 by West Bromwich Albion. The 1950s saw Birmingham record their highest ever league finish, Arthur Turner's side ending the 1955-56 season in sixth position in the first of ten consecutive seasons in the top flight. In the same season the club reached the FA Cup final for the second time, losing 3-1 to Manchester City. In 1963 the club reached a third major cup final, and this time were victorious, beating local rivals Aston Villa 3-1 on aggregate to win the League Cup.

Birmingham City suffered relegation from the top division at the end of the 1985-86 season. Their two following seasons in the Second Division were unsuccessful and they were finally relegated to the Third Division for the first time ever at the end of the 1988-89 season. They won promotion as Third Division runners-up three years later, at the end of the 1991-92 season, so they would find themselves members of the new Division One for the 1992-93 season. However, they were relegated from Division One at the end of the 1993-94 season (losing on goal difference to neighbours West Bromwich Albion) despite a managerial change halfway through the season in which Terry Cooper was replaced with Barry Fry.

Fry guided Birmingham to the Division Two championship and victory in the Auto Windscreens Trophy in 1994-95, but was sacked one year later after a promising 1995-96 campaign had faded away to a 15th place finish in Division One, Fry was one of the greatest characters to have managed Birmingham City and was famous for his runs along the line when the Blues had scored. His successor Trevor Francis remained in charge at Birmingham until October 2001, during which time Birmingham qualified for the playoffs in three consecutive seasons - in the 1997/98 season, Birmingham finished 7th, and missed out on the playoffs by the Goals For rule, despite having a greater goal difference, the Goal Difference rule was brought in the following season - and were on the losing side to Liverpool in the League Cup final. Francis's successor, Steve Bruce, helped Birmingham qualify for the 2001-02 Division One promotion playoffs where they defeated Norwich City (thanks to a winning penalty by Darren Carter) to win promotion to the Premier League for the first time in two decades.

Their first season in the Premiership saw Birmingham City finish impressively in 13th place. After signing French international Christophe Dugarry and others, they also defeated rivals Aston Villa home and away during the 2002-03 campaign. Birmingham City got off to a strong start in the 2003-04 season, staying in the top four for the first month and after six weeks had statistically the best defence in the division. Good form lasted until the last fourteen or so games, when the Blues stumbled and ended the season on a run of seven games without a win to finish in 10th. This dramatic drop in form coincided with the departure from the club of coach Mark Bowen.

Unfortunately, key striker Forssell injured his knee in the early part of the 2004-05 season, and this left the Blues struggling for in-form strikers. The Blues ended up finishing in 12th place.

Birmingham City entered the 2005-06 season with high expectations after finally sealing permanent deals for Mikael Forssell, Jermaine Pennant, Mehdi Nafti and Walter Pandiani. Nicky Butt also joined on a year-long loan deal from Newcastle United and Jiri Jarosik also joined on a season long loan from Chelsea After a string of poor results the season that promised so much ended in relegation, and the team were beaten in both derby matches by Aston Villa. The club then sold or released several players in an effort to reduce the wage bill.

After an initial strong start to the 2006-07 season with Birmingham hovering around first and second in the league, the club suffered a winless period that led to calls within the media for the removal of Bruce as manager after the club dropped to 9th in the league. However, their form soon improved and they returned to the top of the league in March.

On April 29 Birmingham and Sunderland both clinched promotion back to the Premiership at the first attempt when Derby lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace, with former Birmingham player Clinton Morrison scoring the opening goal. However Birmingham's failure to beat Preston North End in their final game meant that Sunderland secured the Championship title with their win over Luton Town.

The Blues in Europe
In 1956 Blues became the first English club side to compete in Europe as they took part in the 1955-58 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

Blues took part in the competition on four separate occasions between 1956 and 1962. Blues were unbeaten in the 12 home games. Of the 51 goals scored, Johnny Gordon netted 7, Jimmy Harris and Harry Hooper five apiece and Bunny Larkin and Bryan Orritt four each. The goals were divided among 19 players, including an Inter Milan defender Balleri.

Trevor Smith appeared in the most European games for Blues - 18. Brian Farmer and Johnny Watts each played 17 matches.

The biggest away crowd was that of 75,000 for the 2nd leg of the Final on the 4th of May 1960 at the Nou Camp against Barcelona. An audience of 60,000 witnessed the second leg of the semi final clash with the Catalan side in November 1957 and a similar crowd saw the clash between Barca's city neighbours RCD Espanyol in November of 1961. The biggest crowd seen at St Andrews was that of 40,524 for the first leg of the Blues-Barca final in March 1960.

In April 1961 Blues became the first English side to beat Internazionale (Inter Milan) at the San Siro by two goals to one, goals from Jimmy Harris and Inter defender Balleri, in the semi final first leg of that season competition. Blues also won the return leg at St Andrews 2-1 with goals from Jimmy Harris and Bertie Auld.

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