A comprehensive victory against Coventry City came as a massive shot in the arm for Blues chances of staying in the Championship.
The vibrant 3-0 win, and Nahki Wells’ dramatic penalty for Bristol City in the 11th minutes of added-time that denied Huddersfield Town, enabled Blues to edge out of the relegation zone.
There is still work to be done, of course, and looming away matches in Yorkshire at Rotherham United and Huddersfield could well decide Blues fate.
Whilst there is still jeopardy surrounding Blues divisional status, there is no such doubt about the club’s plans when it comes to infrastructure improvements.
At the Open House evening, Nick Smith outlined what was to come in transforming St. Andrew’s to help increase revenue and improve the fan experience.
By the start of next season – whichever division Blues may be in – £33.5 million will have been spent on the ground and training areas.
That’s some commitment. Especially as further down the line St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park will be vacated as Blues move to the Birmingham Wheels site.
Owners Knighthead Capital could have just left things as they were, what with a potential spell in League One maybe looming too.
But no, they are pressing on with the evolution of the club, embracing tangible change and a shift in mindset to strive for, want and expect better – much better.
Smith, the club’s head of infrastructure, revealed that in the last eight months Blues have spent £12.5 million on 52 projects.
This was Blues ‘proof of life’ phase, which set out a strategic direction and their ambition.
It included a new St. Andrew’s pitch, stadium revamp and branding.
The next part of the plan saw a further £6 million spent on 34 projects, in what was termed a ‘fix it’ phase.
The refurbishment of Wast Hills after the fire – which will be completed by the start of next season – came into this category. So did cultivating a pitch on a turf farm that was transported to and laid at the first team training centre in Henley-in-Arden, to the same top grade specification as the St. Andrew’s surface.
Blues growth phase, focusing more investment into boosting revenue and strategic ambition, said Smith, was to come over the summer: £15 million, 22 projects.
Former Blues favourite Martin Grainger posted on X that Tom Wagner should concentrate on sorting the team out rather than a new stadium and all these grand plans.
As he found out in his replies, the majority of responders noted that it went hand-in-hand – the better the stadium, the better the facilities, the better the experience, the more revenue, the better the team.
Blues are to build two fan parks: on the Kop car park, a ‘pop up’ design incorporating an amphitheatre. The retail shop will be renovated and reoriented.
The second will be permanent and on the Main Stand car park, with the capacity to host 1,000 people.
Hospitality at the ground, revealed Smith, is to be shifted from the current five per cent to ’10 per cent to general admission’.
He said hospitality offerings were fairly homogenous at present, but this is to change by the creation of a tiering system for people to buy into hospitality at different price points for different experiences.
Remarkably, considering what’s happened to the Kop and Tilton stands in recent years, a bar is to be hewn out under the lower tier of the Kop, which will run the entire length of the pitch – hence the working title Box to Box.
This was where all the spoil was dumped, which contributed to the safety issues that forced closure of part of the stadium. It looks like ‘Mars and the moon landing’, said Smith, but it is to be ‘sucked out’ and the space uniquely reengineered.
The Happy Abode will become Tru Blu, and the Jasper Carrott Suite is to turn into Chukkers, the Polo Club, in conjunction with a commercial partner.
Currently, patrons of the Boardroom Club, the area next to the boardroom, are ‘sitting at a table in a corridor with lots of people walking past you all the time – not the best experience in terms of value in sports and entertainment’. That will alter, with a smarter lounge including booths knocked back into and under the Kop stand as self-contained private areas.
Blues best executive boxes will be altered to include sliding windows and seating outside, to end the feeling of ‘disconnect’ caused by being fully closed off behind glass.
In the Gil Merrick Stand, the executive boxes there are to blitzed. Smith said they are ‘some of the worst designed boxes I have ever seen in a stadium’. Instead, a lounge will stretch the entire length of the stand with both views of the pitch and back out towards the railway line and the city skyline.
Smith said to get all this done was no mean feat and that fans will next season come back to a ‘completely different’ St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park. And, all being well, to watch a Championship team.
Keep Right On 
One response to “Open House – ambition, part two”
[…] sure you’ve seen all the renders of what they’re hoping to build; if not, then I recommend this blog by Colin Tattum as a good starting point to check them […]
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