Birmingham City Fans Weigh In on Tom Brady’s Impact
It’s been roughly 18 months since Birmingham City made headlines worldwide by bringing a giant of American football into their fold. The buzz was palpable when it was announced that NFL legend Tom Brady had purchased a minority stake (reported to be 3.3%) in the club. The move was as unexpected as it was exciting, and it left fans and pundits alike wondering what kind of impact the seven-time Super Bowl winner would have on the club.
Unfortunately, Brady’s arrival wasn’t enough to stave off relegation for the Blues, who found themselves dropping from the Championship last season. However, Birmingham City has not been idle. In a bid to bounce back, the club has been splashing the cash in successive transfer windows. They now hold the record for the three highest fees paid for a transfer in League One’s history: Jay Stansfield (€17.8m), Christoph Klarer (€4.2m), and Willum Thór Willumsson (€4m). This aggressive strategy seems to be paying off, as Birmingham currently sits at the top of League One, looking poised to make a swift return to the second tier.
To gauge the mood among the fans regarding their high-profile stakeholder, ESPN reporter João Castelo Branco mingled with Birmingham supporters ahead of their FA Cup tie against fellow League One opponents Lincoln City in mid-January. The aim was to get a sense of how the former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback is perceived among the locals.
Brady was brought into the Birmingham front office by the club’s owners, Shelby Companies Ltd, led by U.S. financier Tom Wagner. Established in Birmingham in 2023, Shelby Companies is a subsidiary of Wagner’s Knighthead Investment group and was named in homage to the hit TV series “Peaky Blinders,” set in England’s second city.
One Birmingham fan shared with ESPN, “The overseas investment from the U.S. guys is making a massive difference to the club. You can see from today that it’s a lower-league cup game and everybody is still turning up.” This sentiment seems to echo the general feeling among the supporters, who, despite mixed fortunes during Brady’s tenure, believe the 47-year-old has had a positive impact since his arrival in August 2023, just months after retiring from the NFL for the second and final time.
Another optimistic supporter remarked, “There were teething problems at first, but we’d been struggling for over 10 years and you can’t turn an oil tanker around overnight. The fans are still turning out because we don’t mind. We can accept a few mistakes along the way because the transformation in the club has been amazing. Regardless of relegation, it’s got the fans back interested.”
Indeed, the enthusiasm is palpable. “There are more people at the stadium now [in League One] than there were last season, so we’re definitely turning. I think we’ll be back in the top half of the Championship next year!” the fan added.
Even the drop to the third tier hasn’t dampened the spirits of most City fans, who last saw their team in the Premier League in 2010-11. That was the same season the Blues shocked Arsenal 2-1 to win the League Cup final at Wembley. The supporters ESPN spoke to broadly agree that Brady’s marquee arrival is among the most positive and exciting developments at the club in recent years.
- “Brady is a proven winner and he’s hopefully instilling that here at Birmingham City. Hopefully, we can go and win as many leagues and trophies as he did,” said one fan, who admitted that he hadn’t followed Brady’s NFL playing career closely. “I’m not massive on my NFL but his name is very familiar. I don’t watch American football. But I still knew who Tom Brady was, which shows that he’s still got a big presence in the U.K.”
- “Birmingham fans have been wanting investment for a long time, so I think we’d have taken anything, but having Brady as the face of the club is brilliant. It shows we’ve got high-caliber people trying to get our club where we want to be.”
Another fan added, “Tom Brady’s involvement really encapsulates what they’re trying to do and really shows that the club is on an upward trajectory. You see investment going into the squad and you can see we’re getting better because of it.”
While it’s still unclear just how much Brady is involved on a day-to-day basis, it was announced that he would become chairman of the club’s advisory board when he made his investment. He has been a sporadic presence at St Andrew’s so far but has made several conspicuous appearances in the terraces, not least when he took his seat alongside David Beckham for the so-called “Hollywood Derby” against fellow celebrity-owned franchise Wrexham [owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney] in League One last September.
“Even if it’s just his image, the Brady association is only going to be a good thing,” said one Birmingham fan who just so happened to be wearing a wooly Green Bay Packers hat to shield him from the winter chill. “We were here for the Wrexham game when Brady sat in the Paddocks [the lower tier of the Main Stand] next to Beckham. The atmosphere was just amazing. It showed the trajectory of the club.”
Asked about his choice of headwear, considering Brady’s long association with the Patriots, the fan revealed that his decision to support the Packers was almost as cursed as his decision to follow the Blues. “Funnily enough, I chose to support the Packers because they won the Super Bowl the same year the Blues were relegated from the Premier League and I wanted to cheer myself up by following a winning team,” he said. “The Packers haven’t won the Super Bowl since. That’s just my luck!”
Originally Written by: Chris Wright
