Birmingham City and Why I Love the Championship

After seeing a game at Birmingham City, I remembered why I love the Championship so much.

One thing we hear from people we help see football games is that they want an authentic experience and don’t want to sit with the tourists. And we get that completely. You see and hear the fans on TV back home, and you imagine yourself in the middle of that.

The thing is, people also want to see their favorite team, or the biggest and best teams, and for non-British people that almost always means the Premier League. And, of course, they want decent seats and a guarantee they won’t be ripped off.

Put all that together, and they tend to wind up in hospitality areas at places like Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham or Liverpool. Those are great experiences, and ones which we make a living selling, so you’ll hear nothing negative about them here.

But what we really do is not just sell tickets and hospitality, but help people have good experiences at football games. That’s different. And to do that, we quite often tell them they should go to some place like Birmingham City.

Why Birmingham City? First because the Championship is a very entertaining league: the level of play is high, especially for those used to seeing MLS in person; the grounds are often full with very few tourists; you have a better chance of sitting next to a longtime supporter; a little knowledge about the club will facilitate a chat with that person; and if you get the right situation or matchup, the atmosphere can rival anything in the Premier League.

My two games at Birmingham City can explain this perfectly. My first trip was in December 2015, a cold and damp Friday evening when the opponents, Cardiff, brought only a few hundred people and the Blues won, 1-0, on a penalty. It was not inspiring.

I pay attention, though, so I knew that since then the club went down to League One but got new owners, who have spent money on players and, crucially, the stadium. The fans are completely back on board, the team is on the up, and the vibe is positive.

Yes, there’s a TV show, and Tom Brady is involved, but screw Tom Brady and all that American-style marketing. What matters is the supporters, the stadium, and the squad. So I went back to see them all.

What I saw was a stadium almost packed with fans and noise. They were unbeaten three games into the season, with five goals to their credit, and even the sun was shining. The pubs were full, there were families all over my section, and the guy next to me (who brought his four-year-old son) was friendly.

A word about that guy. I asked how long he’d been coming around, and he chuckled and said since the day he was born. I assumed this was a figure of speech, but no! He said his dad snuck him out of the hospital when he was four hours old and brought him to the ground! He even produced, on his phone, a newspaper account of the day, with a picture of him, his dad and a Blues player. He met that player years later in a pub – the player remembered the experience, of course – and they shared a couple pints and stories.

Try hearing that story in the Arsenal hospitality lounge!

So there I was, 20 rows off the pitch, with a ticket that set me back £30 ($40), watching a high-level game with 1,000 or more loud visiting supporters two sections away and plenty of banter.

I spent the game chatting with my neighbor about grounds all over the country; I’ve done the 92, but he has seen Birmingham City at more than 70 grounds! We talked about the curry I had before the game, in a restaurant he’s been going to his whole life. Some other neighbors joined in to chat about curry, the game, MLS, American football, stadium food, who knows what else. We all laughed and sang when a visiting supporter was dragged out by the police, we all hugged when the goal went in, and we all yelled “Who are ya” at all the visiting substitutes.

Sure, all of that could have happened to me at a Premier League game, but on this trip I have been to Chelsea and Spurs, both in hospitality, and barely spoken to anyone at either game. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

After the game, I started to walk to my hotel when I saw a bus, and I asked somebody if that bus was headed for the center. He said yes, recognized my American accent, and another conversation was under way: about the new owners, the stadium work, the Premier League dreams, seeing Brady (and the cameras) in a pub, American stadiums, all of it. Other folks on the bus joined in, as well. And he has seen the Blues at 87 different grounds!

Highlights from the game I saw:

So yes, if you want to see the Premier League, go see it. It’s amazing. The stadiums, the atmosphere, the level of play – all top notch. But maybe you’re also looking for something different, an experience closer to the picture in your head of you at an English game. You want the person next to you to be a lifelong supporter, and you want singing all around you. For that, maybe venture beyond the Premier League – maybe to Birmingham City right now, for example, but maybe just the Football League in general.

I think that, like I did, you might find what you’re looking for there.