“Probably what he knows about football you could put on a postage stamp,” says a Birmingham City fan. He might be joking but Tom Brady – the man with a greater grounding in the NFL than the EFL – is unaware the other club in the city is called Aston Villa and wasn’t told not to pronounce the “h” in Birmingham. At one stage, in the disastrous first season of Brady’s minority ownership, he shows he knows something. “We lose every f***ing match,” he laments.
Built in Birmingham, and even the name is a clue to its objectives, is more about Tom Brady and Tommy Shelby – the Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight features regularly – than John Eustace and John Ruddy. Eustace, infamously, was fired by the new owners Knighthead Capital with Birmingham sixth in the Championship.
