{"id":176358,"date":"2025-10-03T01:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176358\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T01:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:15:12","slug":"wrexham-v-birmingham-city-how-two-championship-clubs-became-global-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/176358\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrexham v Birmingham City: How two Championship clubs became global names"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the face of it, it all seems like healthy rivalry and banter, right?<\/p>\n

That certainly appears to be true among the big names associated with the two clubs. But make no mistake, Wrexham and Birmingham possess a ruthless desire to taste further success. <\/p>\n

On the back of clinching promotion, Wagner said reaching the Premier League next year “is certainly the goal” for the Blues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Upon taking control of Wrexham, then in the fifth tier National League, Reynolds and McElhenney said one of their goals was to “establish Wrexham AFC as a Premier League club”.<\/p>\n

The astonishing off-field work at both the Stok Cae Ras and St Andrews has been crucial in aiding the efforts of those on the pitch.<\/p>\n

Wrexham announced a record turnover of \u00a326.7m for the year ending 30 June, 2024 while Birmingham posted a revenue of \u00a329.6m for the same period – a record for a club then in the third tier, albeit the financial year was when they were a Championship side.<\/p>\n

It has translated into huge success for both sides, and this season could produce more of the same.<\/p>\n

After a somewhat frustrating start, Wrexham have improved of late – earning notable away wins over Millwall and Norwich City while going into the Birmingham fixture having lost just once in eight games across all competitions.<\/p>\n

After his side’s 1-1 draw with Leicester City – who competed in the Premier League last season – Parkinson said his side were “definitely evolving as a team”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the Blues, they have also shown they can compete following their return to the second tier, having gained 11 points from their opening eight league matches.<\/p>\n

But when kick-off comes on Friday, it will be a case of business as usual as far as Wrexham midfielder Matty James is concerned.<\/p>\n

“The owners are superstars in their own right in different industries, and I think naturally that brings a huge amount of media attention that can sometimes kind of distract you away from what is actually going on,” said 34-year-old James.<\/p>\n

“I think certainly the outside noise is very, very big. But for us as a group I think when you are at Wrexham, we are kind of used to it a little bit.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the face of it, it all seems like healthy rivalry and banter, right? That certainly appears to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-176358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}