We faced Armageddon during my time at Birmingham City - Knighthead have flipped the script
Lee Clark was in charge of Birmingham City from 2012 to 2014 and kept the club in the Championship in difficult circumstances
Former Birmingham City boss Lee Clark looks back now and considers what might've been had Paul Caddis not risen to nod home at Bolton Wanderers 11 years ago and protect Blues' Championship status. What would've followed certainly wouldn't have lived up to the campaign the class of 2025 are enjoying being able to deliver in League One this term.
Once those emotions of delirium and titanic relief had subsided in the days and weeks after those Bolton scenes - who could forget Clark himself leading the march to the away end from the dug-out, fist aloft? - Blues had to start again. Above Clark's head, though, the picture hadn't dramatically changed.
Blues were still, at least publicly, a ship not being steered at ownership level. Clark signed useful players the following summer in Clayton Donaldson, David Cotterill, Stephen Gleeson, Jonathan Grounds and David Davis - all of those players made at least 100 appearances - but still the club craved for hierarchical stability and ambition.
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"If we'd have gone down at Bolton, I said at the time - it would have been Armageddon," Clark tells BirminghamLive . "The reason why was that we had an ownership group who were in desperate trouble financially and the club had huge problems. If we had gone into League One with that financial status, we could've still been there now just floating around - or even worse. It was imperative that we stayed up."
There are no such questions of ambition and investment at St Andrew's now. There is a real irony in the sense that Blues, off the field, haven't looked as secure as they are now under Knighthead - and yet, it's under this regime, in which the slip into the third tier which haunted the club for a decade actually landed.
Blues supporters can forgive those well publicised mistakes, though, for they are witnessing with their own eyes what the ownership have planned and what they've already implemented - everything from the squad, to the appointment of Chris Davies, to the plans involving the Sports Quarter and the fan experience on a matchday.
Blues intend to return from League One later this spring with a vengeance and a newfound winning culture to boot.
"It's completely different now," Clark assesses. "There was a complete reset when they went down with this ownership group. They'd gone to the bottom of the barrel, but they have the ambition, the foresight, the finances to make sure that when they come back, they come back stronger.
"They have unbelievable plans for this new stadium, for the new training centre, how they're financing the team - they've spent a lot of money for League One, but they've bought quality players - their recruitment has been spot on, the managerial appointment has been superb. He's doing really well.
"It's all positive news. It's not a case of if they get promoted, it's when, with the lead they have. Then they go again, they'll go again in the Championship. I keep an eye on what's going on there and when I listen to the owners when they're talking, they have real ambition.
"It's alright people saying they want to do this and that, but you then have to back it up with actions. This is what this group have done - they've done what they said they would, they've put it out in the open, they've made mistakes and learned from them. It's going brilliantly.
"When I was the manager, I said that the fans of that football club deserve to be in the Premier League. They've suffered a hell of a lot over the last couple of decades with owners who didn't look after the club very well and the only constant was the quality of the support. In the not too distant future I can see them being back in the Premier League."
Clark recently witnessed his own boyhood club Newcastle United lift the Carabao Cup, the same trophy Blues themselves raised in 2011, at the expense of Liverpool. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to see another of his former clubs do the same, on the same surface, this spring when they take on Peterborough United in the Vertu Trophy final.
"I'd be delighted, absolutely buzzing for them if they won at Wembley as well as getting promoted," he added. "It'd be a magnificent season. They showed the nation when they played Newcastle in the FA Cup - it was a superb game. Eddie showed his respect by fielding such a strong team and Birmingham gave Newcastle one of their toughest games. They're here to compete."