'We're nowhere near our ceiling yet': Birmingham City bidding for WSL redemption
Pressure. Eventually, it tells and for Birmingham City at the start of the 2023/24 Women’s Championship season, it told the story of a team feeling it.
The season prior, Birmingham City missed out on promotion by a point, thus seeing the opportunity of bouncing right back up into the Women’s Super League following the club’s relegation dashed. For one of the WSL’s founding members and a club synonymous with some of the game's biggest names, it meant another year in the second tier.
So the club prepared. They signed veteran Jade Moore and England youth international Neve Herron. They grabbed Ellie Mason from Lewes, signed Charlie Devlin on a permanent deal, added South Korean duo Cho So-hyun and Choe Yu-ri and broke the club-record fee for Brazilian Ivana Fuso.
Altogether, 11 new faces arrived in B9, the intent firmly stated, the target on their backs set. Going into the new season, City looked the team to beat. Which is precisely what Blackburn, Crystal Palace and Sunderland did as the season began.
“We were going through a bit of a storm,” says Blues boss Darren Carter as the former midfielder reflects on the first portion of a season that saw his side rake in a measly one point from a possible 12.
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“We were playing with a bit of pressure. It felt like that in the first four games. But if you want to be successful, especially in a league where you only play 22 games, there's very little room for error.”
Since suffering a 3-1 loss to Sunderland at home in September, there’s been virtually almost no error. The Blues are perched on the Championship’s top. Carter’s team have taken 22 points from a possible 24, seven of which have come against top five opposition.
Their final victory of the calendar year arrived in the guise of a 3-0 win over Sunderland, a sort of metaphorical full-circle moment. Helping to dispose of any residual vestiges that might have been lingering from the season’s beginning.
It means, as the league returns to action this weekend, the target has been re-affixed to City’s back.
BLACKBURN, ENGLAND - AUGUST 26: Darren Carter, head coach of Birmingham City Ladies during the Barclays FA Women's Championship match between Blackburn Ladies and Birmingham City Ladies at Ewood Park on August 26, 2023 in Blackburn, England. (Photo by Ashley Allen - The FA/The FA via Getty Images) (Photo by Ashley Allen - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)Carter prefers this position, though. The 40-year-old club legend attests anyone would. His side did the chasing last season, though the team is under no pretence of the challenge lying ahead or how slight their position as leaders is.
The Championship has long been sold as a place where anyone can beat anyone, but only in the last few years has the second tier of women’s football blossomed into a hyper-competitive arena. This season, it’s at its most volatile. Just two points separate the top five sides. Birmingham City's marginally superior goal difference is their distinguisher to second-place Charlton.
With 10 matches to play, the one promotion spot on offer is still anyone’s call.
“We can’t rest on the success that we’ve achieved in the first half of the season,” says Moore, who re-joined the club for a second spell following her departure from Manchester United in the summer. “We've done all of that to put ourselves back in the driving seat. But now it's about kicking on.
“The conversation yesterday about the ceiling of this team. And the ceiling of this team, we're nowhere near it right now.”
What precisely the ceiling looks like remains to be seen. A return to the top-flight is the most obvious pinnacle. A successful FA Cup run would be fun, another go at the glory of 2012, a re-do of 2017’s final loss to Manchester City. A 3-1 victory over third-tier Burnley and a ticket punched to the fifth round proper against Leicester City keeps those hopes alive.
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에플톤 콜리어리 풋볼 그라운드(헤튼-레-홀, 영국) /2023-2024 FA 여자 챔피언십/ 선덜랜드AFC위민 vs 버밍엄시티WFC/ / 사진 정재훈 (Jae-Hoon Jung)Yet, the ceiling Moore refers to rests more on a macro level. Both she and Carter know success with the club, the standards and sacrifices required to achieve it. Moore started the 2012 FA Cup final against Chelsea, winning the match via a penalty shoot-out. Carter scored the promotion-clinching penalty to send Birmingham City to the top-flight in 2002.
As Moore and Carter consider the season on offer, their focus is less on a return to the WSL and more on a return to the Birmingham DNA. “Knowing this team from the early 2000s, this club has always been very working class in terms of we’ll fight for everything,” Carter says.
“The expectation for any player and staff member is to come in and work; there’s nothing given, you earn everything. What this team has showcased over the years, being one of the founding members and winning the FA Cup, is that they’ve had the fight, the quality, and environment where people can come and compete for titles. That’s essentially what we’ve tried to rebuild now after coming down from the WSL."
Carter details how during the summer following relegation, he held conversations with former players who saw the club's success, former star Karen Carney one of Carter's primary sources. "All to get a sense again of what is this team really about? Let’s get back there.”
BRISTOL, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 20: Birmingham Manager Darren Carter looks on ahead of the Barclays FA Women's Championship match between Bristol City Women and Birmingham City Women at Ashton Gate on November 20, 2022 in Bristol, England. (Photo by Matt Lewis - The FA/The FA via Getty Images) (Photo by Matt Lewis - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)For Moore, the DNA manifests itself in the team’s resolve and doggedness, attributes she believes slipped away for some time but have begun to be harnessed once more.
“One of the biggest things about Birmingham that I’ve loved was that we were always really hard to beat. We had that defensive structure. No one liked coming and playing against us,” she says.
Upon Carter’s appointment as manager of the women’s senior team, first on an interim basis and then permanently, Birmingham City underwent a reset. While in the final seasons of the WSL, the assignment of survival forced the team into a passive, defensive-first shape, Carter’s first port of call was to restyle City as a possession-based, ball-playing side, one capable of not merely surviving against the bigger sides eventually but playing their game.
The switch was rooted in the long-term. Short-term, however, it incurred its discordant bumps. Even the start of this season required a bedding-in period. Following the Sunderland defeat, Moore believes a penny dropped and an effective balance has since been teased out.
“It’s not always about playing the prettiest football, it’s about winning,” she says. “What I’ve found this season is we’re finding ways to win because that’s our objective at the end of the season.
"What I really like is the DNA of being hard to beat, being defensively disciplined and strong, now we’re adding onto the football side of things. We've played some really good football, we've scored some really good team goals this season. It's been a perfect match.”
SOLIHULL, ENGLAND - JULY 19: Jade Moore of Birmingham City Ladies is tracked by Dominique Janssen of Arsenal Ladies FC during the Women's Super League match between Birmingham City Ladies and Arsenal Ladies FC at Solihull Moors FC on July 19, 2015 in Solihull, England. (Photo by Tony Marshall - The FA/The FA via Getty Images) (Photo by Tony Marshall - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)For Moore, the second half of the season represents a welcomed change of pace. This time last year as she recovered from injury and searched for competitive minutes, a loan to relegation-threatened Reading presented the best opportunity. Fighting and ultimately succumbing to relegation on the season’s final day was a wearying experience.
“The actual nature of going and playing football, knowing that it was people's jobs on the line, that was tough,” Moore says. “If we get relegated, what does that look like for the rest of the squad that are contracted? It was a heavy place to be. I'd come away from that thinking that's something I don't want to be a part of again.”
Dropping down into the second tier didn’t immediately appeal to Moore, but she admits the Championship’s quality has improved dramatically. Toss in a chance to cancel out a relegation with a promotion, and the prospect is inviting.
“I'm kind of ticking off the checklist of football,” says Moore, who has represented eight different clubs and won more than 50 caps for England. “Obviously, we've got a long way to go. But off the back of relegation, a promotion is something that I want to achieve.”
She added: “We're going to have to manage our ups and downs, manage our expectations. We’ve got 10 games left. It’s not a lot of football to play, really. Ten cup finals for us.”
BRISTOL, ENGLAND - MAY 26: Karen Carney of Birmingham City Ladies FC poses with a young girl as she celebrates winning the FA Women's Cup at Ashton Gate on May 26, 2012 in Bristol, England. (Photo by Steve Bardens - The FA/The FA via Getty Images) (Photo by Steve Bardens - The FA/The FA)The last time Moore was in the WSL with Birmingham City the year was 2015 and the top-flight’s landscape looked different. The league’s top three was still Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, testament to the hegemonic staying power that has long persisted in the league.
But the clubs occupying the spaces immediately following – Sunderland (now third in the Women’s Championship), Notts County (folded in 2017, re-launched one year later and now plying their trade in the fourth tier), Birmingham City (top of the Championship following relegation two seasons ago) - tells the story of the top-flight’s evolution, the financial obligation now required to survive within it and the casualties that have resulted in consequence.
For clubs like Birmingham City who don’t have the backing of a corresponding Premier League side, any re-establishment amongst the upper echelons will require out-thinking both one’s opponents and circumstances. Bristol City, one of only two sides in the WSL this season not backed by a men's top-flight side, are a real-time example. Lauren Smith's side relished a plucky first-half of the season. Yet, their nearest relegation rival in West Ham bolstered its ranks with three significant signings in the January transfer window, a show of financial might that the Vixens will struggle to match.
A return to the WSL, then, will have a different look then City's previous iteration. And while Carter is at pains to underline that promotion is from guaranteed, he admits conversations surrounding what promotion would require if the prospect arises have been ongoing.
“Our club’s recent history is well documented,” Carter says. “There wasn’t the backing and the resources needed, hence why we found ourselves in the position of being out of the WSL.
“Since, the conversations have been very positive. The one thing that we've been able to do now that we haven't been able to do in recent years is forward plan, to plan for the ifs, buts and maybes.
“And that's down to the new owners coming in and their vision for the club as a whole, their vision for us as a women's team. They see now where the women's game is going. And ultimately they want us to not fall behind. That’s the key.
“It’s all positive. Across the football club, there's real optimism now, which I can tell you certainly wasn't there a year or so ago.”
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