Matt Maher: Love or loathe the design - there's no doubting Blues' big ambitions
Whatever your view on the design of Blues' proposed new ground, there’s no knocking the ambition.
The 62,000-seater Powerhouse has received mixed reviews since its unveiling on Thursday but there’s no doubting it has provoked a reaction, from both the club's supporters and their rivals, Midlanders and outsiders.
“A modern day Colosseum,” was how Blues chairman Tom Wagner described it.
The American has rarely been short of big words since his Knighthead Capital group arrived at St Andrew's in 2023 but so far, they have been backed up by actions of proportionate size.
“We’re spending a lot of time and money on a stadium that will never be built,” quipped Wagner, delivering the best line of Thursday’s grand event with a cheeky nod to the cynics.
It’s nothing personal, Tom, I promise. But the fact is as a region we’ve been promised big things before only to never receive them and let’s face it, Blues have already seen theirs and many others shares of false dawns.
We’re entitled to be sceptical. Believing things only when you see them is the best attitude to life round these parts. Nobody seems to have quite made clear how all of this is getting paid for.
That’s not to say you can’t get excited by a project which, if it comes to fruition, really will be transformational for both Blues as a club and the wider region. Birmingham, a city with a bankrupt council and irregular bin collections, could sure use some positive PR.
In a purely football sense, it is another reminder the best measure of an owner’s dedication will always be bricks and mortar.
Villa might only now be getting round to expanding Villa Park’s capacity but the ground has been improved, both externally and internally, since NSWE’s 2018 arrival. Bodymoor Heath has doubled in size and continues to grow, while the club has also built an inner city academy a stones throw from the stadium.
Should Blues’ big plans progress, it would be no surprise to find plans to expand Villa Park close to 60,000, drawn up during Christian Purslow’s tenure as chief executive, rapidly revisited.
Wolves supporters, meanwhile, can be forgiven for looking east and wondering what might have been. Fosun never got as far as a grand unveiling for their Molineux expansion plans but artist’s impressions of a proposed 50,000-seater stadium were produced.
That was in 2019, when the club rode the crest of a wave under Nuno Espirito Santo. In real terms, not all that long ago. Proof, perhaps, how even the biggest plans can soon change.
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