From NFL legend Tom Brady buying pints for supporters in a local pub, to chairman Tom Wagner celebrating goals in the away end, Birmingham City’s new owners have appeared fully in tune with the fan base.
After rescuing the Championship club from a detested previous regime, it seemed that Knighthead Capital Management could do no wrong.
While a bright future may still be ahead, there is little doubt that the incoming appointment of Wayne Rooney, and ruthless dismissal of John Eustace, is the first bump in the road.
Rooney is poised to make his return to English football as manager later this week and become the public face of a club intent on building a brand around the world.
American investors are now prevalent in the Premier League and Championship, with League Two club Wrexham possessing arguably the most famous celebrities in Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Following Birmingham’s takeover in July, Wagner said in a statement that “the potential of this club is unlimited”.
They have already hit so many right notes, with those glorious images of Brady pictured in the Royal George Hotel before the Leeds United game, while they have already started rebuilding the decaying St Andrew’s stadium.
Yet the decision to dispense with Eustace and bring in Rooney has resulted in a tidal wave of negativity from many of the fans, and incredulity from neutrals.
Rooney has been out of the English game since last year, when he left Derby County exhausted after relegation to League One amid major off-field disruption.
Eustace departs at a time when the club are in sixth place, after two successive victories, but perhaps the only real surprise is the timing.
So how has it all come to this?
There is another quote from Wagner’s takeover statement that now stands out: “From this moment on everything we do will be focused on improving the experience for our fans and making a positive contribution to growth of the city of Birmingham and how it is viewed around the world.”
It is this desire to raise Birmingham’s profile globally that explains why Eustace, a former midfielder from Solihull, has been so coldly jettisoned for one of England’s most famous players.
When you consider that Rooney is also leaving the United States, ending his tenure at DC United last weekend, it all begins to make perfect sense.
Rooney’s impending appointment has been driven by Birmingham’s chief executive Garry Cook, who is close to the Rooney camp.
Previously a Nike executive and a former CEO at Manchester City, Cook’s association with Rooney’s long-time agent Paul Stretford stretches back years.
When Rooney was at Derby, Cook and Stretford were heavily involved behind the scenes before American businessman Chris Kirchner’s takeover bid collapsed.
It was Cook who held talks with Eustace on Monday morning to inform him that the club were moving in a new direction, and at 10.40am, Birmingham’s statement announcing his departure landed and it was brutal.
There will be much sympathy for Eustace, as well as anger and bewilderment. He represented Birmingham’s supporters, leading them through an utterly dark period of despair under the unpopular former owners, Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited.
Those supporters are already drawing comparisons with the dismissal in 2016 of Gary Rowett, who was sacked with the club three points off sixth place and replaced by another ‘big-name’ appointment in Gianfranco Zola. The less said about Zola’s doomed reign, the better.
Eustace leaves with his reputation relatively untarnished. Equally, he will know that this is how football works.
When the takeover was completed in July, there would have been inevitable doubts in his mind over what the future may hold.
Management can be a lonely profession and when out of work it is all about waiting for peers at other clubs to endure bad runs before they, too, are sacked.
The main problem for Birmingham is that Eustace had won his two previous games, though the decision was clearly made long before that.
Telegraph Sport reported Birmingham’s potential interest on Sept 7 and, to put it delicately, the story went through a number of different versions before publication.
Some sources have suggested that the deal has been broadly agreed for weeks, though the Rooney camp still point to his recent statement when he claimed there was nothing lined up.
Rooney’s methods reflect modern-day thinking
Rooney is a gamble, yet does deserve a clean slate with supporters. He performed impressively at Derby, during a time when their problems were far worse than Birmingham’s, and would have kept the club up if they had not sustained a 21-point deduction.
Rooney’s methods are very modern, despite the obvious myths that get written about him, and he is in tune with players.
He will embrace the club’s culture and view it as a genuinely good opportunity in English football. Talk of stepping stones and ‘what happens after Birmingham’ will irritate him.
His connection with the ownership will also give him a head-start and, presumably, entitle him to some patience.
Birmingham’s fans will have to trust the owners. It is their club, and they clearly have ambitious plans for the future. Returning to the Premier League, after a 13-year absence, is the main aim.
‘Keep Right On’ is Birmingham’s club motto and now is the time to focus on the road ahead and, perhaps, a bright future.
