Birmingham centre stage and dreaming of WSL

Amy Merricks' side have been transformed since the nadir of 2022 and face a battle with London City for promotion

- Tom Garry

The understudies in the ensemble of Les Misérables are not ordinarily interviewed by football coaches. For detail-driven Amy Merricks, the Birmingham head coach and a lover of the West End musical, they were her prime focus during her Uefa Pro Licence dissertation on maximising squad harmony and ensuring the fringe members of a squad feel valued.

With three games to go in the Women's Championship title battle, the time has come for Merricks' second-placed team to formez vos bataillons as they fight with London City Lionesses for promotion to the Women's Super League, in a race so close it is offering theatre-worthy drama. But four years ago it was very hard for anybody at Birmingham Women to feel happy, understudies or not.

The provisions from the club's former owners became so inadequate that, in 2021, the squad sent a letter of complaint about insufficient medical support and gym access. Eventually, a club that had been founding members of the WSL were relegated in 2022. Then a fire in 2023 at the club's Wast Hills training ground meant that, even a year ago, when Merricks arrived, the women's team were based in "three huts" for temporary offices while the burned-out main building was replaced at a site now shared by the women's team and academy.

Walking around it on a sunny spring 2025 morning, the transformation is astonishing, after the club's American owners dreamed a dream of WSL football. In the corridors, murals of former women's team stars such as Karen Carney and Kerys Harrop are interwoven with those of the academy product Jude Bellingham. A state-of-the-art anti-gravity treadmill resides in the gym, together with hamstring testing kits, and the team meeting rooms have touch screens for analysis.