Muntz Street - Move To St Andrew's

Move To St Andrew's

A month later the club changed its name to Birmingham Football Club, to reflect its position as the only Football League club in the city. Football as a spectator sport was becoming increasing popular: a Birmingham Daily Post editorial pointed out that "Birmingham has not escaped this great wave of popularity, and the club bearing the name of the city has found itself compelled to seek a new home. Its old one at Small Heath was quite inadequate for the requirements of an important match".

The rent had risen to £300 a year, and the landlords refused to sell the freehold, to renew the lease, which was nearing expiry, or to allow extensions to be made to the ground, which was by then surrounded by tightly-packed housing. The directors estimated that remaining at Muntz Street was losing the club as much as £2000 a year in revenue; the March 1906 cup-tie against Newcastle United produced receipts of £900 from a crowd restricted to 25,000, with "probably 60,000 people anxious to attend". Club director Harry Morris identified a site three-quarters of a mile (1 km) nearer the city centre where a new ground could be built, on wet, sloping wasteland where a disused brickworks stood, near the railway and St Andrew's Church. Within twelve months of a 21-year lease being signed, the new ground, which became known as St Andrew's, was ready for use.

The last game at Muntz Street was played on 22 December 1906. Birmingham beat Bury 3–1 in the First Division in front of some 10,000 spectators. The last goal was scored by Arthur Mounteney, and the Birmingham Daily Post described how

At the conclusion of the match the band played "Auld Lang Syne", and the crowd silently left the ground which has been the home of the club for so many years and the scene of many brilliant victories and many heartbreaking defeats, and of an uphill struggle from which the club, thanks to the courage of the directors, has at length emerged triumphant.

Within months the ground had been demolished, the land cleared and housing built in what became Swanage Road; no plaque commemorates the site.