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1978–79 Birmingham City F.C. season

Field	Value
club	Birmingham City F.C.
season	1978–79
manager	Jim Smith
chairman	Keith Coombs
stdtitle	Ground
stadium	St Andrew's
league	Football League First Division
league result	21st
cup1	FA Cup
cup1 result	Third round
(eliminated by Burnley)
cup2	League Cup
cup2 result	Second round
(eliminated by Southampton)
league topscorer	Alan Buckley (8)
season topscorer	Alan Buckley (8)
highest attendance	36,145 vs Aston Villa, 21 October 1978
lowest attendance	12,168 vs Norwich City, 27 March 1979
average attendance	20,164
pattern_la1	_whitelines
pattern_b1	_shoulder_stripes_white_stripes
pattern_ra1	_whitelines
pattern_sh1	_blue_stripes_adidas
pattern_so1	_color_3_stripes_blue
leftarm1	0000ff
body1	0000ff
rightarm1	0000ff
prevseason	1977–78
nextseason	1979–80

(eliminated by Burnley) (eliminated by Southampton) The 1978–79 Football League season was Birmingham City Football Club's 76th in the Football League and their 45th in the First Division. They were in the bottom two positions in the 22-team division from 9 September onwards, eventually finishing 21st position, so were relegated to the Second Division for 1979–80. They lost in their opening matches in both the 1978–79 FA Cup and the League Cup, eliminated by Burnley and Southampton respectively.

Twenty-seven players made at least one appearance in nationally organised first-team competition, and there were thirteen different goalscorers. Defender Joe Gallagher played in every game but one over the season, and Alan Buckley was the club's top scorer with 8 goals, all scored in the league. Jim Smith, in his first full season as Birmingham's manager, brought Argentina's World Cup-winning full-back Alberto Tarantini to the club.

Trevor Francis, who joined Birmingham as a 15-year-old, became the first British footballer to be transferred for a fee of at least £1 million when Brian Clough signed him for league champions Nottingham Forest in February 1979. The basic fee was below £1m – Clough claimed in his autobiography to have set the fee at £999,999 because he did not want the idea of being the first £1m player going to Francis's head – but VAT and the transfer levy raised the total payable to £1.18m. Within three months he scored the winning goal in the 1979 European Cup Final.

Football League First Division

Main article: 1978–79 Football League

Date	League
position	Opponents	Venue	Result	Score
F–A	Scorers	Attendance	19 August 1978	22 August 1978	26 August 1978	2 September 1978	9 September 1978	16 September 1978	23 September 1978	30 September 1978	7 October 1978	14 October 1978	21 October 1978	28 October 1978	4 November 1978	11 November 1978	18 November 1978	21 November 1978	25 November 1978	2 December 1978	9 December 1978	16 December 1978	26 December 1978	30 December 1978	3 February 1979	10 February 1979	13 February 1979	24 February 1979	3 March 1979	6 March 1979	10 March 1979	24 March 1979	27 March 1979	31 March 1979	3 April 1979	7 April 1979	14 April 1979	17 April 1979	21 April 1979	24 April 1979	28 April 1979	1 May 1979	5 May 1979	7 May 1979
19th	Manchester United	A	L	0–1		56,139
21st	Middlesbrough	H	L	1–3	Bertschin	24,409
20th	Derby County	H	D	1–1	Givens	21,973
17th	Bolton Wanderers	A	D	2–2	Francis 2	20,284
21st	Liverpool	H	L	0–3		31,740
22nd	Norwich City	A	L	0–4		15,701
21st	Chelsea	H	D	1–1	Givens	18,458
22nd	Leeds United	A	L	0–3		23,331
22nd	Manchester City	H	L	1–2	Ainscow	18,378
22nd	Tottenham Hotspur	A	L	0–1		41,230
22nd	Aston Villa	H	L	0–1		36,145
22nd	Coventry City	A	L	1–2	Givens	25,429
22nd	West Bromwich Albion	A	L	0–1		32,130
22nd	Manchester United	H	W	5–1	Dillon, Buckley 2, Givens, Calderwood	23,550
22nd	Derby County	A	L	1–2	Givens	24,720
22nd	Bolton Wanderers	H	W	3–0	Dillon, Buckley, Jones og	21,643
21st	Bristol City	H	D	1–1	Tarantini	21,152
21st	Southampton	A	L	0–1		18,957
21st	Everton	H	L	1–3	Buckley	23,391
21st	Nottingham Forest	A	L	0–1		25,224
22nd	Wolverhampton Wanderers	A	L	1–2	Buckley	26,872
22nd	Arsenal	A	L	1–3	Francis pen	27,877
22nd	Chelsea	A	L	1–2	Bertschin	22,511
22nd	Leeds United	H	L	0–1		17,388
22nd	Liverpool	A	L	0–1		35,207
22nd	Tottenham Hotspur	H	W	1–0	Towers	20,980
22nd	Aston Villa	A	L	0–1		42,419
22nd	Queens Park Rangers	H	W	3–1	Buckley, Towers pen, Broadhurst	12,605
22nd	Coventry City	H	D	0–0		17,528
22nd	Middlesbrough	A	L	1–2	Givens	15,013
21st	Norwich City	H	W	1–0	Givens	12,168
21st	Bristol City	A	L	1–2	Gallagher	16,453
21st	Ipswich Town	H	D	1–1	Gallagher	12,449
21st	Southampton	H	D	2–2	Barrowclough 2 (1 pen)	12,825
21st	Wolverhampton Wanderers	H	D	1–1	Ainscow	20,556
21st	Ipswich Town	A	L	0–3		17,677
21st	Nottingham Forest	H	L	0–2		22,189
21st	West Bromwich Albion	H	D	1–1	Gallagher	19,897
21st	Everton	A	L	0–1		23,048
21st	Manchester City	A	L	1–3	Lynex	27,366
21st	Arsenal	H	D	0–0		14,015
21st	Queens Park Rangers	A	W	3–1	Buckley 2, Dark	9,600

League table (part)

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
Wolverhampton Wanderers	42	13	8	21	44	68	−24	34
Derby County	42	10	11	21	44	71	−27	31
Queens Park Rangers	42	6	13	23	45	73	−28	25
Birmingham City	42	6	10	26	37	64	−27	22
Chelsea	42	5	10	27	45	92	−47	20

FA Cup

Main article: 1980–81 FA Cup

Round	Date	Opponents	Venue	Result	Score
F–A	Scorers	Attendance	Third round
6 January 1979	Burnley	H	L	0–2		19,034

League Cup

Main article: 1980–81 Football League Cup

Round	Date	Opponents	Venue	Result	Score
F–A	Scorers	Attendance	Second round
29 August 1978	Southampton	H	L	2–5	Gallagher, Francis	18,464

Appearances and goals

:Numbers in parentheses denote appearances made as a substitute. :Players with name in italics and marked * were on loan from another club for the whole of their season with Birmingham. :Players marked left the club during the playing season. :Key to positions: GK – Goalkeeper; DF – Defender; MF – Midfielder; FW – Forward

Pos.	Nat.	Name	League	FA Cup	Total	Apps	Goals	Apps
GK	ENG	29	0	0	0	0	29	0
GK	ENG	13	0	1	1	0	15	0
DF	ENG	13 (3)	1	1	1	0	15 (3)	1
DF	SCO	24 (1)	1	0	0	0	24 (1)	0
DF	ENG	31	0	1	0	0	32	0
DF	ENG	41	3	1	1	1	43	4
DF	ENG	5	0	0	0	0	5	0
DF	WAL	32	0	1	1	0	35	0
DF	ENG	9 (1)	0	0	1	0	10 (1)	0
DF	ENG	2	0	0	0	0	2	0
DF	ARG	23	1	1	0	0	24	1
DF	WAL	7 (1)	0	0	0	0	7 (1)	0
MF	ENG	27 (4)	2	0	1	0	28 (4)	2
MF	ENG	26 (3)	2	0	1	0	27 (3)	2
MF	ENG	2 (3)	1	0	0	0	2 (3)	1
MF	ENG	36 (1)	2	1	0	0	37 (1)	2
MF	WAL	12 (1)	0	0	1	0	13 (1)	0
MF	ENG	13 (1)	0	0	0	0	13 (1)	0
MF	ENG	2	1	0	0	0	2	1
MF	SCO	3	0	0	0	0	3	0
MF	ENG	31 (1)	2	1	0 (1)	0	32 (2)	2
FW	ENG	9	2	0 (1)	1	0	10 (1)	2
FW	ENG	0 (1)	0	0	0	0	0 (1)	0
FW	ENG	24 (4)	8	1	0	0	25 (4)	8
FW	ENG	8 (1)	3	1	1	1	10 (1)	4
FW	IRL	38 (1)	7	1	1	0	40 (1)	7
FW	ENG	3 (2)	0	0	0	0	3 (2)	0

Sources

For match dates and results:
For lineups, appearances, goalscorers and attendances: Matthews (2010), Complete Record, pp. 392–93.

References

Lyons, Andy. (January 2002). "The importer". When Saturday Comes.
Clough, Brian. (1995). "Clough: The Autobiography". Corgi.
Harris, Nick. (4 February 2004). "Landmark £1m fee for Francis was no big deal for Clough". The Independent.
"Birmingham City 1978–1979 : English Division One (old) Table". Statto Organisation.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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