"Best limbs of all time" - Birmingham City fans react as footage re-emerges of relegation escape v Bolton in 2014 | OneFootball

When the 2023-24 season begins, Birmingham City will be starting their 14th-straight campaign in the Championship - but things could've been a lot different.

The Blues have been a consistent in the second tier of English football, and since relegation from the Premier League in 2011 they have finished in the play-off spots just once, and that was all the way back in 2012.

There has been a lot more struggles than successes though during their extended spell in the Championship, and several times they have been threatened with relegation to League One - a division they haven't played in since 1995.

One of those times was in 2014 - just three years after their relegation from the Premier League the Midlands club were struggling under Lee Clark, and having lost five straight matches in April of that year, they went into their final match of the 2013-14 campaign away at Bolton Wanderers needing at least a point and other results around them to go for them to retain their status as a Championship club.

What happened in Bolton Wanderers v Birmingham City in 2014?

After no goals were scored in the first 45 minutes, Bolton opened up a two-goal advantage in the second half.

Goals from Lee Chung-yong and now-Birmingham player Lukas Jutkiewicz meant that the Blues were heading into League One - but then things turned dramatically on their heads.

The towering Nikola Zigic pulled a goal back for Birmingham on 78 minutes, and as the visitors pushed for an equaliser, they finally got it in stoppage time.

Zigic's header was cleared off the line by Bolton but it was eventually headed over by right-back Paul Caddis in the 93rd minute, in a goal that sparked wild scenes in the away end behind the goal.

As it happened, Birmingham stayed up on goal difference thanks to Caddis scoring at the death and thus relegated Doncaster Rovers, who have never fully recovered since then.

The footage re-emerged on social media due to it being the nine-year anniversary of the result on May 3, and Birmingham fans have been reminiscing on perhaps one of their most exciting moments in many a year.