Birmingham City's 12 greatest ever wingers (Ranked) | OneFootball

Highlights

Birmingham City have had some brilliant wide players representing the club.

One of the most exciting things to watch, as a football fan, is a really effective winger. Someone that is always causing problems for the opposition; a player that you look at and go 'how did he do that?'

Well, the Blues have had a fair few of those over their near 150-year history. They've even got some right now like Siriki Dembele that fit that description.

But what about the best wingers that have ever put on that iconic blue shirt? The dozen that stand above the rest.

12 Louie Donowa

The left-winger spent five-and-a-half years with the club, having joined in 1991. But he did spend a lot of that time out on loan at various clubs throughout the EFL. His longest stretch with the Birmingham squad was his first year and a half with the club.

During his tenure with the Second City club, he featured in 111 games. 20 times he found the back of the net in a Birmingham shirt.

11 Jose Dominguez

The Portuguese international only spent one season with the club (1994/95) but he obviously left quite an impression. There have been many wingers from his homeland to have oozed flair on the pitch; he was one of them.

He scored three times in 35 games for the club.

Dominguez moved to Birmingham from Portuguese giants Benfica in the summer of '94, before making the move back to his previous league to join Sporting CP.

10 Jermaine Pennant

He was well regarded by Birmingham fans and opposition fans alike. Over his lengthy career, he represented some of the nation's biggest clubs, like Arsenal and Liverpool.

But he was with the Blues longer than he was with most other clubs. He made 60 appearances for the club over two spells with the club, only behind Stoke City and the aforementioned Liverpool in terms of games played for said team.

Pennant's first season with Birmingham was a loan move, before moving to the club permanently from the Gunners.

9 Demarai Gray

Gray is the first on this list to have come from the club's youth system, which has now been made much more famous by the Bellingham's.

In his years with Birmingham, he scored eight league goals. But it was the 2014/15 season that he started to attract the attention of potential top-flight suitors.

At 19-years-old, he scored six goals in 28 starts in the Championship. When you watch him, he perfectly fits what an exciting winger should be - Gray can be a nightmare for defenders.

The Jamaican international recently moved out to Saudi Arabia to join Al-Ettifaq, where he got two assists on his debut.

8 Nathan Redmond

Another very well known name among most football fans of this generation. Redmond is only 29-years-old, but it feels like he's been a really solid winger for years now.

Like Gray, he was part of Birmingham's academy set-up. He made his move to join the first team in 2011, and it only took a couple of years for him to attract Premier League interest.

The left-winger was directly involved (scoring or assisting) in 19 goals in 80 games for the Blues - impressive numbers for someone who was still a teenager at the time.

He was sold to Norwich City in the summer of 2013.

7 Gordon Astall

From 1953-61 was when Astall represented Birmingham City. He played 235 games for the club, scoring 60 times.

He made two appearances for England in his career, scoring in one of them. Birmingham actually paid a five-figure fee to get the winger from Plymouth Argyle which, 70 years ago, was a big sum.

6 George Briggs

We're going back a century to talk about our fan pundit's sixth-best Birmingham winger of all time. He played for Birmingham and PLymouth, as Astall did. But in the Midlands, it was where he was most impressive.

In just shy of 300 games for the team, over a decade-long span, Briggs found the back of the net 98 times. Even by today's standards, that's pretty good going.

He also made the FA Cup final with Birmingham in the 1930-31 season.

5 Johnny Crosbie

The winger was a big part of the team's Second Division winning season in the 1920-21 season. His number of appearances for the club (409) would put him in the reckoning for this list, but the 71 goals is what cements his place on this list.

He and Briggs were teammates for almost all of Crosbie's time with Birmingham. That wing partnership would have been a real handful to deal with in the 20s and 30s.

4 Sebastian Larsson

Now we return to the 21st century.

The Swede had an absolute gem of a delivery which made him pretty menacing when it came to set pieces.

Larsson wasn't somebody you worried about because of his physical attributes, like Redmond or Pennant. He was one of those players that was extremely efficient at their chance creation. He was always a threat to make something happen, but the threat was his technique, not his pace or power.

He played more games for Birmingham than he did for any other side in his career, racking up over 50 goals and assists in 205 outings.

3

Guess what? It's another winger from the 20th century to have played for Birmingham and Plymouth.

Govan was one of seven former players to be put into the club's Hall of Fame in 2012. What gets you into the Birmingham City Hall of Fame? Well, 53 goals in 165 games was more than enough for the Scottish winger to earn that honour.

2 Peter Murphy

In 1952, the Blues were willing to pay £20,000 for Murphy. In today's money, that would work out at £7.3 million. That purchase would be one of the best in the club's history.

If you want an example of a winger who is a goal threat, look no further than this man. He netted 107 times in 254 games for the club. That's not far behind a goal in every other game.

He spent eight years with the club before he retired in 1960 to coach Birmingham's youth team. As a Blues player, he won the 1954-55 Second Division, and reached the final of the FA Cup the year after.

1 Stan Lazaridis

According to Mike Gibbs, the Aussie is the best winger to have ever played for Birmingham City.

191 games is what he played for the club over a seven-year stretch. His most impressive years at the club, though, were from the turn of the millennium to 2002.

Over those two seasons, he helped them to reach the final of the League Cup, which they lost on penalties to Liverpool, having themselves scored from the spot to send it to extra time.

Lazaridis scored one of those spot-kicks, but it wasn't enough to see them over the line as Martin Grainger and Andrew Johnson both missed their penalties.