Déjà Blue: Birmingham City’s Promotion Push

Last season’s heartbreak

As the final day approached, two teams were still in contention to win the 2024/25 Women’s Championship. London City Lionesses sat two points above Birmingham City and, conveniently for the neutral, these two teams were playing each other on the final day. It wasn’t just the league title that was up for grabs, but also the only promotion place to the BWSL.

For Birmingham City, the task was simple: win the game to earn promotion. If they drew or lost, they would compete in the second tier for another season. After a cagey first half, London City Lioneess took a 2-0 lead by the hour mark. The Blues mounted a comeback to 2-2 with five minutes to go, but couldn’t find a winner, and thus, London City Lionesses were promoted at the expense of Birmingham City.

League changes

England’s second tier of women’s football saw some major changes at the start of this season. As well as a rebrand to Barclays WSL2, giving the league a new feel and a closer visual tie to BWSL, there was also a change to the promotion system. Due to the expansion of the BWSL for the 2026/27 season, BWSL2 teams have more opportunities for promotion in 2025/26. The top two teams will be promoted automatically, and the team in third place will face the bottom-placed BWSL team in a play-off. Although missing out on promotion last season will have left Birmingham City heartbroken, they were arguably the team best placed to be promoted at the start of this season.

Birmingham City’s 2025/26

The Blues had a decent start to the 2025/26 season, with three wins and one draw in their opening four games. However, with losses to Southampton, Charlton and Crystal Palace in October, November and December respectively, Birmingham City starting lagging behind the then-undefeated Charlton.

2026 saw a more positive run for Birmingham. Wins against Nott’m Forest, Southampton and Bristol City helped separate the Blues from the mid-table teams and kept them in the conversation for the title. They also put a morale-boosting FA Cup run together, making the quarter-final before losing to a Bunny Shaw winner for Manchester City, something even the best teams can’t avoid.

Individual performances have contributed hugely to Birmingham’s success this season. Two players in particular are of note.

Lily Crosthwaite

Birmingham signed the 22-year-old attacker from Durham in the summer of 2025. With 8 goals in 92 appearances for Durham, her output was perhaps a concern. Fast-forward to today, and Crosthwaite has 10 goals and 8 assists in all competitions for Birmingham City. This includes 8 goals and 6 assists in BWSL2; those 14 goal involvements is the joint-most in the league alongside Palace’s Ashleigh Weerden. Crosthwaite has also created 40 chances this season, third-most in the league. She will almost certainly be in the conversation when it comes to deciding the BWSL2 player of the season.

Veatriki Sarri

A few eyebrows were raised when Sarri signed in the summer from Everton. The Greek international was 27 years old with 81 WSL appearances, including 22 for Birmingham City, so she was a player in her peak years that didn’t need to ’step down’ from BWSL. The re-signing of Sarri was a clear sign of intent from the Blues, and a willingness to invest in the playing squad. Although the midfielder is not known for her goalscoring, Sarri is enjoying a fantastic season in front of goal. Her 7 league goals so far this season is more than her last three league campaigns combined (5).

Of course, other Birmingham City players have also contributed too. Some statistical highlights include the following:

• Wilma Leidhammer has scored 5 goals in just 670 minutes (0.67 per 90)
• Lucy Quinn is leading the league for both shots per 90 (2.3) and shots on target per 90 (4.5)
• Shannon Cooke is leading the league for accurate long balls per 90 (8.6), with fellow defender Neve Herron in second place (5.7)

With statistics like these, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Birmingham City have scored the most goals in the BWSL2 this season (44), but they have also been quite defensively solid too. Their 24 goals conceded in 21 games can only be bettered by Charlton (19). This combination has means the Blues’ goal difference (+20) is the league’s best and at least 7 better than the teams around them, something that could come in very useful this weekend.

Their away form also deserves attention. No team in BWSL2 has a better away record than Birmingham’s 20 points and +9 goal difference, which could be important factor for them Saturday.

Familiar circumstances

For Birmingham City, the task is simple: win the game to earn promotion. Did I copy and paste that from the opening paragraph? Yes. Is it still applicable? Also yes.

There are a lot of similarities for Birmingham City on the final day of this season compared to last season. Once again they find themselves in second place and facing the team above them, knowing that they need a win to guarantee promotion. The silver lining for the Blues this season is that if they draw or lose they can still get promoted. If Palace get more points against already-relegated Portsmouth than Birmingham do away at Charlton, the Blues will finish third and face a play-off against the team that finished at the bottom of the BWSL, which is likely to be Leicester City.

If this were the case then history is in Leicester’s favour, with the Foxes having won the last five meetings between the two sides. On the other hand, Birmingham are the more in-form team and have significantly more wins than Leicester this season.

Regardless of how much you read into it, it’s one game to seal the club’s fate, so the two teams are going to be under a huge amount of pressure. The form book will be out the window for whichever two teams end up in the play-off.

After the heartbreak of losing the league on the final day last season, Birmingham City will be doing all they can to ensure it doesn’t happen again. It’s going to be a captivating final day of the season, and you can watch it unfold live on the Barclays WSL2 YouTube channel.

Word credit: Sam

Data Sources: FotMob & BCFC.com