When the Greater Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau touched down in England this April, it wasn’t just a business trip – it was the beginning of something genuinely historic. Through a landmark partnership with Birmingham City Football Club, the GBCVB brought the spirit, culture, and Southern charm of Birmingham, Alabama to tens of thousands of fans across two unforgettable match days at St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park in Birmingham, England.
The partnership is rooted in something deeper than shared geography. These are two proud cities united by a name, by diversity, and by communities that are inseparable from their identities. With global interest in Birmingham City FC surging – fueled in part by NFL legend Tom Brady joining the Club’s ownership group and major international partners like Delta Air Lines coming on board – the timing couldn’t have been more powerful for the GBCVB to introduce its Birmingham to a whole new world.
“This collaboration is an incredible opportunity to showcase Birmingham, Alabama to an international audience, highlighting our vibrant culture, rich history, and world-class hospitality,” the GBCVB said of the partnership’s launch. “Sports has a unique way of bringing people together, and through this partnership we look forward to welcoming new visitors, fostering new relationships, and positioning our city as a premier destination for global travelers.”
Andy Facer, who promotes Birmingham, Alabama as a travel destination to international tour operators in the UK and Ireland, echoed that sentiment: “Our partnership with Birmingham City FC gives us another way to share the stories of a different Birmingham; one full of culture, history, and unique experiences. There’s a natural curiosity in the UK about our shared name, and this gives us the perfect platform to turn that curiosity into real visits. It allows us to showcase our world-class golf, our pivotal civil rights history, an exciting food scene, and genuine Southern hospitality.”
According to Birmingham City FC CEO Jeremy Dale, in an interview for Business Alabama, the partnership was a no-brainer. “As soon as we started speaking with the people at Greater Birmingham, we were all aligned in our vision. It was clear early on that we clicked. So, it was very easy to agree to this partnership. Since then, we’ve been working on a number of initiatives to help promote Birmingham, Alabama, the ties between them and us, and encouraging our fans to visit and experience the hospitality of Alabama.”
April 12 — The Wrexham Match
The first activation, during the BCFC vs Wrexham match on Sunday, April 12, centered around a Delta Air Lines collaboration, set the tone for the entire campaign. The GBCVB and Delta transformed the match day experience into an immersive journey between two Birminghams from the moment fans arrived.
Custom soccer scarves bearing the names of both Birminghams – a wearable symbol of the partnership – were handed to the first 300 fans entering the stadium and distributed at fan zone activations throughout the day. On the pitch, limited edition warmup shirts featuring Vulcan, the iconic cast-iron statue that stands watch over Birmingham, Alabama, wearing a BCFC scarf of his own, was created by Birmingham’s Yellowhammer Creative Co. and worn by the BCFC players themselves, putting the Alabama city’s identity front and center on the field of play.
The fun didn’t stop there. In a moment that delighted fans young and old, the official Vulcan mascot made the journey across the Atlantic. The live mascot, decked out in his own warmup shirt, took the field alongside Birmingham City’s two Club mascots (Beau and Belle Brummie) before kickoff, drawing smiles and no small amount of curiosity from the crowd.
Inside the fan zone, Delta operated a flight simulator experience that placed fans in the cockpit of a virtual journey from Birmingham, England to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, making the idea of crossing the Atlantic feel suddenly very real and very exciting. Stadium screens featured player announcement graphics styled as passport pages, complete with a Birmingham, Alabama stamp beside the Delta logo, reinforcing the transatlantic travel theme throughout the evening.
The match also featured a standout surprise-and-delight giveaway: Delta partnered with the GBCVB to offer two lucky fans the chance to win roundtrip flights from Birmingham, England to Birmingham, Alabama, with a three-night stay at the Grand Bohemian Hotel Birmingham-Mountain Brook and a curated Birmingham experience included. A lifelong Blues fan and his daughter won the trip and visit the Magic City at the end of May.
The GBCVB’s logos also appeared on the stadium’s perimeter LED boards throughout the match, ensuring maximum visibility for their message during the match, which aired in primetime across the UK on SkySports.
April 25 — The Birmingham Takeover
If the Wrexham match was an introduction, the match against Bristol City on April 25 was a full-blown Magic City celebration. The “Birmingham Takeover” match transformed the entire fan park and hospitality experience into an immersive love letter to Birmingham, Alabama, and the response was electric.
Once again, the first 300 fans received custom Birmingham-and-Bham scarves, but the surrounding activations were on an entirely new scale. A dramatic 10×20-foot Birmingham, Alabama backdrop greeted fans the moment they arrived at the stadium – impossible to miss and instantly photo-worthy. From there, fans entered a fan zone alive with Alabama culture and Southern warmth and hospitality.
Another limited-edition Yellowhammer design anchored the visual identity of the day, this time used for a custom postcard station where fans could fill out a card celebrating the connection between the two cities and keep it as a souvenir or drop it in a mailbox to have it mailed from Alabama. Birmingham. Alabama-themed player trading cards, a favorite collectible item amongst BCFC faithful, were distributed throughout the zone, with Alabama imagery woven into the beloved format.
The Southern Hospitality Raffle was a particular hit. Fans entered for the chance to win a gift basket packed with authentic Alabama products: Saw’s BBQ sauce, Milo’s sweet tea, Dale’s steak marinade, Golden Flake dill pickle chips, roasted pecans, Full Moon southern seasoning, merch from Alabama Goods, and more. It was a tangible, delicious taste of home and of the destination the GBCVB was inviting English fans to discover.
Social media influencer and BCFC emcee Will Brazier energized the fan zone throughout the day, giving out limited-edition scarves to fans who could answer trivia questions about the Sister Cities. A pregame playlist full of soulful music from Alabama and the Deep South set the mood across the fan park, while BBQ sauces from Birmingham’s beloved Saw’s BBQ were placed at food trucks in the area and given away to fans. Each bottle was tagged with a GBCVB logo and QR code directing curious fans straight to inbirmingham.com.
Inside the hospitality lounge at St. Andrew’s Park, the experience was equally intentional. Guests received a specially curated Birmingham “Cookbook” to take home a taste of the American South via a beautifully produced guide to the city’s remarkable food scene, complete with recipes from several local restaurants and stories woven through with Southern culture. The food itself lived up to the billing: elevated Bama-style dishes graced the hospitality tables, including a Southern banana pudding topped with a sugar-crafted GBCVB logo, a sweet detail that summed up the care and creativity poured into every aspect of the takeover.
Vulcan returned for the second match as well, once again taking the field with BCFC’s mascots before kickoff. And behind the scenes, Birmingham City FC’s content team filmed a series of player videos celebrating the partnership, with footage that included an American football kick contest, players and fans answering questions about Alabama, and members of the squad trying out recipes from the GBCVB cookbook. Content from the match resonated powerfully online: social posts from the BCFC accounts mentioning the Bureau around the Bristol takeover alone generated nearly 600,000 impressions the week of the match.
A Story Just Getting Started
Across two April match days, the GBCVB demonstrated what authentic, creative destination marketing looks like on a global stage. From Vulcan on the pitch to banana pudding in the hospitality suite, from flight simulators to handwritten postcards, every activation told the same story: Birmingham, Alabama is a city worth knowing, a destination worth experiencing, and now, a city that thousands of new fans from across the UK are curious to visit.
“We look forward to coming over and having our players do a tour of the city and film that, so we can showcase it to all our fans back here,” said Dale. “We want our fans to know that if they’d like to experience Birmingham, England, abroad, then Birmingham, Alabama, is a great place to go, because we share that same heritage of an industrial backbone.”
The partnership with Birmingham City FC is more than a marketing campaign. It’s the beginning of a lasting relationship between two cities proud of who they are and excited about what they can build together.
“It’s really about global awareness of our destination,” said GBCVB President & CEO Dan Williams. “We see this as an amazing opportunity to reach out to a U.K. audience and other international markets and highlight Greater Birmingham as a premier, welcoming, and exciting place to travel.
“The Blues have huge fan support across the globe, and now those supporters are getting a glimpse of what the Magic City is all about. We love showing those passionate fans what Birmingham, Alabama, is as a destination and what we have to offer when they come visit our community.”
As Facer put it: “Birmingham, Alabama offers something different yet still feels familiar. This partnership is about bringing that story to life and inspiring people [from the UK] to come and experience it for themselves.”
The magic of Birmingham, Alabama has officially arrived in Birmingham, England. And by all accounts, it made quite an impression.
