Harlee Dean reveals the changes Tom Wagner and Tom Brady have made to Birmingham City’s facilities

Harlee Dean believes Birmingham City’s current owners are “doing it right” by investing heavily in the club’s infrastructure.

The 32-year-old, who is currently at League One rivals Reading after ending his six-season spell with the Blues in the summer of 2023, admits he retains a passion for his former club. Indeed, he continues to bond with his son who trains at the Blues’ Wast Hills training ground.

That means Dean, who still lives in the area, is a regular visitor and can comment on the improvements Tom Wagner’s Knighthead group have made to an establishment left to wither on the vine by previous owners. The club not only has an impressive base at Henley-in-Arden, but is also developing its spiritual training ground. And of course there is the huge investment that has gone into refurbishing St Andrew’s itself.

“I think the most impressive and important thing these owners have done is invest in infrastructure first,” Dean told the Keep Right On podcast. “We haven’t had anything like that in a long time there. They invested heavily in players and not in infrastructure.

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“I’ve been up at Wast Hills twice a week for the last year with my son and the transformation from there, our old training ground is now completely different. The canteen, the changing rooms, they just look brand new and I know they’re doing the 3G pitch now too. So I’m doing it right.

“For a club like Birmingham to have a training ground like us, it wasn’t fair. So I think they started from the bottom and go for it all. The stadium now, I’ve been to the last games of the season, the stadium looks incredible.

“It makes you think about how much of a drag it was to have those lower levels closed while we were playing the last two years I was there. I was there, I think it was the Coventry game, it looked spectacular and made the difference.

“So I think the owners and anybody involved in this, Craig Gardner, just getting things done and doing it the right way, you’re just laying the foundation. People want to sign for the club now because everything looks brilliant. As petty as it sounds, this is the modern footballer. They want to enter a training ground that makes them feel good.

“So, especially for League One, they will have the best facilities in League One, without a doubt. Obviously you go in there every day, you probably spend more days there than anywhere else in the world.

“So you want to go in and you want it to be somewhere you like to go. I remember at the stages we had a shower that worked in the first changing room for a long time. Just little things like that.

“This is not being precious. Obviously, we’re lucky to do the job that we do, but there’s still some kind of standards that you need, and it just wasn’t up to standards everywhere. The grounds, I think, have definitely created a problem in terms of injuries.

“I know specifically from my rehab that I would work one pitch and not the other pitch because the shifting surface was so vast that I was afraid I might give out and hurt myself from new. And it makes a difference.

“But now I think I’m doing everything right. Obviously I went to the new Henley facility for my senior year and that’s incredible. I saw that they took the 3G that was there and dropped another pitch as well, which is important because you can’t just work on one pitch.

“And at that unit there is nothing (missing) that you need, it has everything. As I said, they have everything there, they have the owners in place, a great manager, the facilities are great and if they recruit right then they have every chance. I think great times are ahead and I’m excited to see what’s next.”

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