FLW Blues fan experts choose the 12 most beautiful strikers to ever play for the club
In their long and storied history, which stretches back to the year 1875 when they were founded, Birmingham City have certainly had some great strikers either come through the ranks or signed by the club.
But who ranks among the 12 best that the Blues have ever had?
FLW’s City fan pundit Mike Gibbs has issued his verdict on the best ever attackers to play for the club – let’s take a look at his picks.
Having developed himself in non-league and then in the fourth tier with Halifax, Horsfield made the move to Birmingham in the year 2000 from Fulham.
For a club record £2.25 million, Horsfield needed to be good and he was – albeit not as prolific as perhaps expected.
He scored 29 goals in 126 appearances for the Blues, five of them coming in the Premier League, and whilst Birmingham sold him for a loss to Wigan in 2003 for an initial £500,000, his all-round game was widely praised and he was the club’s Player of the Year in their promotion-winning 2001-02 season.
Zigic was always going to be a cult hero at the Blues for his towering height, but he was a very good player.
The Serb signed for City in 2010 from Valencia for £6 million and scored important goals such as in the 2011 EFL Cup final against Arsenal, and then ended up staying with the club in the Championship.
There were critical moments of Zigic, especially by ex-manager Lee Clark who lambasted the striker for a training session performance, but he provided many good memories and scored 36 times in 159 appearances.
A real journeyman striker of the 1990’s and 2000’s, some of Claridge’s best days came at Birmingham following his arrival in 1994 from Cambridge.
In 1994-925, Claridge scored 25 times for the club as they were promoted from the third tier of English football, and he continued his good performances at Division One level to earn a £1.2 million move in 1996 to Leicester City, making the Blues a handsome profit after his 35 league goals in 88 matches.
A long-serving member of the Birmingham squad, Jutkiewicz is into his eighth season at St Andrew’s and he’s led the line like a true professional since 2016.
Ahead of the 2023-24 season, Jutkiewicz had scored 63 goals in 300 appearances for the club – not the most prolific by any stretch of the imagination but when it comes to all-round contributions, ‘The Juke’, who is the club captain, cannot be faulted
Signed from Carlisle United in 1971, Hatton had a prolific five years with the Blues, partnering the likes of Trevor Francis and Bob Latchford.
Scoring 58 league goals in 175 appearances, Hatton was part of a promotion-winning City side to the top flight in 1972 and later went on to have similarly good stints at the likes of Blackpool and Luton Town – he was just a natural goalscorer.
Known as ‘Spud’ to many, Murphy had played for Coventry City and Tottenham before joining Birmingham in 1952.
Murphy spent the last eight years of his career at the Midlands outfit, leading the club’s scoring ranks in three separate seasons, scoring 127 goals in 278 matches for the club in all competitions before retiring in 1960.
Considering Adams has gone on to be a regular starter at Premier League level, he is probably deserving of a place on this list despite playing only Championship football for the Blues.
City invested £2 million into Adams when signing from Sheffield United in 2016, but that was money well spent as three years and 38 goals later in 123 outings, Southampton paid £15 million for his services.
That came about after Adams hit the back of the net 22 times in the 2018-19 season – Birmingham did not come close to promotion but the now Scotland international certainly proved his worth and helped the club financially.
Finland’s second highest goalscorer of all-time, Forssell was a promising youngster at Chelsea but in 2003 when joining Birmingham on loan, he was needing a fresh challenge.
Forssell scored 17 times in the 2003-04 Premier League season, proving his real value to all as one of the most exciting forwards in the top flight in England, but a further loan stint in the following campaign ended abruptly because of a knee injury.
Nevertheless, Forssell was signed permanently in 2005, but he never quite managed to hit the same heights again because of knee problems.
The Finnish striker still scored nine Premier League goals in his final season at the club, ending his Blues career with 37 goals in 118 matches played.
Sitting in ninth position on the all-time Birmingham goalscorers list with 84 goals scored in 193 appearances, Latchford found his best form in the final few years of his time at the club.
Latchford was a youth prospect at the club and made his debut in 1968, and in the 1971-72 season when City were promoted to the top flight, he found the back of the net a mammoth 30 times.
Leaving in 1974 for Everton, Latchford played for England 12 times, all whilst he was at the Toffees where he replicated his goalscoring success from his Birmingham days.
A classy operator at club and international level, Dugarry arrived at Birmingham in 2003 as a World Cup winner five years prior for France, having played for the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona as well.
Despite only playing 31 times for City and scoring six goals, Dugarry’s class was clear to see and his impact in such a short space of time saw him inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame.
Sitting top of the all-time leading Birmingham City goalscorers, Bradford played for the club between 1920 and 1935, scoring 267 goals in 445 matches.
Bradford would play 12 times for England whilst a Blues player and for all but one season of his time at the club they were in Division One – he ended his career at Bristol City but will be known as a Birmingham legend.
The aforementioned Bradford is the only player to trump Francis in terms of goals scored for Birmingham, with the latter having netted 133 times in 329 appearances.
Despite being Plymouth-born, Francis was a schoolboy at Birmingham City and came through the ranks to be a real sharpshooter, and whilst the club never really recorded any success whilst he was leading the line, he certainly helped them financially.
Francis was sold to Nottingham Forest for £1 million in 1979, becoming Britain’s first ‘Million pound player’, a fact which he became famed for and he had great success, winning two European Cups with the Tricky Trees and also playing 52 times for England in his career.