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 the right thing” 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 fondness for his former club. Indeed, he continues to have links with his son training at the Blues’ Wast Hills training ground.

This 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 a facility left to languish on the vine by its previous owners. Not only does the club have an impressive base in Henley-in-Arden, it is also developing its spiritual training ground. And of course there is the huge investment that has gone into renovating St Andrew’s itself.

“I think the most impressive and important thing these owners did was invest in the infrastructure first,” Dean told the Keep Right On podcast. “We didn’t have any of that for a long time there. They invested heavily in the players and not in the infrastructure.

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“I’ve been to Wast Hills twice a week for the past year with my son, and the transformation there, our old training ground is now completely different. The canteen, the changing rooms, everything looks new and I know they’re doing the 3G pitch now as well. So they’re doing it the right way.

“For a club like Birmingham to have a training ground like we had was not right. So I think they started from the bottom and are going all out. The stadium now, I’ve been to the last few games of the season, the stadium looks incredible.

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

“So I think the owners and whoever is involved in that, Craig Gardner, just by doing things and doing them the right way, you just lay the foundation. People want to sign for the club now because everything looks brilliant. As petty as it sounds, that’s the modern footballer. They want to come into a training camp that makes them feel good.

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

“So you want to come in and you want it to be a place that you enjoy coming in. I remember at some stages we had a shower that was working in the first changing room for a long period of time. Just little things like that.

“We’re not being precious. Obviously we’re lucky to be doing the job we’re doing, but there’s still some sort of standard you need and it just wasn’t up to standard everywhere. The pitches, I think, were definitely causing a problem in terms of injuries.

“I know specifically from my rehab that I would work on one field and I wouldn’t work on the other field because the surface area for change was so vast that I was worried that one might give way and I might get hurt again. And that makes a difference.

“But now I think they’re doing it right. Obviously I was at the new facility in Henley in my final year and it’s amazing. I saw they took the 3G that was there and put another pitch in as well, which is important because you can’t just work on one pitch.

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

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