Birmingham City issue statement on Bolton Wanderers fixture amid Aston Villa clash

Birmingham City's match with Bolton Wanderers on Tuesday, October 22 will go ahead on its advised date, despite there being a clash with Aston Villa.

The Second City will have two four sets of supporters towards the end of this month, with two professional matches running simultaneously. Blues are at home at St Andrew's in a League One fixture against promotion rivals Bolton Wanderers, whilst the Claret and Blue are up against Bologna in the UEFA Champions League.

The two grounds are separated by roughly 2.4 miles, and there will be only 15 minutes between the two games kicking off. Birmingham kick off against the Whites at 7.45 pm, and then 15 minutes later, the Villains host Bologna at 8.00 pm.

Posted from the Birmingham City Supporter Updates account, the club said: "We can also confirm that there will be no change to our home fixture against Bolton Wanderers, scheduled to take place at St. Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park on Tuesday October 22nd (7:45pm KO).”

The news comes as a surprise as Aston Villa and Birmingham City tend to avoid playing on the same day. Football matches usually have some kind of police presence at matches, and so the West Midlands Police will be stretched across two matches later this month.

As a result of the new Sky Sports TV deal there has been a greater emphasis on fixtures not being moved, but local police forces can make requests, such as moving the kick-off time, or potentially a date.

Bolton Wanderers have not yet published ticketing information as to how many supporters will be making the trip down from Greater Manchester. The maximum amount of supporters allowed at St Andrew's are 2,227.

It was estimated that around 3,000 Bologna fans made the trip from northern Italy to see their side play Liverpool in the Champions League on Wednesday (October 3). Up to around 3,000 supporters can be housed in the away end at Villa Park. The attendance for Aston Villa versus Bayern Munich was announced as 38,991.

Depending on how many fans both Bolton Wanderers and Bologna bring to Birmingham, there’s a possibility that just under 64,000 football supporters could be in the city at one given point. Birmingham played in front of a crowd of 24,757 on Tuesday against Huddersfield Town, but the Terriers brought less than 1,000 fans with them, and so Bolton might travel in larger numbers.