Martin Grainger - 'pub player' to Premier League
13.08.26, 12:00 Updated 13.08.26, 16:25
Colin Tattum
He was one of the most popular Blues players of the late 1990s to the mid-2000s.
A tough-tackling left-back, Martin Grainger spent nine years at Blues, totting up 266 appearances and scoring 28 goals. Had it not been for serious injuries, he would have figured many, many more times.
Grainger – Barry Fry’s penultimate signing, at £400,000 from Brentford – had to retire at the age of 32, due to a knee issue.
He reached two major finals with Blues – helping to clinch promotion to the Premier League after a 16-year top-flight absence – and was a losing play-off semi-finalist three times. Grainger was the club’s player of the season in 1999/2000 and named by his peers in the PFA team of the season.
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Colin Tattum covered Blues for the Birmingham Mail & Sports Argus as correspondent & chief sports writer for 28 years before becoming head of media & communications at St. Andrew's in 2014. Most recently he worked in academy talent ID & recruitment before returning full circle by joining renowned journalist Neil Moxley with the launch of Forever Blues.