Will Knighthead ever make switch to another ‘name’ in Birmingham City’s managerial role?
We asked AI to give us an idea of what Birmingham City’s new stadium might look like - and the results were both strange and slightly concerning...
It’s been nearly 120 years since Birmingham City first played football at St. Andrew’s – but before long, they will move out of their famous old ground and into a new stadium, reportedly set to hold around 62,000 baying spectators and fit to host a variety of sports, with NFL matches on the wishlist.
Birmingham’s American owners have brought Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight in to collaborate with the architects and the final design is expected to pay tributes to the city’s industrial heritage which some form of ‘chimney’ design. People will, one suspects, either love it or hate it when we finally find out what kind of form this new stadium will take.
TalkSport report that the first images of the ground will be revealed “in the coming weeks,” but we’re feeling impatient and decided to get a taste of the Blues’ new home by asking AI to design a stadium based on the information that’s been made public so far. As for the results… let’s hope that Knight doesn’t use Grok to get his work done.
What AI believes Birmingham City’s new stadium will look like
The horrors that could await Birmingham City fans - if AI designed the new stadiumplaceholder image
The horrors that could await Birmingham City fans - if AI designed the new stadium | Grok
Let’s start by saying that while most of the 60,000-plus seater stadium that our AI algorithm designed is perfectly normal fare for a modern arena, it may have taken the involvement of Knight to heart a little bit. Because this thing doesn’t just include chimneys. It includes flat caps.
Any Brummies who have found it difficult to endure years of dodgy accents and even worse haircuts since Peaky Blinders first came out will want to look away from the exterior of this vision of Birmingham’s new ground.
Our AI pictures not one, but three chimneys, each 100m high, rising from the ground’s north stand – built from brick and red-rusted steel to mimic the aesthetic of a 1920s factory. Two of them will have observation decks, accessible to fans who want to enjoy a panoramic view of the city around them. And the third, right in the middle? That will be wearing a flat cap, as helpfully pictured above.
Yes, even factory chimneys aren’t immune to the belief that a number one down the sides and a cap will make them look cool. To make matters worse, during night-time games the three chimneys will billow dry ice from the top to – and we quote a computer which has spent to much time wishing it had cheekbones like Cillian Murphy here – “recreate the foggy Small Heath streets of 1919.”
That would already be more Peaky Blinders-themed paraphernalia than any sane stadium should have, but to make matters worse, the roof running around the arena will be made from “lightweight tensile lattice of blackened steel, its jagged profile deliberately recalling the razor-blade peaks of a Peaky Blinders flat cap.” Because nothing says ‘day out for all the family’ like incorporating lethal weaponry into the structure, eh? Actually, that might appeal to the American audience, now we think of it. Should help getting those NFL games…
Peaky Blinders theme dominates new ground
Of course, the influence of the Peaky Blinders extends beyond the bizarre exterior, at least according to an AI algorithm which clearly believes that Knight has both a quite breathtaking ego and, presumably, some pretty strong material with which to blackmail the actual architects.
Once inside the gates (scanning their season tickets, which are designed in the form of a “miniature engraved cut-throat razor”) perhaps Birmingham fans would fancy grabbing their pre-match pint at ‘Polly’s Bar’, with its “dark oak panelling, velvet booths, and brass razor-blade light fittings.”
Or maybe they could munch on a pie as they stroll past a mural of Tommy Shelby tipping his cap to the fans, surrounded by replica gas lamps and exposed brick arches?
Of course, the real stadium is unlikely to be quite so one-note or, frankly, psychotic. Why is everything shaped like a razor blade? Does AI believe that Birmingham’s owners plan to use this project as a way to express their dark side through the artistic medium of a football stadium? Or is this the AI telling us about its own violent fantasies via a prompt which, we solemnly promise, never once used the words ‘razor’, ‘blade’ or ‘weapon’?
Let’s just hope that when plans for the real stadium are made public, it’s all a little more sensible, a little less aesthetically insane, and ideally features fewer ways for supporters to cut themselves while trying to get through the turnstiles.
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