West Ham United's impending relegation will be the fourth time David Sullivan and David Gold have witnessed a club under their ownership drop a division.
Hammers co-chairman Sullivan purchased a majority share of Birmingham City (84 per cent from former owners, the Kumars) in March 1993, before bringing business partner Gold on board. Despite having given manager Terry Cooper funds with which to improve the squad - and having installed a certain Karren Brady as Managing Director - the Blues were relegated to the third tier of English football in Sullivan's first full season in command (1993/94).Disappointment soon turned to celebration however when City were promoted back to the Championship as Division Two champions the following season. Having established themselves as a force in the division, Sullivan and Gold saw their club reach the Premier League for the very first time at the end of the 2001/02 when they beat Norwich 4-2 in the play-off final at Cardiff (having beaten Millwall 2-1 in aggregate in the semi final).
Following three reasonably successful seasons in which Birmingham finished 13th, 10th and 12th in the Premier League the spectre of relegation came back to haunt the owners as City returned to the Championship having finished 18th, some four points behind 17th-placed Portsmouth (whose own survival had been something of a miracle).
This was the beginning of an extraordinary sequence of events that subsequently saw City promoted twice from the Championship (both times in second place) in the next three years, having been relegated - again - in 2007/08 when they finished one from the bottom in 2007/08.
With West Ham now facing relegation - bar a minor miracle - the Daves, for whom the current season is only their sixth full campaign as owners of a Premier League outfit, can now looking forward to their fourth relegation since entering football in the early nineties - a statistic that equates to roughly one relegation every four seasons.
Oops, we did it again: S&G's record in football
Birmingham City
1993/94 Division One - finished 22nd, relegated to Division Two
1994/95 Division Two - promoted as champions
1995/96 Division One - finished 15th
1996/97 Division One - finished 10th
1997/98 Division One - finished 7th
1998/99 Division One - finished 4th (lost in play-off semi-final to Watford on pens)
1999/00 Division One - finished 5th (lost in play-off semi-final to Barnsley)
2000/01 Division One - finished 5th (lost in play-off semi-final to Preston)
2001/02 Division One - finished 5th (promoted via play-offs beating Norwich in final)
2002/03 Premier League - finished 13th
2003/04 Premier League - finished 10th
2004/05 Premier League - finished 12th
2005/06 Premier League - finished 18th, relegated to the Championship
2006/07 Championship - finished 2nd, promoted to Premier League
2007/08 Premier League - finished 19th, relegated to the Championship
2008/09 Championship - finished 2nd, promoted to Premier League
West Ham United
2009/10 Premier League - finished 17th (having arrived at the club in January)
2010/11 Premier League - currently 20th with two games of the season remaining
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