Birmingham City delete post about Evangelos Marinakis after pre-season win over Nottingham Forest

Birmingham City have deleted a post about Nottingham Forest chairman Evangelos Marinakis after defeating the Premier League side in a pre-season friendly.

Birmingham are back in the Championship this season after earning promotion from League One last term.

The club spent significantly more than any other League One side on players last season, and have continued that spending this summer.

According to reports, they shelled out an £8 million fee to sign former Celtic striker Kyogo Furuhashi from Rennes.

On the pitch, the Blues have had a mixed pre-season in terms of results, although have fielded line-ups of differing strengths.

They have recorded victories over Sevilla and Port Vale, but were also thrashed 4-0 by Crewe of League Two.

Chris Davies' side ended their pre-season schedule on a positive note with a 1-0 win over Premier League side Nottingham Forest.

Morgan Gibbs-White captained a relatively strong Forest side, having signed a new three-year contract with the club last month.

Spurs were ready to trigger a release clause in Gibbs-White's previous contract, but Forest claimed that the north London club had made an illegal approach as the clause's figure was meant to be confidential.

Upon signing his new deal, the Forest midfielder posed with club owner Marinakis.

Fans joked on Twitter after the name 'Mr Marinakis' was mentioned four times in a 80-second clip reacting to the contract extension.

Birmingham appeared to be poking fun at that clip in their post on Twitter after the 1-0 win.

Alongside a full-time score graphic, the club's official account wrote: "Victory over Mr Marinakis' Nottingham Forest!"

The post quickly went viral across social media, but was subsequently deleted from the club's account.

Meanwhile, the Blues also paid tribute to Trevor Francis, with this being the first game played between the two sides since his death in July 2023.

Francis came through Birmingham's youth system and scored 113 goals in all competitions.

In his final four completed seasons with the Blues, he smashed in 76 goals in just 142 matches in the First Division.

That earned attention from Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest, and he became Britain's first £1 million player when he signed for them in 1979.

Francis only spent two years at the City Ground but won the European Cup with them in 1979 and 1980.

After retiring as a player, he spent five years as manager of Birmingham between 1996 and 2001.

The Blues unveiled a bronze statue of Francis outside St Andrew's before kick-off on Saturday as part of the tributes, and posted: "A fantastic afternoon celebrating a fantastic player. A big thank you to everyone at Nottingham Forest."