Birmingham City continued their pre-season tour of Hong Kong and China with a 1-0 win against Beijing Guoan in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, after previously overcoming a Hong Kong XI on Sunday.

Guoan enjoyed a successful season finishing as champions of the Chinese Super League whilst Birmingham enjoyed a solid Premier League campaign that saw them comfortably escape relegation after promotion from the Championship.

Birmingham, wearing a new, all white, away shirt, had the better of an otherwise tentative and slow paced first half which sprang to life when a cross from the Birmingham left was whipped into the penalty area and onto the head of new signing Nikola Zigic. Zigic, however, couldn’t direct the header and the Beijing ‘keeper pushed the ball away.

Birmingham continued to threaten in the second half with direct crosses into the box threatening the Guoan goalkeeper but the defence held firm to deny the midlands club. The main threat from the Beijing side came with the counterattack as their wide players tried to swiftly dispatch balls into the box but Ben Foster, in the Birmingham goal, was equal to the Chinese efforts.

Guoan were gifted a free-kick on the edge of the Birmingham box which Ben Foster acrobatically tipped against the bar to keep the scores level at 0-0. Both sides threatened but neither were able to sustain any clear-cut goal scoring opportunities as the match looked to be petering out to a goalless draw until Cameron Jerome broke through the defence and showed good composure to square his rebounded effort to Garry O’Connor who duly tucked the ball past the despairing Guoan ‘keeper. O’Connor then saw a headed effort cleared off the line by the Guoan left-back as the ball bounced out for a corner.