Remy Gordon and Kami Carpenter fatally stabbed Cody Fisher on Boxing Day in 2022 after a minor altercation two days earlier.

Gordon will serve a minimum of 26 years, while Carpenter will spend at least 25 years behind bars.

During the trial, jurors were told that Mr Fisher had made brief and "unavoidable" contact with Mr Gordon's back as he left a club in Solihull on Christmas Eve.

The 23-year-old - a former Birmingham City academy member who also played for Stratford Town and Bromsgrove Sporting - was stabbed in the chest at the Crane nightclub in Digbeth and died at the scene from a chest wound.

He was attacked with a weapon that had been smuggled through security, in what was described as a pre-planned "act of retribution" after the previous minor incident at a Popworld nightclub in Solihull.

Gordon and Carpenter, who had denied the charges against them, had blamed each other for the fatal stabbing and were convicted last month.

Judge Paul Farrer KC said Gordon believed he had been "disrespected" by Mr Fisher and that he sent messages about the encounter in a group chat within four minutes of leaving Popworld.

He then said that a group of three to four people - including Gordon and Carpenter - surrounded Mr Fisher at the Crane club two days later. The footballer refused to "come outside" with the group, who were wearing masks, and was then attacked.

The judge said the attack "lasted no more than 37 seconds," and involved punches, kicks and "a blow to the face of sufficient force to fracture the back of Mr Fisher's jaw, on both sides".

He also said Mr Fisher was stabbed in his right thigh and that the assault only ended when Carpenter stabbed him in the chest.

"In short, this was a sustained attack on a man who was significantly outnumbered and stood little or no chance of defending himself," he said.

Prosecutor Michael Duck KC previously told Birmingham Crown Court: "Cody Fisher it seems did little more than touch Remy Gordon's back (on Christmas Eve). Remy Gordon was looking for an argument with somebody."

Mr Duck also said Gordon was later captured on CCTV in a pizza takeaway restaurant "re-enacting the attack... and laughing while he did so," and said that Gordon and Carpenter sought to evade arrest.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Fisher's mother Tracey said the family's "life sentences" started on the day he was killed, which she described as the "most heartbreaking day in all of our lives".

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'Never any forgiveness'

Addressing Gordon and Carpenter, she said there can "never be any forgiveness for what they have done to us", adding: "It is as though I too was stabbed straight through the heart.

"I have seen myself go from the happiest outgoing person, to fighting the hell out of just getting through each and every horrendous, never ending, day, in the abhorrent knowledge that my youngest son, my best friend, is never coming home to sleep in his bedroom, the room that I still cannot enter even to this day."

Jessica Chatwin, who was Mr Fisher's girlfriend, told the court the 23-year-old died in her arms and added: "My life stopped that day, I live each day with enormous pain, loneliness and sadness.

"I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with Cody. Now I have to face the world without his love and guidance, something he always showed me while we were together.

"He was my strength in every situation and now I have to face it all alone."

'Our grief will go on'

Speaking outside the court after sentencing, Tracey Fisher said: "For us as a family, Cody will still not come home and we will forever live in the shadow of his senseless murder.

"I know that our grief will go on and we will continue with our life sentence, missing our child each and every day."

Fellow defendant Reegan Anderson, 19, of no fixed address, was found not guilty of murder and not guilty of an alternative charge of manslaughter.

He was found guilty of affray and was bailed until a sentencing hearing after Easter.

The Crane nightclub has since been permanently shut down after West Midlands Police said the venue posed "terrifying risks" to the public, with "blatant" drug use and "inadequate" security.