How do you define how “big” a club is?

[Lew-T]

22 minutes ago, Aberdeen Pete's Dad said:

Sheffield Wed

Derby

Coventry

Burnley 

City

Portsmouth

Watford

Blackpool

Reading

 

Burnley have played a great number of seasons in the top division. You could argue Portsmouth are bigger than City but they have not done much since 1949. I know they won the cup but they have played a lot of season in league 1 and 2. 

Watford are basically a third tier club and will probably return there again soon

 

 

 

Sorry, we are not bigger than Pompey.

[redkev]

8 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

Do Clifton, Hotwells, Stokes Croft or Bristol City Centre have that feel? Probably not either.

There are lots of working-class areas of Bournemouth/Poole/Christchurch - and despite its rep, it actually has a lower-than-UK average age of population. Thing is, with the local club kept artificially small by the Hyacinth Bucket's on the council, lots of the population are glory hunters, particularly of the big London clubs.  

My friends who live there say since promotion it's been virtually impossible to get home tickets unless you're a regular ST holder. 

 

I’m sorry for having an opinion  just jesting it’s just how I feel when I’m down that neck of the woods which isn’t that often tbf . Bournemouth doesn’t do it for me I’m afraid 

[Major Isewater]

We are just massive. 

[archie andrews]

1 hour ago, Lew-T said:

Random one… but I’ll try.

Sheffield Wednesday

Derby

Burnley

Pompey

Coventry

Watford

City

Reading

Blackpool

Id put derby top of that pile easy.... 

[southside]

The definitive word here is "is",  not "was"

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Clevedon Red said:

That sounds like a job for @Davefevs 

CBA

[Bristol Oil Services]

The big clubs take thousands away, midweek, the other end of the country - yer Arsenals, Spurs, Chelseas, West Hams, Liverpools, Evertons; Man City & Utd; Leeds; Newcastle, Sunderlands; Sheffield Wednesdays; Bristol Rovers - week after week, year after year. To the same grounds they've already been to, many, many times.

[Bristol Oil Services]

Aston Villers, don't forget them.

[Bris Red]

This topic must get brought up at least 3 or 4 times a year i would say.

Never going to be a right or wrong answer, its a debate that will forever just go around in circles..

[One Team]

1 hour ago, ChippenhamRed said:

But are you really comfortable saying Wigan are a bigger club than us on the basis of their one FA Cup win?

That just doesn’t sit right. Surely it’s about more than purely honours.

 

No I’m not, as I mentioned in my post honours is the top one for me but the others play a part too. 

[BCFCGav]

1 hour ago, Zookeeper WSM said:

For me the only metric to define a big club is attendances (consistently over several years whilst taking into account success / lack of). I actually think that honours and recent years in the top flight reduce how big the club is relative to their attendances. Ie, a club that averages 21/22k consistently over years like us despite no honours or recent top flight exposure is bigger than one that gets the same crowds but has had some success (eg, Burnley, Cardiff, Watford). There's definitely a spreadsheet asking to be created to measure this!

For me that’s a measure of support rather than club size. But club size is so open ended as a term, it’s very open to individual interpretation so there’s no real right or wrong. One thing we can all agree on is we are a well supported club, which beggars belief based on some recent seasons

[BS13 Robin]

The biggest club never to have played in the Premier League has to be Rovers,they sell out every game home and away,have a new stadium every 10 years,40000 locked out every week a top manager need i go on ....................................................

[stephenkibby.]

Plymouth must be the bigest club never to play in the top flight.

Always had crowds on a par with us when were at the same level. Superb away following,at least matches ours.

Don't care to much for the Premier league debate it's like football never existed before.

[pillred]

30 minutes ago, stephenkibby. said:

Plymouth must be the bigest club never to play in the top flight.

Always had crowds on a par with us when were at the same level. Superb away following,at least matches ours.

Don't care to much for the Premier league debate it's like football never existed before.

Our average is around 6000 more than theirs this season though.

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

Hilarious thread.  We are the most underachieving club in Western Europe, and people want to rate us as a ‘bigger club’ than the likes of Burnley and Portsmouth.  Is there a prize for bigness in football?  No, it’s all about success on the field and in my lifetime we’ve had four seasons in the top division, three of them struggling, and one FA Cup quarter final.  Be real.

Edited September 27, 2023 by The Dolman Pragmatist

[stephenkibby.]

4 minutes ago, pillred said:

Our average is around 6000 more than theirs this season though.

Pretty difficult for them to match us with a capacity of under 17.000 . 

 

[MattWSM]

3 hours ago, Lew-T said:

Sorry, we are not bigger than Pompey.

or Rovers, they are massive

[sglosbcfc]

3 hours ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

The big clubs take thousands away, midweek, the other end of the country - yer Arsenals, Spurs, Chelseas, West Hams, Liverpools, Evertons; Man City & Utd; Leeds; Newcastle, Sunderlands; Sheffield Wednesdays; Bristol Rovers - week after week, year after year. To the same grounds they've already been to, many, many times.

I think you'll find Rovers take tens of thousands away with them every week, not just thousands. And when they get to Wembley, ignore the official crowd of 50,000, because you can be assured there will be at least 55,000 Gasheads in the ground before you even count the other team's supporters.

[pillred]

1 hour ago, stephenkibby. said:

Pretty difficult for them to match us with a capacity of under 17.000 . 

 

It's actually 18,600, but I get your point, not sure if that is before segregation etc.

Edited September 27, 2023 by pillred

[weepywall]

8 hours ago, stephenkibby. said:

Plymouth must be the bigest club never to play in the top flight.

Always had crowds on a par with us when were at the same level. Superb away following,at least matches ours.

Don't care to much for the Premier league debate it's like football never existed before.

Don't like Plymouth but their away support is far better than ours considering the distances they have to travel.

[LondonRobin]

Biggest club imo is Inverness Caledonian Thistle. While Bury one of the smallest - We are somewhere in between 

[ExiledAjax]

12 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

Great post! You’re right, “big” is far too vague really and it can be defined so many different ways. But equally, how often do we hear teams described as “a big club”! It’s a very common turn of phrase within football, without any agreement on what that actually means.

Personally, and this is just my opinion, I think that often when someone described a club as a "big" club what they mean is "a club that's important at a national level". The criteria you use to define that is then important. 

There's also the point that we can be the biggest club to have never been in the PL, and simultaneously not be a Big Club. 

All I know is the "look" you get when someone asks "who's your team then" at a party or in the pub or on your first day in the office. You say "Bristol City". And they miss a beat. Their face glazes over. They are wracking their brain for something, anything, ANYTHING, to say about us. Eventually you might get an "oh yeh we bought [player] from you didn't we". And then the conversation moves back to their team.

Just my anecdotal evidence that we are not a Big Club. We're medium sized. 

But we can still be the biggest club to have never played PL football.

12 hours ago, BarnzFM said:

Commercial Revenue

The elephant in the room of miserable metrics by which to measure size of a club. Not an enjoyable one to use, but to be honest probably the one that gets you closest to the truth.

[Tinmans Love Child]

What is the list of clubs to have never played in the Prem?  That would be a better list to look at and compare us against, rather than comparing to clubs who have been in the prem.

Looking at championship teams this season it's only Us, Preston, Plymouth, Millwall, Rotherham who havnt played in the Prem.  You could argue between us, Plymouth and Preston but we defo sit above the other two on most measures I can think of.

From the other leagues I don't think there is any other club of note to get in this list who HASNT played in the Prem yet.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Tinmans Love Child

[myol'man]

13 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

Someone needs to come up with a scoring system that gives points for honours, stadium size, infrastructure, average attendance and average league position. Problem is we’d all argue over the weighting of those points!

Duckworth Lewis?

[fisherrich]

15 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

I made the claim on twitter earlier that we are the biggest club never to have played Premier League football.

To my mind, the size of a club is less about what it has won and more to do with the size of its fanbase and its whole infrastructure.

We regularly attract crowds of 20k+, we are capable of taking 45k to a JPT final against Walsall, we have a fantastic modern 27k stadium and first rate training facilities. All of which, I think, makes us the “biggest” club never to have played in the Premier League.

I’ve since had a debate with someone on twitter who thinks Preston, Notts County and Millwall are all bigger than us. Millwall is clearly a nonsense claim on any measure, but the argument for Preston and Notts County is on the basis of honours.

So, how do YOU define how “big” a club is? And do you agree with are the biggest not to play in the PL? And who are the contenders for that unwanted title?!

Twitter debate here:

 

To go from small club to BIG club, you do have to have played against the best in he Premiership. Bristol City haven’t, so small club still IMO.

[WWred]

The big clubs are just the "big clubs" now.. I can't see what will change that

 

You've got players leaving clubs like Brighton - a club in the absolute form of their life looking to break into the top 4/6 still leaving to play for the likes of Chelsea or Liverpool rather than staying where they are trying to build something

 

When Leicester won the league players still left for these "big clubs".. 

 

It is what it is now we're too late to become a big club 

[Davefevs]

38 minutes ago, fisherrich said:

To go from small club to BIG club, you do have to have played against the best in he Premiership. Bristol City haven’t, so small club still IMO.

So, it’s all 1992 onwards then?

[Tinmans Love Child]

15 minutes ago, WWred said:

The big clubs are just the "big clubs" now.. I can't see what will change that

 

You've got players leaving clubs like Brighton - a club in the absolute form of their life looking to break into the top 4/6 still leaving to play for the likes of Chelsea or Liverpool rather than staying where they are trying to build something

 

When Leicester won the league players still left for these "big clubs".. 

 

It is what it is now we're too late to become a big club 

Agreed, look at Newcastle, nearly 60k stadium, loads of prem experience, champions league, all the rest of it, but still won't ever be one of the big clubs.  I guess Chelsea and Man City are the ones who have broken into that group due to the money, but they had some form of provenance, I can't see even if we had that level of financial input and we win things that we would ever be considered one of the big clubs 

[2015]

Depends on when you were growing up really.

We're not a 'big' club. We're a club from a big City, but that's where the 'big' ends. 

We have a very average history, i'm sorry to say it.

I also don't think you can measure a big club on major honours nowadays because if you are not Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs, Arsenal or Chelsea the chances are it is very unlikely you'd win a major trophy. Leicester are the exception to that rule, I know, but Football was different 30+ years ago and you would have the likes of Wimbledon and Coventry winning the FA Cup and Oxford, Swindon, Norwich winning the League Cup.

Edited September 28, 2023 by 2015

[fisherrich]

1 hour ago, 2015 said:

Depends on when you were growing up really.

We're not a 'big' club. We're a club from a big City, but that's where the 'big' ends. 

We have a very average history, i'm sorry to say it.

I also don't think you can measure a big club on major honours nowadays because if you are not Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Newcastle, Spurs, Arsenal or Chelsea the chances are it is very unlikely you'd win a major trophy. Leicester are the exception to that rule, I know, but Football was different 30+ years ago and you would have the likes of Wimbledon and Coventry winning the FA Cup and Oxford, Swindon, Norwich winning the League Cup.

Agreed - Which is precisely what Bristol City is - average at best.