Can we claim to be a big club

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Yellarbellyblade

Yellarbellyblade

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I love my club but I have pondered for a while whether we are truly a big club or not. We seem to feel we are and some at least look down on “smaller” clubs but is that right?

The last major trophy we won was in 1925. Since then the following clubs have won a major domestic trophy

Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Burnley, Leicester City, Everton, Newcastle United, Swansea City, Huddersfield Town, West Ham, Southampton, Stoke, WBA, Wolves, Cardiff City, Aston Villa, Derby County, Middlesbrough, Preston North End, Ipswich Town, Norwich City, Leeds United, QPR, Nottingham Forest, them lot, Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth, Charlton Athletic, Blackpool, Oxford United, Wimbledon, Luton Town, Coventry City & Swindon Town (may have missed some)

We have a large and mostly loyal support and are based in a major city but do we have to win something again before we can claim to be a big club or doesn’t that matter?

Discuss
 



Smaller than the likes of Leeds and Sunderland.

A lot smaller than Newcastle, Everton, West Ham.

Miles smaller than Man Utd, Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs.

We're basically the same as Wolves, Derby, Forest, Wednesday, Leicester, Norwich, Southampton, Stoke, Middlesbrough, West Brom.

So yeah, above average, but not massive. We're basically a 7 incher.

If we judged it solely on winning shit we'd probably be a 5.5 incher.
 
We are about 18th in major trophies list and about the same in all time average crowds.
Currently we have more trophies than about half the premier league. Bottom portion of the top tier is our natural position historically, I guess.
 
Its all relative. To the likes of Man U, Arsenal, Liverpool we’re an irrelevance that occasionally pops up in cup draws.

To the likes of Crawley, Accrington and Barnsley we’re a pipe-dream to one day aspire to.
 
We've punched well below our weight since World War II but especially so since 1976. I blame successive boards for having (mainly bar the odd year or two exception) a small time attitude, I don't think having a fair proportion of our fanbase (what I call club apologists) towing the club line and attempting to justify at times a total lack of ambition from the board helps.

If we at least punched our weight we would be a regular fixture in the top flight, have the occasional venture into Europe (proper competition not a holiday or preseason friendly either) and get too and win the odd cup final. It would be actually nice for once to get to a FA cup or League cup semi final where we were the favourites instead of the plucky underdogs from a lower division.
 
A good question by the original poster, but I think we can claim to be a big club. Certainly not as big as the top 7 of the Premier League, but definitely worthy of being with the rest of them if we were to get there.

I don't think the size of a Football club should always be measured by it's success on the field, that's something the fans have no control over. We have massively under-achieved since WW2. If Brian Clough had taken over Sheffield United or any other club of our stature, who knows, they could have won two European cups.

We haven't won a major trophy since 1925, we have had as many play-off failures, we have been as disillusioned with our owners as any club, we have seen six successive years of league one Football and still maintained crowds around the 17k to 20k mark in recent years. For those reasons we are definitely well supported, and have the foundations to be a big club.
 
SUFC Handsworth said:
I don't think having a fair proportion of our fanbase (what I call club apologists) towing the club line and attempting to justify at times a total lack of ambition from the board helps.
Click to expand...

I’ve never quite understood this line. How can the fans make an owner spend more?

I was all for BIFA campaigning against Brearley because he was a lying chuff and the club was clearly rotting. But prior to that Brearley left us with a crook, so it was still something of a risk. And we’ve had a series of clowns pretending to the ownership, from Hashimi to Collombotti.

It’s frustrating to see no mark clubs attract benefactors and overtake us, but I’m certain McCabe would sell if he felt the club was going to be in good hands. I don’t think he’s hanging around to pinch pennies by turning down bidders.

What we as fans have been decent at is taking action when owners take the piss. But I’m not sure we should agitate against owners who simply aren’t as rich as we’d like.
 
We have the foundation (ground/fans/structure/facilities) of a lower table Prem/upper Champ club, which is exactly where we've been for the majority of my time as a Blade.

Sadly what we lack is the backing of a club higher than this, which means what we lack in financial muscle we must make up for in guile both on and off the pitch.

That's why overall i'm happy with how we are right now. I think we have the best management team we could possibly have in this scenario.

Also, people make this question too binary for my liking. It's not a question of either big or small, there's more than two options, it's more of a sliding scale.
Compared to Man Utd, we are definitely not a big club. In the grand scheme of things in English professional football then yes, you could say we're a big club.
 
Yellarbellyblade said:
I love my club but I have pondered for a while whether we are truly a big club or not. We seem to feel we are and some at least look down on “smaller” clubs but is that right?

The last major trophy we won was in 1925. Since then the following clubs have won a major domestic trophy

Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Burnley, Leicester City, Everton, Newcastle United, Swansea City, Huddersfield Town, West Ham, Southampton, Stoke, WBA, Wolves, Cardiff City, Aston Villa, Derby County, Middlesbrough, Preston North End, Ipswich Town, Norwich City, Leeds United, QPR, Nottingham Forest, them lot, Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth, Charlton Athletic, Blackpool, Oxford United, Wimbledon, Luton Town, Coventry City & Swindon Town (may have missed some)

We have a large and mostly loyal support and are based in a major city but do we have to win something again before we can claim to be a big club or doesn’t that matter?

Discuss
Click to expand...

This is a very easy question:

It’s not about the history, achievements, traditions, size of city, average attendances, it’s only about money.

And no we are not.

We could be, easily, but we aren’t. We are smaller than Burnley, Huddersfield, Swansea, Palace, Bournemouth, Swansea, Stoke, and God knows what other tin pot clubs from the past.

But we still have fans on here who don’t want us to get promoted because we may not be ready!:tumbleweed:
 
I think if we actually won a major cup then (on the streets of Sheffield at least) it would be like England had won a world cup!!

The fans (last season excepted) have been starved of success. Remind yourself of what the scenes were like last year. Now imagine those scenes if we won for example - the FA cup?

In terms of size I always compare us to the likes of WBA, Stoke, Forest, Derby etc.... But if you compare against these teams over the last 20-30 years then we have under-performed terribly.

We need an owner who will take this club by the scruff of the neck & get us to the next level........ Is there an owner out there that could do this? for every Man City owner there is a Fawaz....

I just wish ti could be our turn in the sunshine for once... (whistles section 60 tune...).
 
Valleyblade said:
Size doesn't matter.
It's what you do with it that counts.
Look at Swansea, Bournemouth, etc.
Click to expand...

Bit of small man syndrome there IMHO. ;)

Swansea, Bournemouth have had recent investment and are having their moment in the sun. BUT we have had 4 FA Cup wins (yes it's quite a while ago), and we were mostly in the top flight right from the 1890's to 1970's. We are still getting 25K crowds now and have a fantastic ground and a manager that can take us to the next level if he is backed sufficiently.

Size does matter and I think we are a big club that is about to rise again :rolleyes:
 
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United (and the grunters) fit comfortably somewhere in the 15th to 30th places on the list of "Big Clubs" ie bottom of top league, half way up the second one - at least historically.
 
Being a "big" club is surely down to their fan base, we are a large enough club because we have a good following, but we are not particularly well known around the world.
Unfortunately I'd have say the number of fans who follow the club has got to be what makes a club "big" we won't be near the man u/ city ect, who do have millions of "fans", without the investment or sucess.
 



Big club small club, you either support your club or you don't. Could be worse, you could be an Exeter fan or something
 
I suppose whatever your answer to what being a big club is, is an indication on how you view and value football.

For example, if I was to say its down to the size of the crowds I'd be a football culture fan. If it was based on the history, then I'd be a living in the past football fan (or an Owl, if you will), if it was financial clout then I'd be a plastic fan, so on and so forth.

The reality is, it's a mix of those things to a varying degree depending on your outlook. Personally, I think we are a big club. We've won less than we 'deserve', we sustain a large fan base, have a good infrastructure and presence in the city and are now competing at a reasonable level.
 
We're a fairly big club with the potential to be bigger but have a chronically small time mentality.

We could become an established PL club with 40,000 attendances. It's entirely possible.

I'd rather be a passionate club than a big club though. But that train seems to have left the station...
 
I think one factor to consider is when the 'chips are down' - gates when you are at your worse

In this area we do well as we had a good average in Div 4 many years ago and throughout our league 1 years, the best for me are Man City who always turn up in big numbers whatever

Like to see some of the 'big' clubs' support in league 1, I can remember Chelsea and Newcastle getting crap gates some years ago
 
SK10Blade said:
Isn't this more of a question usually asked in S6, and one we constantly take the piss out of?
Click to expand...
We do but at the same time plenty on here trot out the same phrases about other clubs “tinpot” etc. especially when replying to Roy’s excellent View Froms. In general as a group they are more arrogant than us but there is a certain degree of hypocrisy on here because we do have a habit of trotting out some of the same lines. That’s why I asked the question to spark that debate.
 
We are a big city club which has massively under performed for 90years. The potential is there because it's a big city and big fan base.
But more often than not the club has made a big mess of being miss managed, bad ownership, bad managers, some horrendous decisions on player acquisitions and sometimes seemingly bad luck.
Play off finals,relegated on the last day of the season, Bloody Teves and West Ham, Hans Segars and bribes, if it can go wrong for us it has consistently
It is actually quite remarkable how strong the fan base has developed over the last few years with such despair on the pitch over decades.
I live in hope that one day fortune will favour us and I can book a mid week flight to Barcelona to watch us in the Champions League.
 
S64 Blade said:
I suppose whatever your answer to what being a big club is, is an indication on how you view and value football.

For example, if I was to say its down to the size of the crowds I'd be a football culture fan. If it was based on the history, then I'd be a living in the past football fan (or an Owl, if you will), if it was financial clout then I'd be a plastic fan, so on and so forth.

The reality is, it's a mix of those things to a varying degree depending on your outlook. Personally, I think we are a big club. We've won less than we 'deserve', we sustain a large fan base, have a good infrastructure and presence in the city and are now competing at a reasonable level.
Click to expand...

some good points there, I like the idea that it's about a combination of things, and I agree that it depends what criteria you are using.

If someone asked me, "What is a big company?" I'd base my answer on global presence of the organisation - which I assume is linked to financial clout. As a club we've little or no global presence, compared to the likes of the Prem top 6 or 8 clubs. Nationally, we've a bigger presence than most due to the size of our fan base, but we're still outside the top 10.

Sometimes I'm not sure I'd like us to be a "big" club, and see us throwing millions at ridiculously overpriced petulant players who don't give a damn about the club, or owners who are the same. But at the same time I think if we don't get someone on board who can at least take our funding to a much higher level, we'll just slip behind and our future will be one of yo-yo ing between the second and third tiers of English football, as opposed to yo yo ing between the first and second tiers of English football, which is where history suggests we belong.
 
Whether you are a big club or not is not dependent upon what your own fans think, it is for others outside the realms of that particular club to judge. In this respect we are meh in this country and unheard of outside of it. So big club? Nope, not even in with a shout. That's the reality unless you are one of the imbeciles from S6.
 
Maybe this will help? o_O

f8c87bdc-0431-4a13-b537-368d0e1bc32d-620x416.png
 



JohnDenver said:
I’ve never quite understood this line. How can the fans make an owner spend more?

I was all for BIFA campaigning against Brearley because he was a lying chuff and the club was clearly rotting. But prior to that Brearley left us with a crook, so it was still something of a risk. And we’ve had a series of clowns pretending to the ownership, from Hashimi to Collombotti.

It’s frustrating to see no mark clubs attract benefactors and overtake us, but I’m certain McCabe would sell if he felt the club was going to be in good hands. I don’t think he’s hanging around to lose millions every year by turning down bidders.

What we as fans have been decent at is taking action when owners take the piss. But I’m not sure we should agitate against owners who simply aren’t as rich as we’d like.
Click to expand...

Spotted a typo JD.
 
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