Can we ever be a “Powerhouse” of Football again?

[blades95]

 

[DaleHillBlade]

Only if we beat Bolton today !!

UTB

Given that the majority on here don't think we will ever amount to much and in fact, don't want to, perhaps we can't be heartbroken if the mighty Trotters beat us today. If we keep beating teams then we might get to the Play Offs or worse, get automatic promotion. Then they will all have to stop coming to football.

I understand the difference between aspiration and expectation. But to state that one doesn't want the team you support to win, because that is in effect what these comments mean. Unless we take the points but decline promotion? Barmy.

Don't wake Pinchy but the sound of cap doffing to the mighty Bournmouth and Fulham may just get his attention.

(A comment in general, not aimed at your post).

 

[WalkelyFan]

There a4re some interesting examples of teams that have bucked the trend and I am surprised no-one has mentioned Leicester City (AFAIK) who won the Premier League and made a decent fist of Europe too. But it'll be a while. I'd like to see it with Wilder though!

 

[grafikhaus]

'Can we ever be a Powerhouse again?' We never have been. That calls for a sustained spell in the top flight, winning trophies etc. Teams like Bournemouth, Watford, Burnley etc. are only paying a fleeting visit to the top flight. The real powerhouses are those who have done best since TV money transformed the game - Liverpool, Man. U, Man. City etc. Try watching 'All or Nothing' and you'll realise that even Man. Utd. have been left way behind by Manchester City.

 

[Addison]

Powerhouse no, Top 10 premiership team yes but only if both owners step aside.

 

[Pinchy]

Powerhouse no, Top 10 premiership team yes but only if both owners step aside.

To make way for?...

 

[Pinchy]

No, not without radically changing every fibre of our fabric. I can live without ever being a powerhouse again, but I wouldn’t want to think we couldn’t be a Burnley, Stoke, Swansea, Bournemouth, Cardiff, etc and at least have a few seasons in the sun.

Football pygmies, all of them.

 

[Pinchy]

Middle to top half Championship will do me win a few lose a few

Premiership is toxic

It is but if you don’t want to reach as high as you can, competitive professional sport is no place for you.

 

[DaleHillBlade]

Football pygmies, all of them.

Aspire to be a Burnley or a Cardiff, a Stoke or a Bournmouth (with all due respect to those clubs)??

Dear me.

 

[Topplayersleave]

The only way we'll ever even get close to the upper echelons is with massive financial investment, we all know that. It's so much about the money.

However, at some point, anything that makes you exceptional will get bought by a bigger, richer club anyway. Imagine we get to the Prem, build our team over a few seasons and get within touching distance of the top 6 (a la Burnley, say). That 20-goal a season striker who could've helped bridge the gap will get bought by a Man Utd or Chelsea. The superstar manager who performed beyond all expectations and resources will get job offers from someone like Spurs and leave because why wouldn't he? The fitness trainer who used innovative techniques to give our team the edge which gave us an extra 10 points a season will get snapped up by the scouts looking for the best performing staff across the football league. The exact same thing that happens in any industry.

The point is that anything or anyone that could help you break into the top four will almost inevitably get taken away from you by those very same teams who are in the top 4.

For me, the interesting point is that the only thing that can withstand that kind of dynamic is that which cannot get bought by money- passion for the club. A Billy Sharp or Chris Wilder who grew up in say Manchester or, ahem, Warrington, supporting entirely different teams, don't stick around any longer than necessary to help your club prosper - they move on for the money or prospects the first chance they get because that makes sense for them as someone who may like the club, but it's not 'in their blood'. There's a reason why Harry Kane, die hard spurs fan as a kid, is still at Tottenham despite the fact he could move to almost any club in the world, and to one that actually wins trophies.

All that's not to say that Sharp or Wilder or Kane would not move to another club to further their ambitions - they very well might. But that this may be the only thing that resists the dynamic described above. It's not impervious, but it does make a difference, and it's the reason why 'Bladey Bladeness' is absolutely not nonsense at all, it's vitally important when it comes to taking forward steps in the football world.

Essentially.. money makes all the difference in the world, but, at some point, it's the something else that actually makes the difference on top of that. Of course we have to get to that point in the first place though.

That's the way things work

I don't really think many would complain about us selling our 20 goal a season striker directly to Man City for £80 million

Once you start selling players for that amount of money you can always find world class replacements for £40 million or £50 million

Its when others benefit from our hard work because we cannot say no to them moving, and do not get enough to do anything but just tick along that annoys people

 

[Pinchy]

Do we need ‘billions’? No. We need about £5m for a good striker. We haven’t even got that.

We patently have, but don’t let that get in your way.

 

[Pinchy]

Aspire to be a Burnley or a Cardiff, a Stoke or a Bournmouth (with all due respect to those clubs)??

Dear me.

Absolutely. Only in S2 where the Bladey Inferiority Complex is always in vogue.

 

[BushBlade]

The last time we were a genuine powerhouse of football was in an era when football was in its infancy, teams were built from 11 local lads and some teams didn’t even exist.

Much would have to change for us to even have a sniff of that kind of success.

That^^^

The Football League consisted of 36 teams. The whole football league. Our league positions from 00-01 to 05-06 were as follows;
14, 10, 4, 7, 6, 13. We weren’t a powerhouse by any reasonable definition, in a league of 18 teams. Even with the head start we had of being one of the first cities to play organised football.

Football is now global and it is as close to impossible as it can be that we will ever catch up with clubs like Man U and Liverpool who have a world wide fan base and the income it provides through huge sponsorship deals. Leicester won the league and they’re still light years behind.
Could we win the PL once? Maybe, Leicester did it but it’s not very likely. Can we be a powerhouse? No chance. Were we ever? No, not really. We were just good for a while. Like Preston were, or Bolton, or Huddersfield etc.

 

[Caveblade]

No

 

[Isar]

To be a top 6 club in England requires huge investment an in some respects losing the clubs identity to the commercial world.
Attracting plastic supporters and being an image and a business.

I dont want us to be a top 6 club.

A few great seasons here and there, the odd cup win would do, and keep the soul of the club.

 

[Ainsley Harriott]

We patently have, but don’t let that get in your way.

We have? Could have fooled me. Here we are, about to play our 6th game of the season and we have 3 strikers, all over the age of 30 with a combined purchase value of not very much. We’ve had all this time to bring in a forward yet we’re taking it to the death.

We cannot continue to scrimp and scrape along waiting for ‘others to do business first’ every time. It works, sometimes, but not as often as we would like it to.

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

Aspire to be a Burnley or a Cardiff, a Stoke or a Bournemouth (with all due respect to those clubs)??

Dear me.

It's all about context, compare Burnley's trophy cabinet to ours and then talk about what constitutes a big club. They've won the Lancashire Senior Cup 12 times, we haven't.

Firstly, regardless of how those clubs are perceived by us and by what metric we use to judge them, they are now considered to be 'bigger' clubs than us by the global football fraternity. Admittedly, that view is based on shifting sands. Secondly, in the case of the clubs that I quoted, I meant that they represent either a team that has benefited from a talented manager and sensible acquisition and disposal policy or who haven't relied on a massive injection of money. Admittedly you could argue the toss either way for Bournemouth, but I put down the majority of their success to their manager and sensible recruitment. They are also clubs which are not glamorous and exist outside the bubbles of London, Liverpool & Manchester, again you could probably argue the toss with Bournemouth. We have the age & history of a big club, we have the potential fan base to be a big club, we have the structure to be a big club, but we currently aren't one and we probably won't be one again. As much as it hurts some people on here, pegging ourselves at Burnley's current level is probably at the upper levels of what we can achieve, without a total re-invention of the club & it's ownership.

 

[Birdwell Blade]

Given that the majority on here don't think we will ever amount to much and in fact, don't want to, perhaps we can't be heartbroken if the mighty Trotters beat us today. If we keep beating teams then we might get to the Play Offs or worse, get automatic promotion. Then they will all have to stop coming to football.

I understand the difference between aspiration and expectation. But to state that one doesn't want the team you support to win, because that is in effect what these comments mean. Unless we take the points but decline promotion? Barmy.

Don't wake Pinchy but the sound of cap doffing to the mighty Bournmouth and Fulham may just get his attention.

(A comment in general, not aimed at your post).

It's not that we don't want them to win, I don't think anyone has said that. Is buying trophies really winning?

 

[Pinchy]

We have? Could have fooled me. Here we are, about to play our 6th game of the season and we have 3 strikers, all over the age of 30 with a combined purchase value of not very much. We’ve had all this time to bring in a forward yet we’re taking it to the death.

We cannot continue to scrimp and scrape along waiting for ‘others to do business first’ every time. It works, sometimes, but not as often as we would like it to.

You missed the Waghorn offer then?

Wilders objective is not to ‘bring in a striker’. It’s to bring in a striker that he wants. ‘We’ are not taking it to the death, circumstances are.

Tufty has said many times that he is as frustrated as anyone, but people continue to hear what they want to hear, then distort it further to suit their case.

 

[Pinchy]

It's not that we don't want them to win, I don't think anyone has said that. Is buying trophies really winning?

A moot point, but a quite different one to whether we should aspire to go as high as we can. The latter, I would have thought, could be answered in an instant? Not for the B.I.C. sufferers in S2, apparently.

 

[Lane Ender]

It is but if you don’t want to reach as high as you can, competitive professional sport is no place for you.

You need serious investors to compete at that level we don’t attract thus.
Why do you have to belittle people with your posts ?

 

[Pinchy]

You need serious investors to compete at that level we don’t attract thus.
Why do you have to belittle people with your posts ?

I didn’t on this occasion, so the ‘why’ doesn’t apply. It’s an observation of truth. You won't find a professional sportsman or woman who doesn’t wish to reach the highest point in their chosen sport. Whether they can is a different matter.

 

[JayGreen17]

To summarise, we have never had owners with the financial clout to realise the clubs potential, and that’s quite sad when we see clubs like Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Southampton, Burnley.....I could go on and on...we have to be the biggest Supported club without any recent (70 years) historical significance...

Oh to be a Blade....