Snobbery towards small clubs

[Guest stevieintoon]

An acquaitance of mine, who is Scottish insists it's a disgrace Gretna and their 2,000 average gate, in the SPL, have no right being there, I vehemently disagree. I've even heard myself at an away game saying, "what's these daft cunts doing in the Premiership", I used to utter it every season at Selhurst Park when our 10-15,000 support would outnumber Wimbledon 2 to 1. When you think about it though what do we want? Do we want a closed shop where only clubs with support over 30,000 deserve their Premiership status, or do we leave the door open to the little man in the street. Nothing would've given me greater satisfaction than to see Colchester up in the Premiership, primarily because it was all done on hard work, no money, 5000 gates and will to win. People argue some small clubs have bought their way up - who fucking cares?

 

It's saying little clubs who have not much support and have had a bit of money thrown at them have no right being in the Premiership.

 

Al Fayed pumped millions in to Fulham, as Whelan did with Wigan but Keegan/Tigana and Paul Jewell still had hugely difficult tasks.

 

If all it was, every year was the elite biggest 20 clubs in England it would look like this:

 

Man Utd

Arsenal

Liverpool

Newcastle

Chelsea

Everton

Leeds

Tottenham

Sunderland

Aston Villa

West Ham

Man City

Sheff Wed

Nottingham Forest

Wolves

Middlesbrough

Sheff Utd

Derby

Ipswich

Southampton

 

in my view....which would leave 7 of the current Premiership clubs, Blackburn, Bolton, Portsmouth, Wigan, Reading, Birmingham, Fulham out because they're not big enough, and their crowds don't warrant it.

 

I could argue that any of the above clubs aren't needed in the Premiership, but they're there because they've achieved their status as a Premiership club through hard work.

 

There's always been the mention the money spent on players, and their success and promotion has been bought, and it's always the same when a small club who have spent a bit come up.

 

It's funny though how two clubs who could be as big as anyone got promotion by spending more than anyone else, but that never gets a mention because of their status. When Leeds got promoted in 1990, they spent £13m, which was more than any other club in the top flight, two years later they were champions of England.

 

When Newcastle were promoted in 1993, we were spending millions on people like Andy Cole, when our divisional rivals, sides like Brentford, Peterborough and Southend were competing with a total wage budget of £15,000 a week. It's double standards really, it's OK for big clubs to gain promotion by splashing the cash but not the smaller ones.

 

Despite all that though, money never guarantees success. Derby were the biggest spenders outside the top flight for about 4 years, I remember they spent about £5m on Gabbiadini, Kitson and Tommy Johnson in one month, but it took them years to get promoted.

 

So back to Gretna, and the smaller Premiership clubs, they deserve their place and I'm pleased they're there. It keeps the dream alive for 72 clubs in England and 30 in Scotland, that no matter who you are it can be done if you have the will and means, and snobby fans of bigger clubs should pipe down. The snob in this case who stated "Gretna are not needed in the SPL", is a fan of mighty Motherwell

[Barney 0]

I quite like seeing some "smaller" clubs come up. It's nice to root for the under-dog sometimes. Portsmouth and their fans are a great addition to the PL IMO.

 

I'm currently reading a book on Clough and it's about his 44days at Leeds and his days at Derby. A fucking great read, but you get to see how big a club Derby/Leeds were. Leeds were huge under Revie.

[Lazarus 0]

A European super league will exclude the little clubs (albeit little on a continental level).

[RlCO 0]

I didn't mind the likes of Crystal Palace, you can hardly say they have fair weather support that you can maybe level at the likes of so called Premiership clubs Bolton or Wigan. And it was a London game we could be certain of winning and making the train journey worth it!

 

Definitely time for a league shake up though, it's no wonder clubs like Derby can't organically grow a supporter base when you can go from Chelsea to Hull in one season.

 

p.s. have a look at the bottom 3 in the championship: Norwich, Sheff Wed and QPR