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[Football] What makes a massive club a massive club?



Me and my Monkey

Me and my Monkey

Well-known member
Nov 3, 2015
3,354
I’m genuinely curious (as someone who knows nothing about football). I’m hearing a lot of supporters of various clubs lately informing the rest of us that their club is massive, and thereby really don’t deserve to find themselves in the unhappy positions they are in. So, do they have a point? And what is the definition of massiveness? Is it history? Age of club? Trophies won? Years spent in the top flight? Catchment area? Size of stadium? Wealth? If your club won loads of trophies in the first half of the 20th century, but none since, are you still massive? If you have won a few trophies/championships in the last decade or so, does that make you massive? Is Blackburn Rovers massiver than Leicester? Is Manchester United massiver that Manchester City? Well?
 










Guinness Boy

Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
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Jul 23, 2003
34,207
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
There is a linear line of massiveness that starts at Sheffield and goes to Newcastle via Leeds. If you're not on that, forget it.
 




jcdenton08

jcdenton08

Enemy of the People
NSC Patron
Oct 17, 2008
10,707
Domestic support - attendances, city size, cultural status - global appeal, merchandising. Go to Malaysia and you'll find a lot of Manchester United "fans", not so many supporting Reading.

Alongside that and arguably secondary to it, is success. Leicester aren't a "massive" club, and they won the PL a few years back. You don't see millions of new plastic Leicester fans because they don't have the same branding and commercial appeal - and never will.

Brighton could win back to back PL's and CL's and not be as "big" a club as Newcastle, because of the cultural perception.
 
















Guinness Boy

Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
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Jul 23, 2003
34,207
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
Authentic working class fans

tango.JPG


:whistle:
 




jcdenton08

jcdenton08

Enemy of the People
NSC Patron
Oct 17, 2008
10,707
Saladpack Seagull said:
To be really MASSIVE the club must be located in Yorkshire and have achieved virtually bugger all for donkey's years. I refer you to Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday. Thread ends.......
Click to expand...

There are other "sleeping giants", Sunderland, Aston Villa to name a couple. Big support, big catchment of locals.

What annoys me about the fans is that by living in the past - their glory days - they are often so blinkered and deluded about their current status in the game. Fans of the likes of Sunderland, for example, truly resent the likes of Brighton or Brentford being in the PL while they are down in League One. They're the "bigger" club after all.

The fans of these big clubs, just from my own experiences, don't appreciate the concept of merit and just reward. In other words, they are entitled.
 




PeterT

PeterT

Well-known member
Apr 21, 2017
2,241
Hove
jcdenton08 said:
There are other "sleeping giants", Sunderland, Aston Villa to name a couple. Big support, big catchment of locals.

What annoys me about the fans is that by living in the past - their glory days - they are often so blinkered and deluded about their current status in the game. Fans of the likes of Sunderland, for example, truly resent the likes of Brighton or Brentford being in the PL while they are down in League One. They're the "bigger" club after all.

The fans of these big clubs, just from my own experiences, don't appreciate the concept of merit and just reward. In other words, they are entitled.
Click to expand...

Sunderland? Aston Villa? They think they are massive clubs because they maybe once were, but it creates a fan base that is constantly delusional. Sunderland can get 47,000 home fans but they are playing teams who were non-league until recently. Villa have always thought themselves a big club, because they invented the rules of football (or some similar claim), won the European Cup (before it was the Champions League) yet when I first started watching football they were in the 3rd division with the Albion and haven’t won a trophy since widescreen TV or the Internet were invented, hence why they keep sacking managers!

Big club, in no particular order, means that you tick several boxes including size of current support/stadium, potential fan base, trophies won, trophies won recently, league position and league you are playing in, etc etc. I’m sure there are more but I believe it’s not just one of these things alone, it needs to be a combination of several.
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
50,181
Faversham
The short answer is that whether a club is massive or not is a bit like whether it was a foul or not, or offside or not. If the referee says it is, then it is. Even if it isn't. If Macmanananaman says 'that was never offside' then it wasn't. Even if it was. Simple :shrug:

The long answer is:

In the UK:

ManU
Citeh
Chelsea
Arsenal
Liverpool.

That's it. And it correlates directly with shirt sales in the Far East. And is of no interest or relevance to anyone except those in marketting, and those aspiring to have massive shirt sales for their not-yet-massive clubs.

A big club, in contrast is a club that can attract top players on top money. This includes many other EPL clubs, but none in the Championship. I don't think Brighton is a big club, yet. Palace is. Sorry to bring bad news.

Oh, in the minds of players, a massive club is Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City (because of the trophy prospects, and wage potspects), PSG, Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid. However, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Athletico Madrid are merely big. To be massive you have to attract top top players, not merely top players.

All of the above is entirely my opinion, which may change at any moment, and I don't actually care if I'm right or not. In this context all I care about is :albion:
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
50,181
Faversham




Bold Seagull

Bold Seagull

strong and stable with me, or...
Mar 18, 2010
29,808
Hove
jcdenton08 said:
There are other "sleeping giants", Sunderland, Aston Villa to name a couple. Big support, big catchment of locals.

What annoys me about the fans is that by living in the past - their glory days - they are often so blinkered and deluded about their current status in the game. Fans of the likes of Sunderland, for example, truly resent the likes of Brighton or Brentford being in the PL while they are down in League One. They're the "bigger" club after all.

The fans of these big clubs, just from my own experiences, don't appreciate the concept of merit and just reward. In other words, they are entitled.
Click to expand...

We're all entitled! If we had been relegated from League One, while Crawley Town promoted from League Two, I suspect we would never have seen Crawley as a bigger club than us - ever. And yeah, had they made it to the Championship say while we're still in League Two, you saying we wouldn't be feeling our fair share of resentment and living in the past? I suspect we would every much as a Sunderland fan...
 




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