Clubs That Punch Below Their Weight

[littleyellowbirdie 2,576]

13 hours ago, Oval Canary said:

Gillingham. The only professional league club in the whole of Kent. No local competition but never seem to do anything and have languished in the lower leagues for what seems like forever.

up until very recently Brighton. Similar to Gillingham with a large population in the surrounding area. Until Crawley moved up through the leagues they were the only professional club in East and West Sussex.

3 professional clubs in a very large chunk of South East England is a poor show in itself with very little silverware on show.

It's really odd, because there's a lot of support for London clubs in Kent, but everyone moans about the commute.

When Peter Taylor got them into the Championship, I really thought it might be the start of something, but they managed a while as Championship strugglers and fizzled out, .

[JonnyJonnyRowe 451]

16 hours ago, chicken said:

Bradford. Almost twice the population of Norwich.

They had an 8 season stretch in the top two tiers peaking with two seasons in the prem in 98-99 and 99-00.

Relegation in the last season of the old Division One in 04-05 has seen them bobble around the 3rd and 4th tier ever since.

Their highest finish in that time was 5th in League One. In 22/23 they had the highest average attendances in league two with over 18,000.

To put that into perspective, only three clubs in League One can boast as good or better attendances this season according to https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/league-one/besucherzahlen/wettbewerb/GB3/saison_id/2023. Even nine teams in the championship are the same or worse.

Other than the two seasons in the prem, there really isn't much to write about before that. Until the '85-86 season they'd never been higher than the 3rd tier.

 

I actually met a Bradford fan this morning at my daughters footy session, and first thing I said was "you get insane gates for League Two don't you".

To which he replied that because they count all season tickets on the gate they seem really high, but many thousands don't turn up, they have the cheapest season tickets in the country at £250 for an adult, whereas a casual ticket is £20 if purchased early but £25 if you purchase near the game.

£20 x 23 = £460 in casual tickets, or up to £575.

So even if you think you'll only attend a dozen games a year you'd be better off purchasing the season ticket. 

Still, I'm not arguing against your point, that it is a huge city for a League Two side and that their attendances belong at a higher level, just saying that the attendances aren't as impressive as they outwardly appear.

Edited April 20 by JonnyJonnyRowe

[The Raptor 1,231]

York is the size of Norwich at least. I don't remember them ever being higher than the 4th division/league 2. Could do better 

[essex canary 504]

1 hour ago, The Raptor said:

York is the size of Norwich at least. I don't remember them ever being higher than the 4th division/league 2. Could do better 

They were in the Championship equivalent in 74/75 when they doubled us including a 3-2 win at Carrow Road with 2 goals in the first 90 seconds in front of a huge crowd who were claiming tickets for the Man Utd. League Cup semi 4 days later which we won 1-0.

[Corbs1 90]

As I’ve said more times than I care to mention, we are a very successful club, others like York, Exeter, Plymouth, Grimsby, Rochdale, Peterborough, Northampton etc etc could be more successful than us, and many others.

Not sure how the Middle East came into this discussion, today was supposed to be my day off from the horror unfolding; but hoping all people are free from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea/  🇵🇸 

[GodlyOtsemobor 2,356]

PSG, Absolute wet lettuces in Europe, bully boys of France. Really should do better elsewhere.