Fans thoughts of our standing in the game?

[Barry Sanchez]

Reading other posts on here tonight has made me question where our fans seem to think our standing is in the game, a genuine question where do you think we stand in terms of prestige, size, attendance and success over the last 50 years?

I think taking all these in to account we are about 20-25 largest in England.

[LGTL]

15th-20th largest.

[Goatboy]

Is there a prize for the correct answer?

[Restark19]

Biggest club in England, Europe and possibly even the world imho

[Lallana's Left Peg]

Fans generally exaggerate the size of the club they support - its understandable.

 

I don't know where we stand but I've always thought considering our catchment area for support and the for the size of the city itself that our home support was below average in terms of numbers. There are clubs with smaller urban areas that have better relative attendances and many are clubs that we think are smaller than ours. Of course you have to factor in success and ticket prices into that but even then I still think that.

 

However, one thing that is unequivocal is our great youth production and that helps our standing in the game and certainly our profile as well.

[Barry Sanchez]

Fans generally exaggerate the size of the club they support - its understandable.

 

I don't know where we stand but I've always thought considering our catchment area for support and the for the size of the city itself that our home support was below average in terms of numbers. There are clubs with smaller urban areas that have better relative attendances and many are clubs that we think are smaller than ours. Of course you have to factor in success and ticket prices into that but even then I still think that.

 

However, one thing that is unequivocal is our great youth production and that helps our standing in the game and certainly our profile as well.

 

Good answer that.

[Dig Dig]

Bigger than Everton & Spurs.

[The Cat]

Based on Barry's criteria we're lower down than we should be due to our heroic inability to win anything. A couple more finals or lower league titles would put us above an extra few teams but our lack of trophies severely counts against us.

 

Somewhere in the mid to late 20's is my guess.

[Graffito]

Bigger than Everton & Spurs.

 

Don't start.

[Barry Sanchez]

Based on Barry's criteria we're lower down than we should be due to our heroic inability to win anything. A couple more finals or lower league titles would put us above an extra few teams but our lack of trophies severely counts against us.

 

Somewhere in the mid to late 20's is my guess.

 

If you did it solely on trophies we would be lower down.

[The Cat]

Below Pompey.

[Graffito]

Below Pompey.

 

About the size of Max Clifford's pe*is then.

[BlakeySFC]

Difficult question.

 

Often fans exaggerate the size of the club they support and use various variables to try to prove that 'fact' correct such as cups won, leagues won, years in a certain league, legendary players produced etc. etc.

 

I would say in the Prem: United, City, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton, Newcastle, Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham and Sunderland are all 'bigger' clubs than we are. In the Championship I'd argue Leeds are a bigger club than us aswell.

 

In the whole spectrum of English football we're probably about the 13th biggest club in the country I'd say.

 

I've always thought of the club as very similar to Norwich. A family friendly middle class club that welcomes supporters young and old and I'm fine with that moniker.

[Barry Sanchez]

Difficult question.

 

Often fans exaggerate the size of the club they support and use various variables to try to prove that 'fact' correct such as cups won, leagues won, years in a certain league, legendary players produced etc. etc.

 

I would say in the Prem: United, City, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton, Newcastle, Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham and Sunderland are all 'bigger' clubs than we are. In the Championship I'd argue Leeds are a bigger club than us aswell.

 

In the whole spectrum of English football we're probably about the 13th biggest club in the country I'd say.

 

I've always thought of the club as very similar to Norwich. A family friendly middle class club that welcomes supporters young and old and I'm fine with that moniker.

 

Forest, Derby, Ipswich, Leicester, Sheffield Wednesday and United and Wolves could all argue that.

[simo]

Massive int we ?

[Goatboy]

We need some sort of points system to arrive at a definitive answer.

+20 for being in the Prem.

+10 for finishing top half.

-20 for only one major trophy in the last 50 years.

-10 for foam hands etc etc.

[BlakeySFC]

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/all-time-table

[Saint86]

Standing is based on the last 5-10 years not 50...

 

Which puts us in mighty good stead to be honest.

 

Club that has had a meteoric rise in england, good stadium, healthy finances, incredible youth production, 4 players in england squad (4th best in england?)... all pretty rosey.

 

For me we are easily 10-15th at the moment, and we sit 8th in the country on position with a young squad.

 

Now, unless you think teams like stoke, sunderland and west ham seriously have better "prestige" than us in current fans thoughts that is your choice.

 

But we are fast returning to our spot as nations favourite second team.... Long may it continue.. If the club continues its upward trend then we can expect to be challenging for europe in the next few seasons - pushing us up into top 10 in recent years....

 

Or, we will go flat/decline and sit around 15th-20th.... time will tell.

 

Why you would sell us short of 15th is beyond me... Name 15clubs you would say are definitely bigger than us in terms of current standing?

[saintmatt]

Based on Barry's criteria we're lower down than we should be due to our heroic inability to win anything. A couple more finals or lower league titles would put us above an extra few teams but our lack of trophies severely counts against us.

 

Somewhere in the mid to late 20's is my guess.

 

Ive never quite understood this thinking tbh - finishing 1st in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers is the equivalent to finishing 21st, 45th and 69th in the football league to me, nothing more. Any season in top flight should be regarded more highly than winning a lower league trophy imo, otherwise we effectively handicapped ourselves in our 27 consecutive years etc.

 

Agree on other points though, especially lack of first class trophies - one thing that always annoys me is that skates have more than us and we've underachieved (albeit slightly imo) for a club of our size!

[adrian lord]

We have strong prestige and admiration throughout the game mainly because of the Academy's sustained success over the last 15 years, and partly too because we have tried to play 'the right way' on our rise up from the depths.

 

We have however, underachieved massively on a long term look-back, and have only one serious trophy, from way back in 76. This undermines our 'size'.

 

We have a solid core home support of about 20,000 who will go even in league one. Not bad but we don't have the tens of thousands of plastic glory hunters that tag on in the Prem like they do at Chelsea etc. which I am sad to say do contribute to 'size'. Neither are we blessed with a 'sleeping giant' globally entrenched and long-embedded 'granite' fan base like, say, Leeds are. We have no profile outside of England, plastic or granite.

 

All in all, we are in the upper-reaches of the group of medium sized city clubs that have had only modest success, sustain a sizeable local fan base, but have no international profile.

 

Can we break out and make a quantum-leap in 'size'? Probably not - even if we had a Notts Forest type run of success in CL and PL, I think we would, like Forest, still be a medium sized club that, once upon a time, had a purple patch.

Edited 20 March, 2014 by adrian lord

[CB Fry]

We have strong prestige and admiration throughout the game mainly because of the Academy's sustained success over the last 15 years, and partly too because we have tried to play 'the right way' on our rise up from the depths.

 

We have however, underachieved massively on a long term look-back, and have only one serious trophy, from way back in 76. This undermines our 'size'.

 

We have a solid core home support of about 20,000 who will go even in league one. Not bad but we don't have the tens of thousands of plastic glory hunters that tag on in the Prem like they do at Chelsea etc. which I am sad to say do contribute to 'size'. Neither are we blessed with a 'sleeping giant' globally entrenched and long-embedded 'granite' fan base like, say, Leeds are. We have no profile outside of England, plastic or granite.

 

All in all, we are in the upper-reaches of the group of medium sized city clubs that have had only modest success, sustain a sizeable local fan base, but have no international profile.

 

Can we break out and make a quantum-leap in 'size'? Probably not - even if we had a Notts Forest type run of success in CL and PL, I think we would, like Forest, still be a medium sized club that, once upon a time, had a purple patch.

 

About right.

 

We have a "par" level for our size which stretches from mid -table Prem to mid-table Championship.

 

The same as many clubs from Derby to Sheffield Wednesday.

 

We are tracking just above par at present, much like we were significantly under par in L1 (as Wolves are now).

 

It is highly unlikely that we are going to break out of that anytime soon, just as it is highly unlikely that Everton will spend a decade in L2 or S****horpe to spend a decade in the Premier League.

 

Every club has a "natural level" and it takes a long time to change it...Not impossible as Swansea, Wigan, Oxford or Luton will tell you.

 

But Saints are what we are.

[Give it to Ron]

Is the answer below Liverpool? (See The Lounge)

[ecuk268]

Adam Johnson has been moaning about not being in the England squad. He reckons it's because he plays for Sunderland and says that only players at the big clubs get to play for England and that a lot of the current squad wouldn't be there if they didn't play for the "big" clubs.

 

As we had 4 players in the last squad we must be a pretty big club.

[Goatboy]

Is the answer below Liverpool? (See The Lounge)

 

Barry! Barry! We have a winner!

[VectisSaint]

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/all-time-table

Looking at that table we have 755 games in hand over Man U. If we won 618 of those games we would be top. So that would make us the bestest team in England.

[ottery st mary]

Definitely in the top ten.

 

More respect coming from all quarters.

 

Many now see us as a middle Prem team...moving into the top 8/9.

 

By next season we will be sitting at the top table....

 

All this goes to RAT if all our players are stolen.

[Chewy]

This is a really tough ask, and I suspect that people's answers depend on how long their memories are. I'd say there's a few levels

Elite: Man U, Chelsea, arsenal, Liverpool. I'll leave out city due to lack of history in elite.

Big clubs: city, spurs, Newcastle, Everton, Leeds, and just about villa

Large: Sunderland, Sheffield wed, forest (twice euro cup winners), possibly west ham.

And then there's a load of mid-sized clubs: saints, Middlesbrough, Sheffield utd, Blackburn, stoke, derby, Leicester, Coventry, wolves, WBA, Birmingham, Charlton, palace, Ipswich, Norwich, and bottom of this pile Pompey. Maybe Bolton, maybe qpr, and just about Fulham too. Of this bunch I'd say we are about the biggest, but Blackburn, derby, wolves, Ipswich and Pompey have won league titles in the past, and a few have much longer league histories than ours.

 

On trophies, we don't fair well, but on consistency over 40 years we are probably 15th or so and stadium wise I believe we are 16th. That's about our level. But, I'd argue that we have the country's premier academy at the moment that gives cause for optimism that we can improve our standing. Of course, selling them all this summer would put a downer on that optimism.

[Goatboy]

This is a really tough ask, and I suspect that people's answers depend on how long their memories are. I'd say there's a few levels

Elite: Man U, Chelsea, arsenal, Liverpool. I'll leave out city due to lack of history in elite.

Big clubs: city, spurs, Newcastle, Everton, Leeds, and just about villa

Large: Sunderland, Sheffield wed, forest (twice euro cup winners), possibly west ham.

And then there's a load of mid-sized clubs: saints, Middlesbrough, Sheffield utd, Blackburn, stoke, derby, Leicester, Coventry, wolves, WBA, Birmingham, Charlton, palace, Ipswich, Norwich, and bottom of this pile Pompey. Maybe Bolton, maybe qpr, and just about Fulham too. Of this bunch I'd say we are about the biggest, but Blackburn, derby, wolves, Ipswich and Pompey have won league titles in the past, and a few have much longer league histories than ours.

 

On trophies, we don't fair well, but on consistency over 40 years we are probably 15th or so and stadium wise I believe we are 16th. That's about our level. But, I'd argue that we have the country's premier academy at the moment that gives cause for optimism that we can improve our standing. Of course, selling them all this summer would put a downer on that optimism.

 

:nod:like:nod:

[igsey]

Only rivalled by Io Rovers for largest club in the solar system.

[BadgerBadger]

To improve our standing we need regular top half finishes for many years, a few trophies and a decent level of consistency

[Kenilworthy]

It is about time that the authorities woke up to reality. We do not have all-seater stadiums now. We have very large areas, particularly away sections, that are effectively just terraces with seats on them. You only had to have been at Selhurst Park two weeks ago to see how potentially dangerous that is. So either the seating regulations are enforced and people are made to sit - which is a ship that sailed long ago as we have a 20 year legacy of mass standing in seating areas. Or we introduce properly designed and regulated safe standing.

[Barry Sanchez]

Standing is based on the last 5-10 years not 50...

 

Which puts us in mighty good stead to be honest.

 

Club that has had a meteoric rise in england, good stadium, healthy finances, incredible youth production, 4 players in england squad (4th best in england?)... all pretty rosey.

 

For me we are easily 10-15th at the moment, and we sit 8th in the country on position with a young squad.

 

Now, unless you think teams like stoke, sunderland and west ham seriously have better "prestige" than us in current fans thoughts that is your choice.

 

But we are fast returning to our spot as nations favourite second team.... Long may it continue.. If the club continues its upward trend then we can expect to be challenging for europe in the next few seasons - pushing us up into top 10 in recent years....

 

Or, we will go flat/decline and sit around 15th-20th.... time will tell.

 

Why you would sell us short of 15th is beyond me... Name 15clubs you would say are definitely bigger than us in terms of current standing?

 

I thought next year was the final year of the five year plan for Europe?

And being the Nations favourite 2nd team is what exactly?

[Bearsy]

I thought next year was the final year of the five year plan for Europe?

 

this is final season of five year plan to reach premier league. Fingers crossed!

[pap]

According to our fans, we're by far the greatest team the world has ever seen.

 

Can't back it up with too many trophies, unfortunately. I listen to a lot of football podcasts, and generally - they talk about two types of club. Big clubs or joke clubs. The fact that people are talking about us for other positive reasons gives us a rare standing in the game. Not a big club, but seen to be doing the right things and talked of well.