This rhetoric was exaggerated so much by our recent success. Media outlets portraying us as some provincial no-hopers who rose from nowhere just because it made for a better story. Even those at the top of the football club believe that tripe now.
We are not a small club. We had periods of considerable success in the 20s, 60s and 90s before the recent silverware. Until 2008, we'd never been outside the top two divisions (which was and is a list populated by the biggest clubs in England). The way the media (and a good portion of our fanbase) harp on, you'd think we'd spent the majority of our history in the Vanarama.