How does Leicester become a 'big club'

[sly1]

Were leicester city we big in the world .I love it small club who are we c,mon leicester boy's.

[Bazly]

This big club bit is a near term thing.

 

Chelsea weren't a big club until the Chelski era, before that they were mid table and relegated regularly to division 2. Man City hadn't won the league forever until the oil Kingdom of UAE took them over in 2008. So, it only takes a short time of consistency to establish a team as a top team. Say over a 10 year period. So long as Leicester can win a couple of league titles, maybe an FA cup and well placed in European competitions then Leicester could be a big club by 2025.

 

Similarly it takes about 10 years for a top side to fade and pretty much die as a top team. There have been many of those over the years - Preston NE, Sheffield United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Leeds United, Blackpool, Everton, Liverpool and a few others.

[foxy boxing]

A big club is history +trophies+fan base+money generated with the tv money the gap between the big clubs and the rest become less coupled with the foreign ownership the traditional big clubs no longer exist so the objective for teams like Leicester is sustained success which will make us more attractive to the world market which have been dominated by man utd,Liverpool etc

[Dan]

Success, stature, fanbase, stadium & facilities.

 

I've never bought that Forest for example are some giant club. They're successful, more so than us, but they aren't big.

[Flyfox]

5 years or so in the top 4, tacky merchandise being sold across globe (and Sports Direct) a constant stream of coverage about trivial/unsubstantiated 'club rumours' and a marque signing at a ridiculously over-inflated price.

I sincerely hope we stay little but win big, we're fine as we are.

[The Year Of The Fox]

Winning the Premier League might do it.

Like Blackburn?

[whetstonefox]

A sustained period in the upper reaches of the Premier league would be a start, we've had so many false dawns over our history, now is the best chance we'll have to push on.

12 years is our longest spell in the top flight, be nice to beat that and some.

Doubt we'll ever be seen as a 'big club' but that's the fate of most clubs, and frankly I can live with being seen as a decent sized club capable of winning a cup or now the league!

[Aus Fox]

It's all relative to the club you support, in the example the op user. Would Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal supporters say Newcastle are a big club?

Probs not.

Would supporters of Northampton, Chesterfield etc say Wolves are a big club? Yes.

I suppose you become a big club when supporters all over the globe, unanimously class you as a big club.

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Byern Munich, AC Milan etc.

In England possibly only Manchester United would be universally classed as a big club, and they are a way behind the Spanish duo.

There is a lot more than any one single thing, but a sustained period of success such as what Liverpool had in the 80s or united more recently is certainly the key to everything.

But look at Forest, back to back European Cups, but would anyone outside Nottingham class them as a big club?

For us, to start next season we need to have a good champions league run quarter finals would start the ball rolling.

We need to qualify for ththe champions League again.

We need to increase the capacity of the stadium to at least 40,000 and regularly fill it.

We need to keep hold of players like Mahrez, Kasper and Kante who are building strong names for themselves around Europe.

Things like the huge donation to the hospital this week will also help get us strong publicity globally for doing the right thing.

[Sir Shep]

It comes down to Facebook likes and Twitter followers doesn't it?

[Guest Col city fan]

Define 'big club'..

That's the first thing to do.

Fanbase, crowd, trophies, shirts sold...what exactly are we talking about?

At present, we are big aren't we?

[davieG]

What's  the obsession with being a big club many on here have little respect for the current big clubs.

 

Fans of big clubs tend to be more arrogant  and quickly forget their history and reside in stadiums with a silent air of expectation,  too much success changes fans

 

 

It's  difficult with the present set up you're either part of a top 4/5 elite, a group hanging on to the shirt tails of the elite desperately trying to make the Europa League and then not really caring about it in case in plunges you down the league to the next group of mid table survivors playing desperate  football in an attempt to avoid the group below. The perennial relegation dodgers.   

 

On the face of it it's  not a very appealing scenario. 

 

I just want to be able to watch entertaining, competitive  football in an awe inspiring atmosphere  for a reasonable price, I'll  take that and where ever it leads us.

[katieakita]

Does a club generally defined as being a big club doing a lap of honour after a dodgy last minute winner against you make you a big club?

[Voll Blau]

What's  the obsession with being a big club many on here have little respect for the current big clubs.

 

Fans of big clubs tend to be more arrogant  and quickly forget their history and reside in stadiums with a silent air of expectation,  too much success changes fans

 

 

It's  difficult with the present set up you're either part of a top 4/5 elite, a group hanging on to the shirt tails of the elite desperately trying to make the Europa League and then not really caring about it in case in plunges you down the league to the next group of mid table survivors playing desperate  football in an attempt to avoid the group below. The perennial relegation dodgers.   

 

On the face of it it's  not a very appealing scenario. 

 

I just want to be able to watch entertaining, competitive  football in an awe inspiring atmosphere  for a reasonable price, I'll  take that and where ever it leads us.

 

This. And to continue to do it in the dignified manner we've done it this season, building a team rather than buying it in, preferably.

[Bluetintedspecs]

Define 'big club'..

That's the first thing to do.

Fanbase, crowd, trophies, shirts sold...what exactly are we talking about?

At present, we are big aren't we?

Personally bud I have never got the obsession with this 'big club' bollocks, Leicester City, in some of the darker days, were still mine and our club!

Newcastle, Villa, Leeds, they're big clubs aren't they? Would you swap with them?

[MC Prussian]

The question that I ask myself is: Do we need to become a so-called "big club"?

 

I mean, for years and decades we've sort of thrived on the fact that we've always drifted between the top two divisions as "little old Leicester". The infrastructure has been in place for a while now, we've acquired the right set of players, have a terrific team spirit and a fantastic fanbase that have both enamored the world of football.

 

The way I look at it is that we ought to keep this spirit that has brought us this far and - in a way - neglect to aspire what the "others" have become. You want to ride on this wave of empathy and positivity for as long as you can, and for that, both the team and the fans should find a solution to preserve this for as long as possible. You never know when or whether things can turn sour again (and we've gotten to know that side of the coin very well in the past ten to fifteen years).

 

But you have to wonder how the club are going to approach this task. They - alongside the fans to a certain extent - do need to find ways to present LCFC to the outside world and to market the brand professionally - true to the heritage of the club and its history. That's a huge ask and I'm curious to find out how the senior staff members and the owners are going to approach this.

[davieG]

This. And to continue to do it in the dignified manner we've done it this season, building a team rather than buying it in, preferably.

 

 

Yes and this.

[Hotdogsandwich69]

You never know. Modern football is something else. Everyone is rooting for Leicester with shit like Twitter and Facebook. An underdog story like this picks up ridiculous steam pretty quick.

As long as Leicester keep key players, you never know. It's not like Chelsea and man city were all that back then (although they bought their glory)

[Spudulike]

It's not just a status thing. I want the respect of other fans and seen as a decent and proper club that others can aspire to. We've had to live with the jokes and patronising little old Leicester crap throughout our lives and I want the world to see us in a different light. And not just our football club but also our city. Time to move out of the shadows.

[leicesterseddon]

Size of the city makes a difference too - historically, bigger clubs are from big cities.

It's why Newcastle are generally regarded as a bigger club than Wolves, and why no one sees Blackburn as a big club despite quite a lot of success in the last 25 years.

[Foxxed]

Champions League position, four seasons in a row.

[ithuriel]

Sustained top flight status - we have periods of this but then drop away for equal periods of time.

Large ground with fan base - getting there.

Winning trophies - won the title, 3 league cups and the charity shield but also lost 4 FA cup and 2 league cup finals, need to win a fair bit more silverware.

Playing in Europe - rarely but hopefully we can change that now.

Being champions of that clubs top league at least once - hardest task now completed.

Constant media exposure - this is Leicester City, always in the national news for something but now globally known.

[gerrytaggart]

Big club little club. Who gives a shit.

We are Leicesterrrrrr

[Guest Bilo]

I echo those who've said fan base and success.

 

Look at the area in which the club sits. Not only a one club city, but a one club county. You can take that even further - Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire all border Leicestershire and the next biggest club after us in those counties is Peterborough United - and all are within driving distance of Filbert Way.

 

The potential fanbase of Leicester City is therefore pretty huge, around three million people in the catchment area I've mentioned.

 

However, to tap into it, we'll need a few things.

 

1) Sustained success. Everyone wants a piece of Leicester City right now, but everyone wanted a piece of Blackburn in 1995 and Forest in the early 80s. Both are now poor Championship clubs playing in front of swathes of empty seats each week, their success and big club status little more than fading memories. It's vital we build on the foundations and become a regular, top 10 Premier League club. We might never win the league again, but being in the top 10 clubs in the country on a regular basis would make the fan base sustainable.

2) Continued investment. The new TV deal, coupled with the enormous CL deal and global exposure earned this season, mean the club is going to be minted. Unfortunately, so will pretty much every club in the PL this season - the TV money may prove a leveller. This is both an opportunity and a challenge - an opportunity because we've earned ourselves a significant advantage in the transfer market in terms of both money and what we can offer a player, Champions League football and a growing football club, and a challenge because we now have clubs like Burnley, Bournemouth and others who will now look at pushing the boat out in an effort to 'do a Leicester.' We must be smart in the transfer market, continue to buy quality over quantity and keep making progress.

3) Extend the stadium. If, by this time next year, we remain a successful Premier League club, not extending the stadium would be ill advised. The average attendance in the Premier League is greater than our capacity - and our potential fan base is enormous. Leicester fans ought to be able to get to games, but the harsh truth is we now have considerably more than 32,000 fans wanting to attend home games every week. It was true last season, and it's true this season. Fans left disappointed because they can't even obtain home tickets for games against Burnley and Middlesbrough, let alone CL games against Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, may soon become disillusioned. After all, with a stadium capacity of 32,000, there will only ever be a finite number of season tickets and memberships available -  a finite number that will need to be raised if this isn't a flash-in-the-pan. 

 

We can become a truly big club, and it's not hard to see how we might become one, but we're not there yet. There's still work to be done, but this season has laid a genuinely unprecedented foundation for a club of our size to raise to the next level.

[Innovindil]

I'll take being the biggest little club over being the littlest big club all day every day.

And what makes a big club is consistency. A big club will always be there or thereabouts.

[Guest Bilo]

What's  the obsession with being a big club many on here have little respect for the current big clubs.

 

Fans of big clubs tend to be more arrogant  and quickly forget their history and reside in stadiums with a silent air of expectation,  too much success changes fans

 

 

It's  difficult with the present set up you're either part of a top 4/5 elite, a group hanging on to the shirt tails of the elite desperately trying to make the Europa League and then not really caring about it in case in plunges you down the league to the next group of mid table survivors playing desperate  football in an attempt to avoid the group below. The perennial relegation dodgers.   

 

On the face of it it's  not a very appealing scenario. 

 

I just want to be able to watch entertaining, competitive  football in an awe inspiring atmosphere  for a reasonable price, I'll  take that and where ever it leads us.

 

Fair.

 

I think we can all get on board with that message.