Big Club!

[Speedwell 🦊]

1 hour ago, dayday said:

Tommo, Le Tiss and I’m sitting there thinking Charlie Nicholas have been sacked 

Have they??why was that?

[Speedwell 🦊]

2 minutes ago, Speedwell 🦊 said:

Have they??why was that?

Yeah just googled it.I didn’t realise🙈

Shame that.I thought that was a good set tbh.

[Corky]

For me, it's about trying to maximise the opportunity you've got. Sign top players, appoint good managers, improve and upgrade facilities and engage with the fanbase and try to grow it. 

 

We're doing all those presently.

[Strokes]

I’d hate to be a fan of a big club, they don’t experience the lows, so have little appreciation for the highs by comparison.

[Hollyfox]

I'd love us to continually grow until we become a big club. 

I hate the fact Mahrez, Harry and Ben felt they needed to leave us to achieve things in their career, although I accept it and their fees have allowed us to grow. 

I want us to win things at home and abroad and high level players to want to come to us. 

 

That's what Vichai would have wanted, I'm sure💙

[Freeman's Wharfer]

Being a big club in the eyes of the media and pundits is influenced by two things:

 

1) How good were you when the football writers were kids?

2) How good were you when the pundits were playing?

 

Football writers now who are in their 50s (as most of the senior ones at the biggest papers are), for example, will have seen Liverpool as the dominant side when they first fell in love with football in the 80s and Leicester City as a fairly insignificant club. So even when Liverpool were pretty average they were still talked about in the media as a huge club. Similarly, they see Leicester as a small club.  

 

Football pundits who played in the 90s and 00s and are now retired will have played against Leicester at little Filbert Street and/or seen us languishing in The Championship and below. So their views of what Leicester City is now are hugely influenced by what we were then. The likes of Scholes, Hargreaves, Jenas, Murphy, Ferdinand and Owen who are the prominent pundits of today will struggle to see us as a big club because of what they’ve always known us as when they played.

 

The only way you overcome that is through consistent achievement and the mindset/mentality you display of wanting to show you are a big club. We’d need a good 10 years of challenging for European football, a couple of trophies and the infrastructure improvements to back up claims of being a big club to even start to change those ingrained perceptions of what Leicester City are.
 

What you’d want to be aiming for is a generation of those playing now, and kids growing up now, who in the next 10/20/30 years are going to be the main pundits/football media voices and who see Leicester as one of the top 8 clubs in the country.

 

I think there is the potential for it to happen when you look at the training ground, the stadium plans, the squad and manager we have and the way the club is managed off the pitch. But I don’t think it will: there’s an ingrained small time mentality amongst our fan base that won’t want to drive the club on to achieve.

 

You only have to see when Puel had us languishing, when we screwed an incredible top 4 opportunity and when Ranieri got sacked that there were so many “just happy to be here” types. Because we’ve come so far, there are too many in our fan base happy to be ‘little old Leicester’ and to say “enjoy it, we’ll be in The Championship again soon where we should be”. It’s actually one area where our fan base are hugely out of sync with our owners: in what we think the objective for the future of the club should be.

 

I personally think that winning the Premier League gave us an incredible opportunity to make a step change in terms of what we are as a club. We are known and liked globally in an era where this is more important than the number of fans you get through the turnstiles. We used the money from the league win and subsequent Champions League run to transform in the right way (with the training ground plans etc). We’ve been able to use our profile to get players like Tielemans and a manager like Rodgers who would have been out of reach pre-2016.

The opportunity is there, but are you willing to change your mentality to drive the club forward on the journey?

[dayday]

1 hour ago, Speedwell 🦊 said:

Have they??why was that?

I think they wanted a new look, I liked Tommo especially as he was quite complimentary about us.

[pazzerfox]

1 hour ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

Being a big club in the eyes of the media and pundits is influenced by two things:

 

1) How good were you when the football writers were kids?

2) How good were you when the pundits were playing?

 

Football writers now who are in their 50s (as most of the senior ones at the biggest papers are), for example, will have seen Liverpool as the dominant side when they first fell in love with football in the 80s and Leicester City as a fairly insignificant club. So even when Liverpool were pretty average they were still talked about in the media as a huge club. Similarly, they see Leicester as a small club.  

 

Football pundits who played in the 90s and 00s and are now retired will have played against Leicester at little Filbert Street and/or seen us languishing in The Championship and below. So their views of what Leicester City is now are hugely influenced by what we were then. The likes of Scholes, Hargreaves, Jenas, Murphy, Ferdinand and Owen who are the prominent pundits of today will struggle to see us as a big club because of what they’ve always known us as when they played.

 

The only way you overcome that is through consistent achievement and the mindset/mentality you display of wanting to show you are a big club. We’d need a good 10 years of challenging for European football, a couple of trophies and the infrastructure improvements to back up claims of being a big club to even start to change those ingrained perceptions of what Leicester City are.
 

What you’d want to be aiming for is a generation of those playing now, and kids growing up now, who in the next 10/20/30 years are going to be the main pundits/football media voices and who see Leicester as one of the top 8 clubs in the country.

 

I think there is the potential for it to happen when you look at the training ground, the stadium plans, the squad and manager we have and the way the club is managed off the pitch. But I don’t think it will: there’s an ingrained small time mentality amongst our fan base that won’t want to drive the club on to achieve.

 

You only have to see when Puel had us languishing, when we screwed an incredible top 4 opportunity and when Ranieri got sacked that there were so many “just happy to be here” types. Because we’ve come so far, there are too many in our fan base happy to be ‘little old Leicester’ and to say “enjoy it, we’ll be in The Championship again soon where we should be”. It’s actually one area where our fan base are hugely out of sync with our owners: in what we think the objective for the future of the club should be.

 

I personally think that winning the Premier League gave us an incredible opportunity to make a step change in terms of what we are as a club. We are known and liked globally in an era where this is more important than the number of fans you get through the turnstiles. We used the money from the league win and subsequent Champions League run to transform in the right way (with the training ground plans etc). We’ve been able to use our profile to get players like Tielemans and a manager like Rodgers who would have been out of reach pre-2016.

The opportunity is there, but are you willing to change your mentality to drive the club forward on the journey?

Superb post.  

[Glorious Leicester Fan]

The issue I have with the ‘big club’ debate, is how do you define whether a club is ‘big’ or not.
 

is it stadium attendance/capacity ? If so, aren’t Sunderland a bigger club than Chelsea. Is it by trophies won? If so, aren’t we are bigger then Spurs? Is it a club’s illustrious history? If so, how far back do we go?  Is a big club set in stone, or can a club become one (Man City). 
 

until you determine the criteria, it’s a pointless  normative debate.

Edited 27 December 2020 by Glorious Leicester Fan

[Golden Fox]

2 hours ago, Strokes said:

I’d hate to be a fan of a big club, they don’t experience the lows, so have little appreciation for the highs by comparison.

Sorry - this is nonsense. Granted they don't experience the lows as bad as relegation and playing in the third tier but they still have bad lows.

 

When I was a kid, Liverpool were winning everything - I'd say then having to watch Man U lift that many Premier League trophies and even "little" Leicester win the Premier League before then would count as a bit of a low... 

 

It is very easy to feel superior supporting your local club compared to glory hunters supporting a big team, but they can live and die by their adopted team equally as much and to say they never experience lows is taking that superiority a bit too far. 

[Nalis]

17 minutes ago, Golden Fox said:

Sorry - this is nonsense. Granted they don't experience the lows as bad as relegation and playing in the third tier but they still have bad lows.

 

When I was a kid, Liverpool were winning everything - I'd say then having to watch Man U lift that many Premier League trophies and even "little" Leicester win the Premier League before then would count as a bit of a low... 

 

It is very easy to feel superior supporting your local club compared to glory hunters supporting a big team, but they can live and die by their adopted team equally as much and to say they never experience lows is taking that superiority a bit too far. 

Big clubs still feel the lows but there's a limit to how they can appreciate a high I think.

 

For example, without sounding arrogant I think a fan of a big club would never experience the high we did it 2015/16 even if it was a great acheivement in itself such as Spurs winning the league or champions league. The reason being that the example I've given, although rather unlikely, is not beyond the realms possibilities whereas our title win appeared to be before we did it.

[Webbo]

41 minutes ago, Glorious Leicester Fan said:

The issue I have with the ‘big club’ debate, is how do you define whether a club is ‘big’ or not.
 

is it stadium attendance/capacity ? If so, aren’t Sunderland a bigger club than Chelsea. Is it by trophies won? If so, aren’t we are bigger then Spurs? Is it a club’s illustrious history? If so, how far back do we go?  Is a big club set in stone, or can a club become one (Man City). 
 

until you determine the criteria, it’s a pointless  normative debate.

Not by a long way.

[Paninistickers]

I think we are all a little too hung up on 'size of club'.  That concept is a bit old hat in this day and age of global tv rights and online communities.

 

We need to (continue to) build our 'brand'. Be iconic, not big.  if you asked any genuine football  fan IN THE WORLD if they've  heard of us, and it'd be a resounding 'yes'.  

 

We're likeable. Disrupters. Underdogs. Shrewd. Progressive. We don't need to be 'big'. We need to revel in our identity and play to it.

 

 

[ealingfox]

There are only 3 properly big clubs in this country - Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

[midland_red]

On 13/07/2018 at 21:36, chapero82 said:

But 13th biggest city in UK 

Those figures are for urban areas, not cities. Leicester is bigger than Nottingham amd Newcaztle or example and Liverpool is bigger than the city of Manchester

Edited 27 December 2020 by midland_red

[OntarioFox]

17 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

There are only 3 properly big clubs in this country - Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

And Biggleswade Town 

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, ealingfox said:

There are only 3 properly big clubs in this country - Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

Arsenal pale into insignificance at them two in my opinion.

 

[Koke]

6 hours ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

The thing is I'm more than happy with how we're perceived in the footballing world I just get frustrated when we don't turn up, it's not a lack of status or talent

 

I agree. I get super frustrated when we dont turn up. Liverpool last season on Boxing Day for example was an embarrassment. January-July was also bad. We didn't turn up on the final day against United either.

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, Golden Fox said:

Sorry - this is nonsense. Granted they don't experience the lows as bad as relegation and playing in the third tier but they still have bad lows.

 

When I was a kid, Liverpool were winning everything - I'd say then having to watch Man U lift that many Premier League trophies and even "little" Leicester win the Premier League before then would count as a bit of a low... 

 

It is very easy to feel superior supporting your local club compared to glory hunters supporting a big team, but they can live and die by their adopted team equally as much and to say they never experience lows is taking that superiority a bit too far. 

It’s not a case of feeling superior, it’s feeling contentment, I’m satisfied with our place in the pecking order and feel we are achieving above and beyond our expectations. I’m delighted watching us, even when defeated I can take positives because I have to pinch myself that we are even doing what we are doing. And that’s the crux of my point, if you don’t feel that, I feel sorry for you. These are the golden years for our club. This is the best we’ve ever seen and probably will ever see, enjoy it.

[trabuch]

8 hours ago, jimsmallman said:

That's probably not a bad shout.  Or Bilbao.

I'm not sure but Bilbao had a policy of only using players from the Basque region (a bit like Yorkshire cricket used to be) - I don't know how strict they are these days, but I bet they'd absolutely love a Harvey Barnes. But in any case - to have done as well as they have over the years is remarkable.

[Aus Fox]

It’s not the size of the club that matters, it’s what you do with it. And we are swinging ours around in public with the best of them right now.

[UpTheLeagueFox]

4 hours ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

The opportunity is there, but are you willing to change your mentality to drive the club forward on the journey?

I want us to be successful but without losing the underdog magic that attracted me to the club.

And without ever getting entitled like the 'big six' fans.

[hejammy]

I think in modern day football you have to be from a good big city to have the investment needed to become a "big club" 

 

If you look at all the "big clubs" around the world, all of them are from a big or famous city. Players want to live in a big city as to the investors. Unfortunately this is why we will probably never fall into that big 6 club status. 

[Nod.E]

5 hours ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

The opportunity is there, but are you willing to change your mentality to drive the club forward on the journey?

Agree with what you're saying and I have friends in that camp, really pisses me off.

 

That said I don't think the attitude of fans will have much bearing on our future.

 

The owners will carry on in the same trajectory and the fans will be dragged along kicking and screaming. Before they know it they'll be supporting a 'big team' whether they like it or not.

[trabuch]

We are not a big club. We are an irritating little club that reminds the big clubs that they waste money, and that brains mean more than heritage. I love us.