English football's biggest underachievers

[Stadt]

Interesting discussion in the Bristol City thread. Who are English football's biggest underachievers?

 

Some possible parameters?

 

Historical success (or lack of it)

- League finishes 

- Trophies

- Win %

- Reputation

- Attendance

 

Location

- Population

- Catchment area

- Affluence 

- Transport links

- Rivals

- Importance 

 

Players

 

Managers

 

Finances

 

 

The other thread mentioned Bristol City, Bradford, Birmingham City & Plymouth.

 

I think West Ham, Newcastle, Southampton and Leeds need to be in the discussion but from a higher floor obviously.

 

I'd go for Leeds actually, 4th biggest city in England, one club city, half of Yorkshire supports them, an historically & economically significant place and they've won 2 more honours than us. Wednesday, Sunderland, Blackburn and Wolves have all won more. 19th on the all time league table.

 

West Ham have won remarkably little too, biggest club to never have won the league by a mile (although they've won a world cup, remember ).

 

[Wymsey]

Grimsby and Southend, for the coastal ones.

[Corky]

I said Plymouth in the other thread so I'll stick with them. A huge catchment area, large section of exiles means they have an excellent support level yet have never played top flight football.

[Sampson]

Bristol is definitely the biggest underachiever as a city.

Wakefield and Dudley must be up there too - never having a league side with a catchment population of over 300,000 people in their metropolitan boundaries is actually quite remarkable.

In theory, Dudley should have a club as big as Wolves and West Brom as the 3 main Black Country teams (I believe Dudley is almost twice as big as West Bromwich).

Edited 5 January 2022 by Sampson

[BenTheFox]

 

[CosbehFox]

3 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Bristol is definitely the biggest underachiever as a city.

Wakefield and Dudley must be up there too - never having a league side with a catchment population of over 300,000 people in their metropolitan boundaries is actually quite remarkable.

In theory, Dudley should have a club as big as Wolves and West Brom as the 3 main Black Country teams (I believe Dudley is actually bigger than West Bromwich).

Dudley effectively supports West Brom; their support is a combination of Oldbury, Dudley and West Brom with towns like Stourbridge as well. 

[BenTheFox]

Bristol City, Birmingham City, Plymouth Argyle and York City all stand out for me. 

[BenTheFox]

General lack of footballing success in the home counties. That aren't actually that many big towns and cities and most people are just attracted to the big London clubs. 

[BenTheFox]

15 minutes ago, Stadt said:

Interesting discussion in the Bristol City thread. Who are English football's biggest underachievers?

 

Some possible parameters?

 

Historical success (or lack of it)

- League finishes 

- Trophies

- Win %

- Reputation

- Attendance

 

Location

- Population

- Catchment area

- Affluence 

- Transport links

- Rivals

- Importance 

 

Players

 

Managers

 

Finances

 

 

The other thread mentioned Bristol City, Bradford, Birmingham City & Plymouth.

 

I think West Ham, Newcastle, Southampton and Leeds need to be in the discussion but from a higher floor obviously.

 

I'd go for Leeds actually, 4th biggest city in England, one club city, half of Yorkshire supports them, an historically & economically significant place and they've won 2 more honours than us. Wednesday, Sunderland, Blackburn and Wolves have all won more. 19th on the all time league table.

 

West Ham have won remarkably little too, biggest club to never have won the league by a mile (although they've won a world cup, remember ).

 

Always find West Ham an odd one. Based in London, which would help them attract investment and players and have a very big supporter base, particularly in Essex but as you say, they've barely won anything. However, they have spent much of their existence in the top flight and I can't recall them in my lifetime having been any lower than he top end of the championship. 

[Sampson]

28 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Dudley effectively supports West Brom; their support is a combination of Oldbury, Dudley and West Brom with towns like Stourbridge as well. 

True, but unlike other large cities/towns with no league teams like Bath, Wakefield or Warrington where football loses out to rugby, there's no real reason why football didn't take off in Dudley.

Northampton is another one. Similar size to places like Derby, Brighton & Hove, Stoke-on-Trent or Portsmouth and often sells itself as "Britain's biggest town" (or well, debates it between them and Reading) and they should be a mid-table Championship side with the odd spell in the top flight really, instead of constantly yo-yoing between the bottom of League One and the top of League Two. But again, the football team probably loses out to rugby somewhat.

Edit: Oh yeah, York is definitely another one, though they were always a decent third tier side similar to someone like Plymouth or Crewe nowadays, until they went bankrupt about 15 years ago.

Edited 5 January 2022 by Sampson

[SkidsFox]

Players - some suggestions...

 

Darren Huckerby

Jack Wilshire

Danny Drinkwater (!)

[Fox92]

West Ham in terms of players they've had/produced.

[RoboFox]

53 minutes ago, Corky said:

I said Plymouth in the other thread so I'll stick with them. A huge catchment area, large section of exiles means they have an excellent support level yet have never played top flight football.

Imagine being a football supporter in the South West. Plymouth, Torquay or Exeter to choose from locally. Maybe Yeovil, one of the Bristol Clubs or if you really fancy a drive on match day for a taste of the big time, Bournemouth or Southampton. Not exactly spoiled for successful clubs, there. 

 

I have family in Devon and I'm down there often. They whole area is full of egg-chasers.

 

Edited 5 January 2022 by RoboFox

[Paninistickers]

53 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Bristol is definitely the biggest underachiever as a city.

Wakefield and Dudley must be up there too - never having a league side with a catchment population of over 300,000 people in their metropolitan boundaries is actually quite remarkable.

In theory, Dudley should have a club as big as Wolves and West Brom as the 3 main Black Country teams (I believe Dudley is almost twice as big as West Bromwich).

Wakefield adds to Leeds core support. greater Leeds is at a rough guess 800k big plus another 300k from.wakefield

 

Edit to add that  York is tiny. Famous name but population can't be.much different to Hinckley and Loughborough 

Edited 5 January 2022 by Paninistickers

[CosbehFox]

42 minutes ago, Sampson said:

True, but unlike other large cities/towns with no league teams like Bath, Wakefield or Warrington where football loses out to rugby, there's no real reason why football didn't take off in Dudley.

Northampton is another one. Similar size to places like Derby, Brighton & Hove, Stoke-on-Trent or Portsmouth and often sells itself as "Britain's biggest town" (or well, debates it between them and Reading) and they should be a mid-table Championship side with the odd spell in the top flight really, instead of constantly yo-yoing between the bottom of League One and the top of League Two. But again, the football team probably loses out to rugby somewhat.

Edit: Oh yeah, York is definitely another one, though they were always a decent third tier side similar to someone like Plymouth or Crewe nowadays, until they went bankrupt about 15 years ago.

Dudley is four miles to West Brom and six miles to Wolves. It's a bus/train ride away for lots of its supporters. Wakefield have Leeds next door and Warrington have the Manchester/Liverpool clubs. Bath is a good distance from Bristol but they have a non league club which at its best can pulling in 2.5k to 3k. 

 

Northampton I'd say hurt themselves moving out of town. They were one of the first clubs to do that out of town stadium thing. 

[bovril]

As above, considering the players West Ham have produced and their support, their lack of trophies is notable.

 

In the last 50 years, Newcastle United. 

[CosbehFox]

You'd actually think a team from Kent would have rose to be a staple of the second tier. But it's become a victim of how London and its residents have swelled. Kent is just full of London club supporters now. 

 

I personally think the most obvious is actually Coventry. They've won a single FA Cup. They have most of Warwickshire as a catchment area. Decent sized towns like Nuneaton, Warwick, Leamington, Kenilworth. They waffle on about that top flight spell but that is literally the only top flight spell they have had. 

Edited 5 January 2022 by Cardiff_Fox

[bmt]

Out of interest if you go back 6 years how high up this list are we?

[bmt]

Just now, bmt said:

Out of interest if you go back 6 years how high up this list are we?

And pre MON era?

[Facecloth]

There's a couple of ways of looking at it. If you're looking historically at the club size then West Ham and Newcastle have underachieved, as have Leeds to some degree. Possibly Everton in the last 20 years too.

 

Then you can look at the size of the place and as others have mentioned such as Plymouth, Bristol, Wakefield, and Bradford are decent size places where the team doesn't really match the size of the place.

[Lambert09]

57 minutes ago, SkidsFox said:

Players - some suggestions...

 

Darren Huckerby

Jack Wilshire

Danny Drinkwater (!)

He won the premier league ffs

[SkidsFox]

18 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

He won the premier league ffs

A couple of good seasons, followed by a deep and steady decline, seems to me to count as under-achieving. We'll have to disagree on this one. 

[The People's Hero]

37 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

You'd actually think a team from Kent would have rose to be a staple of the second tier. But it's become a victim of how London and its residents have swelled. Kent is just full of London club supporters now. 

 

I personally think the most obvious is actually Coventry. They've won a single FA Cup. They have most of Warwickshire as a catchment area. Decent sized towns like Nuneaton, Warwick, Leamington, Kenilworth. They waffle on about that top flight spell but that is literally the only top flight spell they have had. 

The sentiment and surprise is spot on.

 

Gillingham should be a better league side; until you get to Charlton or Palace or someone like that, you don't hit a club at a better level. They have the whole of Kent. Scally is to blame really.

 

You then look at Maidstone, Dartford and Dover being in non-league and wonder how one of them hasn't got their act together. Maidstone charge £15 and for years on end would sell out their stadium at like 3,000 people (can't be bothered to look it up but something like that).

 

Its complete waffle that everyone here supports London clubs though. Lots support non-league clubs and we have more than our fair share of Man Utd and Liverpool fans. In fact, I think Liverpool is probably just about the best supported club around here. You do of course get the glory London clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham (lol to the last two), but there's a fair bit of Orient, Charlton, Palace, Gillingham around here; so they aren't just latching on to London clubs... in most cases the fact that everyone hates Scally means the most local club playing a proper level is Charlton (and I think they still lay on free buses to get people up there, which is bizarre really - and has always put Maidstone United's nose out of joint).

 

I think I've remarked before that what I find really odd is that in my bowls club of 120 adult members, probably 80 being male, there are 5 Wolves fans. How has that happened? (2 Leicester, for the record). The overwhelmingly supported club at our bowls club would be Maidstone United or Liverpool.

[SkidsFox]

1 minute ago, The People's Hero said:

The sentiment and surprise is spot on.

 

Gillingham should be a better league side; until you get to Charlton or Palace or someone like that, you don't hit a club at a better level. They have the whole of Kent. Scally is to blame really.

 

You then look at Maidstone, Dartford and Dover being in non-league and wonder how one of them hasn't got their act together. Maidstone charge £15 and for years on end would sell out their stadium at like 3,000 people (can't be bothered to look it up but something like that).

 

Its complete waffle that everyone here supports London clubs though. Lots support non-league clubs and we have more than our fair share of Man Utd and Liverpool fans. In fact, I think Liverpool is probably just about the best supported club around here. You do of course get the glory London clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham (lol to the last two), but there's a fair bit of Orient, Charlton, Palace, Gillingham around here; so they aren't just latching on to London clubs... in most cases the fact that everyone hates Scally means the most local club playing a proper level is Charlton (and I think they still lay on free buses to get people up there, which is bizarre really - and has always put Maidstone United's nose out of joint).

 

I think I've remarked before that what I find really odd is that in my bowls club of 120 adult members, probably 80 being male, there are 5 Wolves fans. How has that happened? (2 Leicester, for the record). The overwhelmingly supported club at our bowls club would be Maidstone United or Liverpool.

Astonishing really.

I never knew a member of a bowls club before..

[Corky]

4 minutes ago, The People's Hero said:

Charlton (and I think they still lay on free buses to get people up there, which is bizarre really - and has always put Maidstone United's nose out of joint).

 

Really? What's the take up like for that now? I remember it being a thing when Charlton were in the Premier League but that was 15 years ago.