What makes a 'big' club?

Earlier this week I received a link to another blog where a table claiming to show who the 20 biggest teams in the league were, I was automatically sceptical before even looking and unfortunately my hunch was proven correct when I saw the list which contained a number of 'dubious' inclusions.

But I then paused because in actual fact NONE of the selections were dubious, because they were all conforming to some unknown factor that the author had established to decide what made a 'big' club, and this is where the inherent flaw in the article lay.

Everyone has a different opinion about what makes a club 'big', is it attendance? Trophies won? League History? Ground size? Finances????

How do you pin down all these potential factors to come up with a fair guideline to mark clubs against? In my honest opinion – you can't, all you can do is come up with a subjective opinion which clearly defines why you feel this is the case and provide relevant evidence to support that opinion.

Indeed, many of possible criteria themselves hold pitfalls for the unwary. Take average attendance for example, some may say that the higher the average attendance – the bigger the club. But what about competition in the local area? Many of the larger cities have 2, 3 or even more clubs who regularly play at the top level, so in those cities where there's only 1 club with high attendances is it due to the size of the club or a lack of options?

Leeds are a prime example of this, coming in 4th in the Championship's overall average attendance table this season with 23,451 per game, but would that be lower if there was another decent side in the area for fans to choose between, or would be see a closer split?

This is the problem that the Sheffield clubs have faced in that's there's a number of clubs in close vicinity to provide competition, with Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Doncaster Rovers, Rotherham United and Barnsley all within 15-20 miles of Sheffield itself, and whilst the two Sheffield clubs have the lions share of the supporter base, you have to wonder whether their averages of 20,424 and 18,150 would turn into 38,574 if there was only a single club in the City.

The counter to this would be places like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and London, where their respective competing sides regularly manage high attendances despite the high level of competition and quality of their local rivals.

So already on the first potential criteria point we're getting further factors to consider...

I also don't place as much value on history as other supporters may do, as I genuinely don't see what relevance winning the league in 1907 has in relation to the size of a club at the moment. More modern success however plays a stronger factor, as having won leagues, cups and European glory in the last 15-20 years is much more relevant to me, than a side having done it 40 years ago, but being pretty poor since.

What this would mean is that sides like Preston, Burnley and Huddersfield would be marked much lower by myself than others who more strongly consider their league titles and history, whereas teams like Arsenal and Man Utd would be much more highly marked due to their recent success and performances.

Finance is a tricky one to consider, as being able to attract the best talent is a strong indicator of the size of a club, but frankly this tends to be split into four areas – money, history, team quality and manager quality. That being said, a player may like the club, their current squad and even the existing manager, but if you're offering them a relative pittance to what they can get elsewhere, you're likely to find they'll take the money in most cases. Money talks in the modern game, and therefore the teams with money to burn have to score higher here than those living on past triumphs. Hence why Man City and Chelsea are likely to top the marking chart here.

I could go on all day with things to take into account, but in truth you'd get bored (and so would I eventually), and we'd still probably be no closer to making a definitive list.

In my mind, we should only be looking at a time span of a generation (25-30 years), as beyond this we're verging too much into history without enough modern relevance, therefore I'd put my cut-off at 1982. I totally appreciate that this removes a number of classically brilliant teams such as the Busby Babes and the great club sides of the 50's, 60's and 70's, which helped establish the 'size' of the modern clubs we now follow, but the game itself has changed since then, and the likes of Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney aren't likely to give a damn about whether you won the league and European cup in 1952 when considering a potential move...

I also think that results speak more strongly than attendances, so winning a league or cup title means more than having a high attendance for the season, which again means that sides like Newcastle and Sunderland could be lower in the rankings due to their relative lack of success despite great support.

Anyway, enough about that, here's my highly subjective list of the top 20 teams in the football at present:

Man Utd
Arsenal
Man City
Chelsea
Spurs
Liverpool
Newcastle
Aston Villa
Everton
West Ham
Norwich
Blackburn
Leeds
Fulham
Birmingham
Stoke
Sunderland
Bolton
Middlesbrough
West Brom

There's bound to be some raised eyebrows with some selections (especially Norwich in 11th), but this is purely my personal opinion, using the factors I consider important when considering the size of a club, chances are you (and half the footballing world) won't agree, but that's the fun of it, there is no right or wrong answer, just each persons view which gives us something to tirelessly debate in the pub after the match...