Who is the bigger club?

[claptrappers_union]

Not really sure why anyone would consider Sunderland bigger..

They’ve won the league 6 times, won the cup twice, have a large stadium and get large attendances (although not recently) and played in the top 2 tiers for almost their entire history.

[Claretforever]

Wednesday have 4 titles, a few of FA Cups and a League Cup, plus larger fan base. They’re definitely bigger in my mind.

[DCWat]

I’d take no notice of anyone who has a season ticket for two clubs. That’s plain wrong and even more so when it’s two clubs from the same county. I might forgive it if he had one for Wednesday and one for Glasgow Rangers, at a push.

Wednesday is a very big club. History, fan base, years in the top flight etc. Bradford City is a similar size to us in terms of attendances although that’s in part due to their ten a penny tickets.

They’re a club with a history of being in the bottom two divisions, they’ve gone bust multiple times, their solitary cup win was back in 1911 (when the new trophy just happened to be made at Fattoroni’s in Bradford - I like to think it was part of the deal and therefore a fix).

Bradford City, considering the population of Bradford, should be a really well supported club, but they’re not. Bradford as a sport City is most successful at seeing its teams go bust - BPA, City and the Bulls.

Big club my arse!

[Clarets4me]

Wednesday are a bigger club than us. Bradford definitely aren’t though. As someone else said, Bradford Bulls are bigger than the football team.

And even they went bust in January 2017...... !!

[deanothedino]

And even they went bust in January 2017...... !!

Plus administration in 2012, 14 and 16. Not great with finances in Bradford.

[Top Claret]

BFC turnover would still dwarf that of Bradford and Wednesday combined. In this respect I would say we are 3 times bigger than the pair of them put together.

Like others have said mention Bradford and Wednesday in China and nobody never heard of them, mention Burnley and they all no us now from finishing 7th this season and having 4 epl seasons under our belt

[Zom Zom]

I don't like these arguments of 'who's bigger'. It's all based on too many variables, and depends on what you want to use as an argument.

I have come across one or two people on social media who constantly punt jibes at me for little Burnley. I don't respond with any structured reply anymore, I just copy and paste the PL top 10.

You don't have to be big to be powerful. It helps of course, but there are clubs I would consider 'big' currently in the lower leagues.

[agreenwood]

Again, big, bigger, biggest has no actual definition.

Woolworths are probably still trading online. They used to be a retail giant. Nobody thinks they are now. Only in football is the size of a business measured by history and customer bases that differ in denominations of thousands.

[claptrappers_union]

Finishing 7th means nothing. We are still a yo-yo club really. I suspect this is the peak of what is to come, we could do a Stoke and stick around, or this time in three years we could be playing in League One.

[Caernarfon_Claret]

It's worthless - a way to try to simplify how we put clubs into some kind of hierarchy.

It only works if you put teams into categories, but then trying to weigh those categories by importance becomes subjective.

English League Titles
FA Cup Titles
Capacity of Stadium
Whether the stadium is half empty
European success
Twitter followers
Stock price

[Buxtonclaret]

They're decided /graded by the press/TV...
Enter Manchester United, the first (post Munich) real Media-Induced giant.
No surprise, as TV, and it's influence, has made the world so small, they've legions of fans all over the place.
They once spent a quarter of a century trying to buy the league title.
They couldn't do it, largely down to those nasty Scouse Gits down the road producing a football dynasty.
But back then, you'd always get the 'Surprise Package' taking the title now and then.
To do it, they needed big changes.
So, alongside the other big city clubs, Man Utd got into bed with Sky.
They all went on to invent 'Proper' football, cutting off the rest of the little clubs and, went about creating, in its natural evolution, a largely sterile league whereby, Liecester will likely be the only team outside the mega rich clubs that will ever win the title.
Get the backing of a Russian/American/Chinese/Arab trillionaire, or small country, any club can become a big club as Mass Media will do the rest...there's hope for Burnsley yet...
Good job Princess Di didn't have a football club.

[Lord Beamish]

It's all utter cobblers in the end. This debate is essentially a comfort blanket for Fans of Clubs who are below Burnley in the current Football Pecking Order and to whom this fact makes them resentful and bitter. We ourselves used to indulge in the same thing when Bl*ckburn R*vers were lording it over us(remember that), back in the day.
We should just smile with benign graciousness and enjoy our time in ascendency. Just not too much, if at the end of it we're not going to acknowledge other Club's time in the sun with a cheerful equanimity, when that time comes.

[houseboy]

If you are talking about attendance then that's obviously relative to the size of the city/town/village the club hails from.
To me, club size relates to financial clout, who a big name player would rather play for, media exposure and in turn, how well known a club is globaly.
Bradford, Sheffield Wednesday and any other club in Yarkshire cannot hold a candle to little old Burnley

Actually if you measure biggest club by the ratio of average attendance to population we can't lay claim to that any more. If you are using that criteria the biggest club in the country are.....Forest Green Rovers. They had an average gate of 2,770 and the village of Nailsworth where they play has a population of 5,800. Now that represents a ratio of nearly 50%, even we can't claim anything like that.

So it's official folks - Forest Green Rovers are the biggest club in England (and possibly the world).

[Lord Beamish]

Actually if you measure biggest club by the ratio of average attendance to population we can't lay claim to that any more. If you are using that criteria the biggest club in the country are.....Forest Green Rovers. They had an average gate of 2,770 and the village of Nailsworth where they play has a population of 5,800. Now that represents a ratio of nearly 50%, even we can't claim anything like that.

So it's official folks - Forest Green Rovers are the biggest club in England (and possibly the world).

Thank Christ for that! Ive always thought our reliance on that as a defence against criticism of our attendances is a bit straw clutchy at best.

[houseboy]

Thank Christ for that! Ive always thought our reliance on that as a defence against criticism of our attendances is a bit straw clutchy at best.

You are right of course bud, attendances are what they are and poor averages don't make you a bad club or vice versa. I remember back in the dim and distant days of the 70's when Ajax were one of the biggest clubs on the planet but played most of their home games in a pitifully small stadium and had league crowds as low as around 7/8k. They played major league and European games in another far bigger ground (it might be the one they have now, I'm not sure). I always thought that the way they could pretty much fill a large stadium for big games but struggled to fill a small one for run-of-the-mill matches possibly made their fans some of the most fickle ever.

[Carport]

Closest objective assessment

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... ebate.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[IB52]

Daily Mail 2015!

[KRBFC]

But Everton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, West Ham, Wolves, Aston Villa, Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United all finished below us - and I consider them bigger clubs.

Why though? because they're all City clubs with massive catchment areas and little competition? It seems that when determining the size of a club the only relevant factor is the size of the town/city and the actual football club's on field results count for nothing.

[KRBFC]

Thank Christ for that! Ive always thought our reliance on that as a defence against criticism of our attendances is a bit straw clutchy at best.

It's really not though, we're very limited with such a small town. If we were the 3rd largest City in the country (Leeds), in our current position we would sell out every week in a 60,000 stadium.

[Caballo]

But Everton, Newcastle, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, West Ham, Wolves, Aston Villa, Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United all finished below us - and I consider them bigger clubs.

Why though?

History!

[JTClaret]

I suppose it depends on your definition of a 'big club'.

I'd say Sheff Wed are bigger.
Bradford are smaller,
And we are a successful small club.

[TVC15]

Right now we are a bigger club than Sheff Wed.
If you go on overall history then by most criteria Sheff Wed would be bigger....history, trophies, attendances, turnover, league positions etc. Not that much bigger though. Sheffield is a far bigger city than us though so we should not be that surprised.

As for Bradford I cannot think of one criteria why they would be bigger than Burnley.....unless we are counting the number of sh-it strips !!

[Spike]

Bradford and Blackpool have always and always will be small clubs.Throughout this decade Burnley have been a big club.

Wednesday have the potential to be a big club but for a long time have just been a big mess.

[KRBFC]

History!

Derby, Sunderland and Sheffield United are bigger clubs based on history? Really? I'm just not convinced that's true with a quick research of trophies they've won. If simply playing in the top division is considered successful then maybe you could make a case for Sunderland.

[TVC15]

Sunderland are by most criteria a bigger club than us - they have won a lot more than we have, much bigger stadium, fan base etc.

Sheffield United and Derby are pretty similar to us in terms of trophies won. Sheff United have a very good FA Cup History....many moons ago. Derby and Sheffield United are bigger clubs than Burnley in terms of fan base....hardly surprising given size of the cities.

[duncandisorderly]

It'd be time consuming but simple to work out who is the bigger club by assigning all relative yardsticks a numerical value. The only difficulty is assigning an appropriate value to each competition.

League position - a number between 1 and 92, with 92 being the top flight winner and 1 being 24th in the bottom tier.
1 point for every 5000 fans average
1 point for every FA Cup round won - competition winner gets 10
1 point for every league cup round won - competition winner gets 5
4 - 3 - 2 points for the winner of each lower league play off final
1 point for every european round won - champions league/european winner cup gets 20, UEFA cup winner gets 10

etc etc, for example.

Do that with every club that's ever played the game professionally and you'll have an impartial answer.

[KRBFC]

Sunderland are by most criteria a bigger club than us - they have won a lot more than we have, much bigger stadium, fan base etc.

Sheffield United and Derby are pretty similar to us in terms of trophies won. Sheff United have a very good FA Cup History....many moons ago. Derby and Sheffield United are bigger clubs than Burnley in terms of fan base....hardly surprising given size of the cities.

According to Wikipedia, Sunderland have won the top division 6 times, 5 of those before 1912-13. Bigger stadium and fan base yeah but like you say, a much bigger catchment area so it's not a surprise. I guess it really depends on the yardstick used to compare clubs' trophies won.

[TVC15]

To be fair under most yardsticks Sunderland would be regarded as the bigger club.

Even if you look at just the last 28 years since the Premier League was formed they have been in the league for much longer than us, built a new stadium, had far bigger turnover, fans, spend, TV coverage, higher profile players etc etc

As we sit here right now none of this really matters as when they are playing away at Accrington Stanley next season in front of 2,000 fans I don`t think being the "bigger" club is going to much of a consolation for any Sunderland fan !!

[deanothedino]

1 point for every league cup round won - competition winner gets 5

Assume that's 5 bonus points to the winner? Since there's 7 rounds? What do you do about the teams who got a bye? Points as if they'd won their way to round 3?