Im basing this on Recent success, in all competitions,Length of time in the ‘top-flight’.Number of trophies won during club’s entire history. Stadium size and perceived fan base & Financial power.

1.Manchester Utd
2.Liverpool
3.Chelsea
4.Arsenal
5.Man City
6.Tottenham
7.Everton
8.West Ham
9.Southampton
10.Sunderland
11.Leicester City
12.West Brom
13.Stoke City
14.Crystal Palace
15.Hull City
16.Swansea
17.Middlesbrough
18.Watford
19.Burnley
20.Bournemouth

Be interesting to see some other UTC members order of who they think is the biggest.

Depends on what emphasis you put onto each criteria. Think your about right paying on the gate fan wise in premier history. Historically Burnley is a much bigger NAME than the majority, I'd say we'd come in above Southampton on that basis, but if your talking historical club sizes we'd be behind the like of Wolves, Leeds (since the 60's), Newcastle, Wolves, Villa, and several others.

Edit: Looking again I still think Middlesbrough should be higher in your list - I'd have them above Swansea, Hull and Crystal Palace for starters purely because of club size / fan base

I don't want to live in a world where Watford are a bigger club than us.

Watford and Swansea have smaller grounds then us don't they?

This is one of those odd questions because, for example, the media and many people would state Newcastle are a massive club and would put them way above us in that list even now despite them being in the league below us.

You mention trophy history yet we're below Boro, Swansea and Watford to pick a few, none of which have won that much in their clubs history.
We're even below Hull and I'd love to know how you've reached that one.

Have you lifted that list from somewhere like Talksport?

We're the 21st most successful English football club, but if you took away non-Premier League teams we'd be 11th.
Hull, Watford, Swansea, Southampton and Bournemouth have won little compared to us.

I see you've placed literally no emphasis on the 'number of trophies won in entire history' element.

This is the kind of list I'd expect to see from a 19 year old who didn't even realise there was anything before the Premier League and thinks Chelsea have always been a big club.

How 'big' is just for Newcastle and Leeds fans, and the sort of people who listen to Talksport.

I think you could order 11th down in just about any way and make a case for it. My recollection is that we have won the top flight more times than all of the others added together. Sorry if I've missed a wba title.

Claretmatt4 wrote:I see you've placed literally no emphasis on the 'number of trophies won in entire history' element.

This is the kind of list I'd expect to see from a 19 year old who didn't even realise there was anything before the Premier League and thinks Chelsea have always been a big club.

You mean the Chelsea that have won every trophy going in the last 10 years and have argubly the biggest spending power in England ?

Yes them fellas.

Until Bates came along and rescued them from oblivion in the mid nineties they had one won FA Cup and one First Division trophy.

All their recent success has been bought in. They were akin to Millwall or Fulham until the 90s.

But if having financial power and buying up trophies makes you a big club then sure that's great.

What has made you put West Ham 8th? Above Leicester who are the reigning champions? It seems like the list is based more off who's been there the longest than anything else.

What have Watford, Hull, Palace and Stoke won recently?

Oooooooh, Matron.

Who on that list isn't funded by a benefactor yet we are one of the most profitable clubs in Europe and sit mid table premier league.
We are founder members of the football league, play the world's oldest football league derby, have won every division in the football league. I'd say we are a fair big club in the history of football, far bigger than many on that list. We are Burnley FC.

Apart from the obvious choices of the really big clubs it then gets open for quite a bit of debate and differing opinions / bias as a lot of clubs are very similar.

I prefer to think of it as we're sitting 11th, looking likely to stay up and we're building a much better club for us to enjoy in the coming years. We've done it on hard work and not back by rich owners.

That's good enough for me at the moment.

How come the size of the fans' knobs never comes into this discussion?

Guich wrote:How come the size of the fans' knobs never comes into this discussion?

I'm bloody glad it doesn't.

What is wrong with financial backing and a club going on to win trophies? They haven't bought trophies they've just invested in their business to become more successful. Football is a business now. Not a sport.

As POST 2 points out- it depends on the weighting of each factor (and, of course, the factors you chose in the first place).
The choice of both these depends on what you are trying to use the "bigness" ranking for.
If you're trying to rank current strength and likelihood of future success then history means nothing and (current and forecast) finances are the biggest factor. In that case the current "big 6" would be at the top (as you have it) - the order might change from model to model depending on whether generating own income or having a sugar daddy is seen as better.
If you downweight history, we would be in the bottom 5 I guess and, overall, I wouldn't argue much with your rankings. I wouldn't, though, have Southampton so high & maybe Middlesbrough should be above Hull/Swans/Palace.
If full history is given a decent weighting then we should be higher than quite a few of these clubs (eg. Swans, Hull, Palace, Watford and Southampton)

I'd say nothing wrong with financial backing and winning trophies on the back of that is an excellent achievement.

I just think doing what we've done and the way we've done it makes it more satisfying.

The longer we stay in the prem, the bigger we will get.

I'm comfortable with newcastle, leeds, villa etc being "bigger" than us, just as I'm sure they have come to terms with us being "better" than them

Lancasterclaret wrote:The longer we stay in the prem, the bigger we will get.

I'm comfortable with newcastle, leeds, villa etc being "bigger" than us, just as I'm sure they have come to terms with us being "better" than them

Apparently we don't deserve to be in the PL, the PL is for clubs like Newcastle apparently, something about them providing more entertainment ( if we ignore them dicking around at the bottom end of the PL for a good few years).

Until Hull got their new stadium I would of considered them as a bit of a nothing club on the stature scale.

You look at Clubs like Man U, Liverpool and Everton they would take 10k fans to an away fixture on the moon.

Not sure how we can be behind clubs such as Palace, Stoke, Hull, Middlesbrough, Swansea and Watford who haven't won a major trophy between them?

Braindead wrote:Not sure how we can be behind clubs such as Palace, Stoke, Hull, Middlesbrough, Swansea and Watford who haven't won a major trophy between them?

It's been done to provoke reactions and posts.

It's just this posters style.

We are HUGE

Dyched wrote:What is wrong with financial backing and a club going on to win trophies? They haven't bought trophies they've just invested in their business to become more successful. Football is a business now. Not a sport.

Invested????..........how does that work and when can he expect a return on his billion pound plus "Investment"?
It`s called financial doping.....buying trophies and titles which is pretty meaningless to anyone except their fickle fans and a lot of obsequious pundits.

Im basing this on Recent success, in all competitions,Length of time in the ‘top-flight’.Number of trophies won during club’s entire history. Stadium size and perceived fan base & Financial power.

1.Burnley
2.Man Utd
3.Chelsea
4.Arsenal
5.Man City
6.Tottenham
7.Everton
8.West Ham
9.Southampton
10.Sunderland
11.Liverpool
12.West Brom
13.Stoke City
14.Crystal Palace
15.Hull City
16.Swansea
17.Middlesbrough
18.Watford
19.Bournmouth
20.Leicester

Be interesting to see some other UTC members order of who they think is the biggest.

bob-the-scutter wrote:Invested????..........how does that work and when can he expect a return on his billion pound plus "Investment"?
It`s called financial doping.....buying trophies and titles which is pretty meaningless to anyone except their fickle fans and a lot of obsequious pundits.

Almost as pointless as us finishing 17/20 and celebrating. That's not sport.

It's a disgrace that you have Sunderland around 10th and yet on the pitch we are so bad!!

I agree, by the way, you having us at 10th isn't the disgrace. Us being so bad is the disgrace ARGHHHHH

Dyched wrote:Almost as pointless as us finishing 17/20 and celebrating. That's not sport.

Sorry Dyched but there`s every point in celebrating if we stay up. That would be the pinnacle (for now) of us, little Burnley who a couple of decades ago didn`t have a pot to **** in (A bit like Rovers today) and with hard work, pride and plenty of dedication we`ve dragged ourselves back from being a "Who are they?" club back to the top of the game in the way the game was invented, no hand-outs & no sugar-daddies.

I think it shows just how many historically poor teams are in the Prem at the moment (I'd have us about 14th).

Many of the bigger teams are in the lower leagues. I'd say all of the following are "bigger" than us:
Newcastle
Leeds
Villa
Forest
Wolves
Ipswich
Norwich
Sheff Weds
Sheff Utd
Derby
Bolton
Blackburn (sorry)

However I wouldn't swap our position for theirs that is for sure.

Blackburn??????????
How do you get to that?
Bolton hmmmm
The rest I agree

andyh wrote:Many of the bigger teams are in the lower leagues. I'd say all of the following are "bigger" than us:
Newcastle YES
Leeds YES
Villa YES
Forest YES
Wolves YES
Ipswich MAYBE
Norwich NO
Sheff Weds YES
Sheff Utd MAYBE
Derby MAYBE
Bolton NO
Blackburn (sorry) AFRAID SO

I think when you consider the size of our town- and take into account the amount of money thrown at clubs such as Bournemouth- we are pretty big.