Slough probably. Lots of examples. Poole another one. I suppose it’s comparing population to what step their team plays at. Some sort of fancy ratio.
I think it's a shame, and wrong, that it's not ranked higher than the Champions League. As you say, it's a more exclusive list of winners too.
Wakefield, and it's not even close. City population 100k+, 350k in the wider met area and AFAIK they don't even have a football team.
Bristol is a massively underperformed city. It's definitely big enough to support 2 professional clubs and if City in particular got their act together they'd probably start gaining fans all over the South West. Birmingham is perennially underperforming too. Villa are currently good but they're up and down and Birmingham are just a fairly average-sized 2nd tier club really. Obviously the wider area has more clubs but you'd expect the 2nd biggest city in the country to do a bit better.
Indeed, that’s a different thing. Thinking more of places with football league clubs who are disproportionately rubbish.
Ah fair enough, I was thinking more generally about large towns and cities with limited or non existant football success. On your criteria, then I'd say Plymouth and Hull alongside Bristol as others have mentioned.
Yeah Plymouth is definitely a good shout, probably fair to say they’ve underperformed over the years. If they can establish themselves for a few years in the Championship now then maybe that will change. Hull were very much a lower league club when I was growing up but they’ve had a good 20(?) years recently. Plus they’ve had 2 big Rugby League teams to compete with, I think Hull was traditionally a RL town rather than football.
Yeah my picks would be Bristol, Hull, Birmingham, Bradford and Plymouth. Competition with rugby is a big factor in a lot of those areas. Hull has a big population but it's traditionally more of a rugby area and has two pretty big Rugby League clubs there in Hull FC and Hull KR. Take them away and Hull City would probably be getting similar crowds to Sunderland and would probably have had a much more successful history. Quite a bit of rugby down Bristol way too and being a two club city never helps (like with Stoke). Bradford again have Bradford Bulls who were once a very successful Rugby League team, although they've gone down the toilet recently. I don't think their large South Asian population helps either as they tend to favour cricket and so quite a large percentage of the city's population isn't naturally drawn to football. And Plymouth are an outpost who have always struggled a bit to attract players down there. Birmingham is the one that has always puzzled me. Villa are obviously a big club and have had some success in the distant past and a lot of years in the top flight. But when you compare their history to the Manchester or Liverpool clubs it isn't really that spectacular. Even pre-1992 before the oil and TV money came in. They're well supported, but would they fill a 70 or 80,000 ground like Manchester United do every week? And Birmingham City are the epitome of averageness and underachievement with a history very similar to my own club Stoke - mostly bobbing between the top two divisions while never troubling the trophy cabinet with a similar level of support. Considering they're the second biggest city in the country and there isn't an obvious other sport pulling fans away from football, I'm surprised the Birmingham clubs haven't been more successful and better supported over the years.
I agree with Bristol on size alone. The Bristolians are rubbish at rugby and cricket too. I disagree about Birmingham though. We have 22 major trophies between Villa and Blues (very, very heavily slanted in Villa's direction) which is fourth behind Liverpool, Manchester and London and a fair way above the next city, Sheffield.I'd argue Liverpool and Manchester have overachieved. You could also add another 17 trophies if you include all teams in the Birmingham metro area.
If we're saying Birmingham as a city is underperforming then Leeds must also be in the conversation. Population wise it's the third largest in England, it's a one club city so support isn't split between two or more similar sized rivals like it is in Manchester, Liverpool etc., yet Leeds United have only ever won 5 major domestic trophies, and other than the 91/92 First Division they were all back in the 60s and 70s.
You’ve got an extremely strange definition of underperforming. If in order to perform you have to be winning trophies then the vast majority of clubs in this country fall into that category. Leeds are a big club that could easily fill a 50/55,000 stadium, but unfortunately they along with a lot of other clubs have been mismanaged and even if they built a bigger stadium then they still wouldn’t be able to win trophies, because ffp means they’re too late for the show. In order to win trophies you need all the richer clubs to have a bad season, which is what happened when we won it and that doesn’t happen very often.
Tbf I was responding to the (slightly ridiculous) point that other posters have put forward, suggesting that Birmingham has underperformed as a city when it comes to football so I was offering another equally silly example. However by going down that route you could make a case that every English city/town not called Manchester or Liverpool has underperformed compared to it's population.
I think maybe this could be discussed in terms of never have or have not since thr TV money piled in. Villa and Leeds have not been winners of much since the 1990s? Somewhere like Hull or Bristol have not really ever had "success" I guess it no longer matter about trophies in the TV money era and just being in the big show might be seen as success in itself?
They have joined themselves to Emley 'Wakefield Emley' Plymouth is the biggest place never to have had top level football, interesting shouts for the other places - Leeds does have rugby to contend with - but it's the third biggest city in England (in some criteria with other bits added in) so should have done better. Bristol has badly underperformed, like Sheffield and Bradford.
Sheffield started off strongly, but lately - average crowds between us over 50,000 and 1 trophy in the last 90 years. Spent more time in the 3rd tier than the PL this century too. It's pathetic really
