I’ve seen a few variations on this theme lately, but I wanted to give our recent historical underachievement some context. There’s an element of subjectivity about where a club should be in the football pyramid, but there is pretty clear correlation at the macro-level - Premier League clubs are generally bigger than Championship clubs; Championship Clubs are generally bigger than League One clubs; and so on.
Perhaps the best barometer we have of a club’s natural punching weight is its average league attendances, recorded over a period of 100+ years (as recorded here:
https://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/englandcontent.htm). Let’s take a quick look at how many historically smaller clubs are currently above us, and how many historically smaller ones are below us.
Let’s start with Town (up to and including 2023):
7,704 (currently 21st League Two)
Historically smaller clubs above us:Bournemouth (14th Prem) - 7,354
Rotherham (24th Champ) - 7,479
Peterborough (4th League One) - 6,358
Oxford (5th League One) - 7,298
Lincoln (6th League One) - 5,976
Stevenage (9th League One) - 3,075
Northampton (11th League One) - 6,631
Wycombe (12th League One) - 5,049
Exeter (13th League One) - 5,255
Shrewsbury (18th League One) - 5,372
Cambridge (19th League One) - 4,239
Burton (20th League One) - 3,452
Cheltenham (21st League One) - 3,673
Port Vale (22nd League One) - 7,171
Fleetwood (23rd League One) - 3,195
Carlisle (24th League One) - 6,371
Stockport (1st League Two) - 6,267
Mansfield (2nd League Two) - 5,531
Wrexham (3rd League Two) - 6,045
Crewe (5th League Two) - 4,572
Barrow (6th League Two) - 4,785
Crawley (7th League Two) - 2,274
Walsall (8th League Two) - 6,081
Doncaster (9th League Two) - 7,167
Gillingham (10th League Two) - 6,309
Wimbledon (11th League Two) - 6,918
Harrogate (12th League Two) - 2,298
Morecambe (15th League Two) - 2,392
Newport (16th League Two) - 5,329
Tranmere (17th League Two) - 6,437
Accrington (18th League Two) - 4,116
Salford (20th League Two) - 2,639
Historically bigger clubs below us:Oldham (10th National League) - 8,778
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Ok, this doesn’t really tell us much we didn’t already know, but I find it quite stark to see it laid out like this. 32 “smaller” clubs currently above us in the pyramid, and just 1 “bigger” club below. That’s 58% of League One, and 67% of League Two. We are seriously under par, and have been for so long now.
There are of course some special cases in there like Bournemouth and Wrexham, but in the main the common denominator is that those above us have been generally better run this century and have benefitted from modest levels of investment.
I don’t doubt that we have good, smart owners today, and that they are doing their best to clean up the mess their predecessor left behind, but as someone who grew up watching Town punch well above their weight, it pains me to see us fall so far behind so many clubs with considerably smaller organic fanbases.
Of course, history only counts for so much today, and we’re only 10th in the League Two attendance table today. But realistically, had we a team pushing towards the play-offs and an extra 3,000 decent seats in the ground, surely we’d have had no issue pushing towards or above our historic average of 7,704.
Ultimately, what this underlines for me is that if we can’t operate ourselves out of our current longstanding underachievement through smart management of the club, then outside investment has to be sought. If so many of those currently above us can do it, why can’t we?
I think a fans forum during the summer would be prudent, because as much as I am behind AP and JS, there are a lot of questions to be asked once this season is done and dusted (hopefully, with our EFL status intact). This season has been frustrating as fúck.