Underachievement

Quoted from Poojah

Having studied the above list of clubs a bit more, I think I’ve worked out what rankles me so much. My first full season following Town was the 92/93 season, and I have this weird thing where struggle to see the stature of clubs as they are today, but rather how they were then. In my mind, I struggle to grasp that the likes of Brighton, Hull and Swansea are bigger clubs than Town, Cambridge and Oxford, because they were less successful at that time. Those early days following Town and the game, when everything was new and exciting, have stayed with me a long time.

But looking at that list of 32 clubs, 30 of them finished below us that season (many of them well below us). Only Wimbledon (still in their Crazy Gang days) and Tranmere finished above us. I know there’s this sensation that we were overachieving then, but I think the scale of underachievement now is much greater than the overachievement back in the 90s.

As fans, I think it’s important to take stock of that. The last couple of decades or so naturally beat the spirit out of you, but we should remember - this club is much, much better this, and we should never stop aspiring as such.

I absolutely agree it is the underachieving over the last 20 years that is on a bigger scale than the so called overachieving when in the Championship. It is also true that the teams you are accustomed to being below you in stature sticks with you,  which is one of the reasons so many fans of other clubs who started their football journey in the last 25 years or so see us as cannon fodder, because that is all they have known. They are not bothered about our history and traditions or achievements,  they just see perennial strugglers which is understable.

Next season the cod/haddock derby with Fleetwood will see so called pundits thinking that Fleetwood is the bigger fish, as ridiculous as that is.

You are basically judged by your league standing so we had better get a move on.

One of the 'smaller' clubs on the list is Rotherham and an article in the paper yesterday illustrates what clubs like them, and us are up against in trying to compete in the Championship.

After numerous points deductions over the years they now try and run sustainably. This is how that pans out....

Last season they had the lowest wage bill, which was roughly 20% of Burnley's who went up. Think about that. Trying to compete with a club who spend five times as much as you on player wages.

Last summer they broke their transfer record by buying Sam Noble for £1.1m. However in the same window championship clubs bought 52 players costing more than that. To give you some idea of relative squad values Leicester alone offloaded players with a value of £200 million and still had a pretty decent squad.  

In points per million spent on wages last season they came top. In the league they finished 19th, 6 points above the drop, their highest finish for 20 years.  They had been relegated and promoted back three times in the previous six years.  

This season they are 22 points adrift of safety.

I was lucky enough to watch Town spend 17 seasons in the Championship between 1980 and 2003, but unless a billionaire takes a shine to us, it would seem that repeating that is not realistically possible. You would have to say that the best we could probably hope for would be the odd season in the championship, mostly ending in relegation. A bit like Scunthorpe's recent experience.

It's a bitter pill to swallow but maybe we have to accept our new reality. But one thing we don't have to accept is being a NL/L2 yo yo club. We can and should do better than that if the club is run properly.    
  

Can't help but think of Bradford and possibly Notts. when reading this thread.