Aston Villa have to be a big football club. Formed in 1874, Aston Villa are one of the founders of the Football League and can claim big club status through their titles, support and longevity. But just how big are they?
The biggest club in a country is often the most successful club but that is not always the case. There are many other factors which can make one club a bigger club than another, such as support, matches, players and the club’s longevity.
What is certain is that the richest club is not necessarily a big football club, and spending money can make even the smallest clubs look much bigger than they really are. In the past popularity and success would follow each other and this would generate income. That income would be spent on players and this would make the club bigger. Individuals and governments have used money from outside of football to bypass this.
Big Football Clubs attempts to go beyond finances and government control to take a long and wide view of club size. We look at those elements that make a club big to find out where they stand overall.
Success
Whilst we look at a club’s trophy haul to gauge its size, success can be bought. All clubs have a different amount of money but until relatively recently English clubs had not experienced the kind of inequalities that are more common on the continent. Success often happens to clubs for a few years at a time and it is hard to keep up over generations. If a club is dominant for longer than this, it may well be the case that they have been supported by advanced finances. In other countries political reasons may also cause this.
Support
Some clubs are very popular even though they might not be the most successful. Their value is in what they mean to a local community, as this is how football developed. If you are not familiar with that community, you might not realise just how popular that club is. In our videos, we only use home average attendances to measure support. There are a number of other ways that this could be done but figures may not be quite as reliable. For instance, some clubs have a lot of support all around the world. A club does not mean the same thing to all supporters but paying and attending supporters are a solid measure.
Great Matches
A club may be considered to be bigger if it has played in the more significant matches. This is of course related to success, but there are some matches which do not necessarily represent success but are part of football folklore. It is difficult to measure the importance of one match against another so we look at how prevalent matches are in the press to see where they stand. Some clubs do not have matches well reported but we pick a few to demonstrate the context in which significant matches take place.
Legendary Players
Great players are also part of a club’s lore. This is also not an easy to measure factor, especially when we consider whether a player was produced at that club, how long they were there, if they were at the best at that club and how much that player may have cost. Again, we try to keep finances out of it, as prices vary considerably according to too many factors over time. This element of a club’s history is only contributory and is illustrated to give viewers an idea of that club’s standing.
Longevity
This is seen as a key element in these videos and we attempt to demonstrate visually the history of the club in terms of league positions and trophies won over history. This is to give the viewer an understanding of the club’s ups and downs over their entire league existence. We can be mistaken when we think a club is big just because they have been successful in our own lifetimes. Football has been around for longer than any human being and is likely to be around long after we are all gone, so we need to get a bigger picture than what is just happening now. Everyone has their own opinion about who is big at one moment, but the purpose here is to help us understand which the biggest football clubs are throughout their entire history. This may also give us some indication as to what the future holds.
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