There are many arguments as to what constitutes a big club, but there is little point arguing your team was huge in 1980 (unless you were liverpool) So I was wondering whether the following headings are a fair representation of the criteria with which to decide in modern times (Prem years); Man Utd figures a)Ground capacity 75,797 b) % of capacity filled at home 99.8% c) Champions 12 times d) other Cups won 11 (incl european) e) CL qualification 19 Chelsea come out as a) 56% b) 99.8% c) 25% d) 90% e) 61% Overall 66 % of Utds totals I would be surprised if many other teams get over 50% (for those who failed maths CSE at school) to get the percentage - multiply your figure by 100 & then divide by Utd's figure Those of you who think your club are a big club - go to your club website or prem stats sites & extract the info then - do the math... Unless of course anyone has a better set of criteria with which to measure this....?
you go abroad and ask a foreigner to name 10 English clubs and if he knows a few then that backs up the old 'perception' of a big club. My personal view is a big club has lots of support and therefore turnover.
Fanbase, history, success and how there are viewed by fans of other clubs, those aren't necessarily in order, but they pretty much cover how to judge the relative 'size' of a club.
Perceived to be a big club - no way - that'd include teams like Spuds Fanbase - covered that in a) & b) Albert - they'd all name the teams in the CL (& Liverpool) - covered in item e) So I was right then..
The size of any type of club should be measured by its members - season ticket holders, average gates, local fan base. I don't see how what a club achieves on the field has anything to do with the size of the club. The Biggest clubs in the EPL: Man Utd Arsenal Newcastle Utd Sunderland Clubs should not be measured by its armchair support.
The is no doubt that man united are the biggest english club but lets be honest, its a bit embarrasing, when most of there fans don't come from manchester, full of tourists at the ground with cameras. The not from manchester. Big club or not, the clubs for the local fans, Not to be held up to the rest of the world as a silly franchise and to have a load of glory hunting supporters.
How many of these so called large clubs have a majority of their fans from the locality they represent ? Answers on a plastic stamp please
Answer to OP is incredibly simple and has no need for statistics. If the club's own fans think it is a big club it is a big club. If this isn't enough for you then consider this. It may be that to be a big club you need a consensus of the majority of fans that this is true, yet fans of rival clubs are so begrudging (especially is it impinges on their own dominance) that they will not give such a consensus, or I should say the vocal ones. All clubs only have the tip of the ice berg shall we say that blog, post, lobby, in a wider arena than their close circle of mates. The fairly silent majority do have that consensus (albeit rarely spoken as they are a silent majority). In short we all know which clubs are considered big clubs, but no one is going to admit it.
I believe their are also, "Super" clubs such as Man United, Real Madrid, Barcelona but it's all down to money! The only way you can define a "big" club is it's fanbase but clubs should be scored better when a higher percentage of their fanbase is local. Chelsea and Man City are not a big clubs they are just a rich ones. I bet more than 25% of Chelsea's and Man City's fanbase are not even local. If you can't get your local population to follow you then you can't be a big club. Buying fans is different from local pride! c) Champions 12 times - (Just means you've spent a lot and wisely) d) other Cups won 11 (incl european) (Again, all money) e) CL qualification 19 (Again, all money) b) % of capacity filled at home 99.8% (Down to the simple fact that there are a lot of "fans" that pick their teams based on who is winning and the only teams that win as much as Man United are teams that spend loads of money. You only have to look at the rise in support Chelsea have had since Abramovic bought Chelsea and their success) a) Ground capacity 75,797 (Again all money and the fact that you have a lot of glory supporting fans willing to follow the winning empire Ferguson has built) A big club, nowadays, IS unfortunately defined by the masses and the media on it's spending power. If you pay the best wages, you get the best players, simple! (See Man City) The real big clubs I.E. the bigger supported clubs such as Arsenal, Leeds, Sunderland and Newcastle who don't get much success but still have full or close to full stadiums. Real big clubs!!! Hopefully the new FIFA Financial Fair Play Rules will stop the money dominance in the game and the true cream will start rising to the top again and start challenging the likes of the Manchester Utd/City, Liverpool and Chelsea. An example, Newcastle still had the 4th highest average attendance in the English game and the 10th highest in Europe when languishing in the championship in the 2009-10 season. How many of Europes top sides can boast such loyalty from their fans.
Size of the fan base and previous success - Big clubs in England: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Leeds United
Big clubs in my mind are the successful ones; past and present. Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and Chelsea. Aston Villa's success is just that bit too long ago, the same with Sunderland. Newcastle and Leeds didn't maintain a long enough period of success to be in that class in my opinion. Around Europe it would be... Ajax, Milan, Inter, Lyon, Barca, Real Madrid, Benfica, Juventus, Bayern Munich.
What about clubs like Celtic or Rangers in Scotland or the likes of Panathinaikos and Olympiakos in Greece, and also Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe in Turkey. These clubs have won hardly anything outside of their country, they are no real match with the biggest clubs in England, Spain or Italy, yet I would still regard them as huge clubs.
I wouldn't regard any of them as large clubs in Europe though. In their respective countries they are large clubs, but match them up against the aforementioned clubs and they aren't a patch.
