The True 92: The biggest football clubs in England ranked
Every football fan has thought about, every football fan has debated it, and at some point, an unwitting fan of every single team has declared they’re ‘back where they belong’.
But where do England’s football clubs really fall in the natural footballing pecking order?
The Methodology
First thing’s first, how do we go about measuring such a thing? After all, the ‘size’ of a football club is 1) arbitrary and 2) fluid.
Broadly, football supporters and pundits seem to agree that the two main factors that determine the ‘size’ of a club are its historic success and its fanbase.
So, all we need to do is combine those two factors and the job’s done, right?
Well, no not really.
Unfortunately, there’s no neat definition of how to measure the success of a football club. Do we just add up each clubs’ trophy haul? Do we just look at the all-time top-flight table?
We could, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going a bit rogue. In my calculation, the size of a club will be determined by two parts success to one part fanbase. By that, I have first looked at the trophy haul of the clubs, and weighted each trophy depending on its prestige. For example, a club is given 6 points for winning the UEFA Champions League or the old European Cup, but gets just a single point for winning the Community Shield.
The clubs are then ranked by their point tally and assigned points based on their place. Where teams have accrued the same number of points, the club whose last trophy win was most recent is placed higher. The trophy ranking is below:
The second part of the success equation is provided by Jeremy’s outstanding All Time League Table. This study ranks each of the clubs by their average position over the entire history of the organised league system.
The next part is accounting for levels of support. I considered looking at a club’s recent home attendance for the previous season but that’s too fluid. I then thought about tallying each team’s social media following but that suffers too heavily from recency bias.
Thankfully, European Football Statistics has already compiled the data. They’ve tracked each club’s average home attendance since the inception of the organised English game. A real life saver.
Once again, the clubs have been assigned a number based on their ranking for average attendance.
The Ranking
Now it’s time to rank the teams against each other. Now each of the categories have been normalised and each club has a ranking for its trophy haul, average league position and average home attendance, we can create an overall score.
Then we’re faced with the question of how to organise the clubs; taking the average or the median.
I couldn’t decide so I used both, the square root of the average and the median multiplied is found and that acts as the club’s score.
It all sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Yeah, wait until you see the list…
The True 92
League Two
There are no major trophy winners in the fourth tier, Carlisle United (70th) once found themselves plying their trade at the dizzy heights of the first tier.
Walsall (72nd) have an average league position befitting a third-tier side, but their below average trophy haul and attendances pulls them down to the EFL’s basement division.
League One
Some trophy winners appear in League One, with Oxford United (60th) and Swindon Town (51st) both former EFL Cup winners, and Wimbledon (61st), Wigan Athletic (52nd), and Bradford City (46th) boasting a solitary FA Cup success.
Brighton & Hove Albion (46th) and Reading (48th) can boast about a solitary Community Shield and Full Members Cup win respectively.
Despite spending roughly 80,000 years in England’s second tier, Hull City’s (47th) lack of silverware has them outside the top two tiers, but they are at least the biggest club on Humberside.
Championship
This is where it starts to get tricky…
Bury (43rd) despite sporting a lower-end League One level attendance find themselves in the second tier, owing to their two FA Cup wins.
Huddersfield Town (28th) and Portsmouth (26th) are among the most decorated clubs in the country, but miss out on the overall top twenty, mostly owing to a less than impressive comparable league performance.
Middlesbrough (21st) and Birmingham City (22nd) are among the best supported clubs in the country, but their inability to actually you know, win something, leaves them on the outside looking in.
The Big 20
20th. Derby County
Trophies: 25th
League position: 14th
Attendance: 20th
The worst team in history makes the top table by the skin of their teeth. Now better acquainted with the likes of Fleetwood Town and Morecambe, Derby County have twice boasted the title of English football’s champions.
Nevertheless, everything before that, and certainly everything since has been much more of a modest showing.
19th. Nottingham Forest
Trophies: 12th
League position: 20th
Attendance: 22nd
Just pipping their best mates to the post is Notts Forest.
Forest’s trophy collection is indeed impressive, but their fanbase and league performance haven’t quite kept the same pace.
Long spells outside the top-flight and Championship-level attendances really detracts from their trophy winning purple patch back in the 1600s.
18th. West Ham United
Trophies: 20th
League position: 22nd
Attendance: 10th
West Ham’s trophy haul is pretty dire, though they’ve taken steps to rectify that with their Conference League success. By far and away, the Hammers are the biggest club in England to have never lifted the top domestic prize.
The Claret and Blue Army might stake their claim to fame on ‘winning the World Cup for England’, but they’d be better off boasting about having a monstrously large fanbase, and a pretty consistent league performance.
17th. Sheffield United
Trophies: 18th
League position: 16th
Attendance: 19th
Well, at least the Blades beat West Ham in to 17th this time.
By every metric, Sheffield United are a top-flight club — a top flight title, four FA Cups and 60+ seasons among the best of the best.
The only thing eluding those at Brammall Lane is the right to call themselves the biggest club in their own city…
16th. Leicester City
Trophies: 17th
League position: 18th
Attendance: 17th
The Foxes used to be the nearly men, a regular fixture of the top table of English football, without the silverware to match. In fact, 5 of Leicester’s 7 major trophies have come since 1997, and three since 2016.
Had it not been for that spell, Leicester would probably be knocking elbows with Birmingham and Middlesbrough lower down this list.
That said, Leicester can also point to their top-flight level support and impressive consistency in league position over their 140 year history as justification for their place on this list.
15th. Leeds United
Trophies: 15th
League position: 24th
Attendance: 11th
Look, Leeds are undoubtedly a big club, but they’re not as big as they think they are.
Despite two spells at the very top of English football, Leeds’ recent history in League One and the Championship means they have fewer top-flight seasons than the likes of Burnley and Stoke.
Yes, their attendances are impressive, but for a one-club city like Leeds, they really should be.
14th. West Bromwich Albion
Trophies: 16th
League position: 11th
Attendance: 18th
West Brom are regularly left off lists like these and I just don’t really get it.
True, the Baggies have never really set the world alight but the 11th best league performance in the country, and no fewer than 9 major trophies makes them undoubtedly one of the biggest 20 clubs in England.
Boing, boing, I suppose.
13th. Blackburn Rovers
Trophies: 10th
League position: 12th
Attendance: 31st
Blackburn Rovers’ history is certainly illustrious, their trophy cabinet is the envy of club’s representing a far larger catchment area.
What lets them down is the fact that Blackburn isn’t that big — and if anything that makes their remarkable track record of success even more impressive.
12th. Sheffield Wednesday
Trophies: 14th
League position: 15th
Attendance: 13th
So the Steel City is, in fact, blue and white. The Owls are a funny one, a club with a big stadium in a big city but their record in my lifetime has been well… crap.
In recent times, Wednesday have been a yo-yo club between the Championship and League One, which is hardly befitting of the 12th biggest club in the country.
Nevertheless, the history and the fanbase are there. A sleeping giant? Maybe.
11th. Wolverhampton Wanderers
Trophies: 11th
League position: 13th
Attendance: 14th
Wolves are an old name of English football, winning 7 major honours before 1960. With that heritage, and the backing of the country’s 14th largest fanbase, it’s no surprise to see Wolves so high up the table.
However, their modern history has been much less impressive. Their current spell as an established Premier League side has not been reflective of the last five decades at Molineux…
10th. Sunderland
Trophies: 13th
League position: 10th
Attendance: 12th
Frankly, a city of Sunderland’s population has no business hosting a club of this size.
I don’t really have much to say. The Black Cats’ haven’t won anything for decades and decades but they’ve still performed fairly well over the last fifty years and still draw inexplicably large crowds.
Ha’way the Lads!
9th. Tottenham Hotspur
Trophies: 8th
League position: 9th
Attendance: 4th
For a member of the so-called European Super League, Tottenham Hotspur’s trophy haul is pathetic.
But it is simply that Spurs have found themselves hoisted in to a category where they’re the smallest fish in the big-six pond. Remove them from that, and their history is decorated and their fanbase exceptional.
8th. Newcastle United
Trophies: 9th
League position: 7th
Attendance: 5th
The Geordies haven’t won anything since the Ice Age, but they are a famous club of English football.
7th in overall league position since, and the fifth largest fanbase in England is undeniably impressive.
And now, backed by unprecedented levels of blood money, the Toon could climb these rankings over the coming years.
7th. Aston Villa
Trophies: 6th
League position: 5th
Attendance: 9th
Aston Villa are comfortably the biggest club in the Midlands. The Villans have European and domestic trophy successes in their history, and have been the fifth best performing team in the English game’s history.
A staple of English football.
6th. Everton
Trophies: 7th
League position: 3rd
Attendance: 7th
Did you know that Everton have only spent four seasons outside the top-flight in their entire history? Four.
That’s literally insane.
Forget their high attendances and respectable trophy haul, they deserve 6th place for that stat alone.
5th. Manchester City
Trophies: 5th
League position: 6th
Attendance: 8th
The trajectory for the blue half of Manchester is very much upwards. Ever since their infamous takeover, the Citizens have dominated the English game.
If it weren’t for their relatively modest history prior to that, Man City would already be higher up the list. Certainly a member of the current big four, but of the historic big four? Not quite.
4th. Chelsea
Trophies: 4th
League position: 8th
Attendance: 6th
There’s a real generational divide with the perception of Chelsea. Ask fans under the age of 40 and the Blues are considered a titan of the game.
Ask older generations and Chelsea are a mid-sized club that have been Man City-ing a bit longer than Man City.
Either way, they’ve been European champions twice, and even world champions — there’s no arguing with that.
3rd. Arsenal
Trophies: 3rd
League position: 2nd
Attendance: 2nd
Arsenal are the biggest club in London — that’s a fact. In fact, their average league finish is only bettered by one other club in the country, and their support is actually second best too.
The only thing that counts against the Gunners is their lack of European success.
2nd. Manchester United
Trophies: 2nd
League position: 4th
Attendance: 1st
There really is little to pick between the top two. The Red Devils finish second on the trophy haul by a whisker, but crucially, are only the fourth most consistent league performers in English football.
The real pull of Man Utd is their fanbase: the largest in the country (by a distance in fact).
1st. Liverpool
Trophies: 1st
League position: 1st
Attendance: 3rd
19 league titles, 6 Champions Leagues, 34 domestic cups and world champions to boot — Liverpool’s past is illustrious.
Their dominance of the English league in the 1970s and 1980s, and their recent re-emergence means the Kopites are the most consistent league performers in the country.
They may be less well-supported than Arsenal and Manchester United, but for now, by the skin of their teeth, Liverpool are England’s biggest club.