[bluepooch]

It should be about gates though .Gates should reflect the size of the club but in these days of benefactors and TV money the fact that Wigan are regarded as a bigger club than Portsmouth or Swansea are regarded as a bigger club than Sheff Weds is surely wrong and just shows how warped football has become with the influx of TV money .
However, at lower levels the gate size does become more significant and we ought to be one of the bigger and more powerful clubs in the Vanarama based on this .The important thing is that the money is used shrewdly to maximise the potential.
This is why Accrington have been more successful than us ,because their money has been put to better use ,its as simple as that .

[Dancingwilldoit]

What have gate sizes got to do with anything at any level these days or even anytime? It just doesn't work that way. We are not a bigger and better club than Accrington or even Mansfield. We are only as good as our owners and they are useless, that's why we are where we are.
Burnley survive in the prem on much lower gates than most and have done wonders with a tight budget and good management. Years ago they were always up there and have never had huge gates just good people running the club.

I can remember the likes of Leyton O, Blackpool, Luton, all playing in the old League Division 1 when the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea were in the 2nd, the support was always immaterial, it was the game on the field that mattered.

[spireitematt]

It should be about gates though .Gates should reflect the size of the club but in these days of benefactors and TV money the fact that Wigan are regarded as a bigger club than Portsmouth or Swansea are regarded as a bigger club than Sheff Weds is surely wrong and just shows how warped football has become with the influx of TV money .
However, at lower levels the gate size does become more significant and we ought to be one of the bigger and more powerful clubs in the Vanarama based on this .The important thing is that the money is used shrewdly to maximise the potential.
This is why Accrington have been more successful than us ,because their money has been put to better use ,its as simple as that .

Gates don't matter Blue. Look at Portsmouth they get a really big crowd but there in L1. Stockport County get 3,000+ fans in National League North which is the highest attendance ever for that division.

If Chesterfield were bigger and better than Accrington then we would have gone up but we're not. Accrington have done exceptionally well on a small budget with a good manager and players who are hungry for success. Look at Fleetwood and Burton they don't get big crowds but they have done well over the last few seasons.

You hear some fans moan that Bournemouth and Huddersfield shouldn't be in the Premier League because they have "small stadiums" or don't get enough fans. Think Wigan used to get about 18,000-20,000 when they were in the Premier League which is quite a lot especially for a town which mainly plays Rugby League.

[bluepooch]

My point is we are a bigger club than Accrington in a sense that we have more money slushing about, its just that Accrington used their money more wisely than we did .
Wigan arent a bigger club than Portsmouth but they are a bigger pull simply because they have a benefactor who ploughs money into the club.Same applies to Swansea /Sheff Wed.We all know that given a level playing field Wednesday are a bigger club but the TV money means Swansea have the greater pull.

[Devongone]

We ARE bigger than Accrington. They ARE better than us. We ARE bigger than Yeovil, but they were in the Championship a few seasons ago.

All this stuff about Burnley managing on a small budget is way out of date. They got there on a small budget, but now they are one of the world's top 100 richest clubs. Their playing budget now is small as a matter of choice (probably a very wise choice!), but last season's TV-based income alone would buy them almost any player in world football if they wanted to go that way.

Aston Villa is a big club, but financial fair play rules will probably mean selling several of their best players this summer. So how do you even calculate big and small? Ask Father Ted? It was too much for Dougal.

Our expectations are still higher than Accrington's, but lower than Charlton's and much lower than Derby's. Orient's expectations used to be higher than ours, Wrexham's were much the same as our own. Maybe all these years in non-league have slightly lowered Wrexham's sights and fate has now made Orient our bedfellows. But expectation changes more slowly than league positions. Did Burton or Yeovil EVER really see themselves as Championship clubs? Do Stockport see themselves as a Stalybridge or a Nuneaton? Do Northampton and Carlisle view themselves as once and therefore future top-level teams.

For us being outside the EFL is a disconnect. If we were sensible we would be treating our relegation like Bristol Rovers; with both ambition and realism. And on both those counts Accrington and Mansfield ARE bigger than us. We need to make being BIGGER functional rather than merely historic.

[St Charles Owl]

I’m with Blue on this to a point. Bigger attendances at EFL level means more revenue and when you consider that is the bulk of an EFL clubs revenue that gives the bigger clubs the potential to be better. Of course they also have to have the right people in place, making the right decisions and buying the right players. Consider us, almost 20 years since we were in the prem, so no money from tv, but our ticket revenue is higher than 10 teams in the prem so on a level playing field we should be able to sign better players, pay more wages or transfer fees etc, but we have to have the right people making good decision for that to work, and thats where it usually falls down!!

[Dancingwilldoit]

Charles, Matt posted some picks of Third Lanock's ground which is still there today. They were a well supported club until some maniac got hold of them and ran the club to extinction. There is a parallel with our current plight. They were a big club but when did they stop being a big club? Was it when they fell into extinction or when the support dwindled? They had 30,000 watching in 1953 and 8,000 when they finally disappeared.
Attendance doesn't have any bearing, if it did Sheff Weds would never have been in Lge1 and Sheff Utd in Lge2. Yes it means bigger revenue but its what you do with it. Its all very confusing especially when Dev says we are bigger than Accrington and Accrington are bigger than us in the same post but then it all depends what you are looking at.

[St Charles Owl]

Dancing, that was my point. Bigger attendances give you the potential to be a bigger club, you could even say they give you an advantage, but it is wholly reliant on having people managing the club properly!! We are a classic case, near the top of English football in the early 90s to League 1 in the early 2000s, mostly as a consequence of very poor management, which nearly saw us going out of business!!

[Devongone]

We ARE bigger than Accrington on almost every measure, but they have got themselves two divisions higher than us. And if the purpose of running a football club is to win games of football then they are currently a massively more successful club than us. They are clearly cleverer and more effective than us as well as more ambitious. Our perception of ourselves as bigger than them should simply act as an incentive, but it probably won't

We have lots of fat around our club that is urgent need of butchery. Both our ground and our owner come into that category. Our gates only matter if their income is used effectively. When the organisation is a football club then income has to be reflected on the field of play. Our income is dissipated both by poor decision-making AND a business model which seems fatally flawed. We don't generate sufficient income either to sustain ourselves, or to pay off our debt (which some might argue is why the debt was created ....... to centralise power in one pair of hands).

Bigger or smaller can be relevant - Blackburn and Wigan were good bets for promotion, Shrewsbury weren't - but equally size can be misleading. Burton can't possibly have reached the Championship, and surviving a season was impossible ............. Leicester City couldn't win the Premiership, but now they they are way up the world rich list. Things change rapidly financially when new owners appear and some teams achieve great feats, which on paper look impossible. How COULD Cardiff go up with THAT team?

In the end it is how you use what you've got. Macclesfield have got back to the EFL in a season in which they were struggling financially throughout. Chester were also struggling financially but they lost their Conference place in the other direction.

We've spent three seasons in total chaos and not really wanting to go anywhere. Accrington spent that time trying to improve. Thinking we're bigger won't get us back in the league any more than Wednesday will get back to the Premiership because from the outside they look like a top club.

Unfortunately because of our ownership and our dodgy administration our revenue streams are permanently in doubt. We don't trust how much money there is, or where it goes. Conspiracy theories abound. Gates, transfers or Uncle Lionel .......... it's smoke and mirrors. There's how big we look, and how big we might really be. Now Dougal these are small, but those are really far away .........