How Big A Club Are We?

[Lex]

Pointless question that doesn't matter some might say, and i can fully understand that point of view. However, we don't have a game for two weeks, so it's a wee filler thread to try take discussion away from Danny Lennon. I feel that it does matter, i feel it matters in terms of defining your own expectations of the club. I will leave you to make up your mind on how to define how ' big ' a club is. In my opinion it's a mixture of history, fan base and achievement.

For me there's the 6 city clubs ( Celtic, Newco, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee Utd ) who are bigger than us without question. They have far bigger fan bases, more trophies and bigger budgets.

For me we are in the small group behind the city clubs. The 3 biggest 'town clubs' in the country are - in my opinion - ourselves, Kilmarnock and Motherwell. Us and the Well have 4 major honours, Killie have 5. I'm aware that both of them have enjoyed a bit more success - particularly in the league - in recent years. I feel this is cancelled out when you take into consideration the finances of each club. The Well have been in admin and Killie have racked up about £8 million in debt. Us on the other hand, haven't been in admin and are debt free. We also have pretty similar fan bases, therefore i feel we that the three of us are clubs of roughly equal size.

That of course means i feel we are bigger than the next tier of town clubs. I would largely put clubs like Falkirk (2 honours), Dunfermline (2 honours), Morton (1 honour), Partick Thistle (2 honours), St Johnstone (0 honours) on the next step below us. They all have smaller fan bases and have all achieved less in the game.

Then there is clubs who are anomalies who i find difficult to place. ICT and Ross County for example, two relatively new clubs who have fan bases comparable to the teams in the tier below us and who have both made major finals in this decade. Not as big as us yet of course, but maybe could be in the future? Maybe already bigger than some (Morton) in the tier below us? Then Dundee, i have no idea what to think about Dundee. They have 4 honours too, but the last one was more than 40 years ago, we have 2 since then. I think they have more fans than us but i can't remember them being better than us without cheating. Whenever they aren't cheating they seem to finish below us. Are they bigger than us? Personally i would say no.

Therefore i would have us as joint 7th biggest team in the country. I can't separate us from Motherwell and Killie. What do you think?

Edited March 5, 2014 by Lex

[dave.j]

Which Thistle honour are you forgetting bud, our Scottish cup win or our league cup win?

Can you clarify how our fan base is smaller than st mirrens, to what degree?

Edited March 5, 2014 by dave.j

[Lex]

Which Thistle honour are you forgetting bud, our Scottish cup win or our league cup win?

Can you clarify how our fan base is smaller than st mirrens, to what degree?

My bad, forgot about your 1921 cup win, will edit tomorrow.

I would say if we took the average home gates from both clubs this century you'd see the degree of difference in size between the clubs. After a quick glance at average attendances for last few years it won't surprise you to learn I've yet to find one where Thistle come close to St Mirren.

Take last seasons league campaigns for example. You had a largely competitive title winning campaign which will always bring out the crowds and an astounding 8875 home gate against Morton. Just another season in 11th for us, our largest gate being 6200 odd. Due to Dundee being cut off we really had nothing to play for most of the season.

Despite these mitigating factors in Thistles favour, we still had a higher average gate than you.

[Bart Simpson]

Ultimately it doesn't matter at all,

however for all the advocates of slightly better league mediocrity your figures regarding St.Johnstone's major trophy successes speaks volumes for me.

It's about enjoying the ride with your team. I've no interest in bragging rights of we have a bigger fan base etc...

I want a sustainable club that lives within its means, investing in the local community, producing young talent and providing said talent with a platform to preform, whilst trying to play football maintaining a secure future on and off the park. Success when it infrequently comes is phenomenal, but the building bricks are there for us to establish ourselves once again in the bracket you are eluding to.

Therefore to answer your question I think we are currently about our level all things considered. Other clubs will have ups and downs as will we, but we are playing more of the long game by getting our house in order.

ICT and RC currently buck the trend as they have not been saddled by 90s and early noughties debt chasing the 'glory' days of top flight football. St.Johnstone have their house in order, I think. Therefore excluding these three is there a team ahead or around us that by virtue of your point shouldn't be there at present?

[saintargyll]

Sadly for me one issue is the amount of timmy/bears buses that leave paisley on game day

if these Paisley punters supported their home team i would guess we could fill our stadium every home game

(ive also seen timmy/bear buses leave Aberdeen,Dundee and perth)

As it stands at the moment we are a team which can win a cup every 10 to 20 years or so with a few amazing league games to keep the Buddies in bragging mode

We also see the down side (often,its in our DNA)

Every season we hope for at least a cup victory or a good cup run but thats as far as we will ever get as we will never EVER win a league( unlesss the blue bigots die and we inherit some of their Paisley born support therefore boosting our crowd and money)

BUT,our youth set up is starting to see fruition which is very pleasing

We are where we are and we is what we is......enjoy the roller coaster ride both good and bad

[saints0]

The fans decide how "big" a club is and the management of said club tend to act on behalf of the fans.Hibs had a manager not cutting it and got rid,we have a manager not cutting it,nobody seems in a rush to do anything.Many of our fans think he is a legend,others the antichrist,but if results and ambition are the benchmark for a "big" club then im afraid we are pondlife

[pod]

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

To be referred to as pond life, I would say a bit melodramatic

[Drew]

The club is as big as the place it has in your heart.

That's pretty much the....aherm....size of it.

[shull]

The club is as big as the place it has in your heart.

That's pretty much the....aherm....size of it.

In that case, it's huge.

[Howard Hughes in BlueSuedeShoes]

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

To be referred to as pond life, I would say a bit melodramatic

This is solely the reserve for describing supporters of the Bigot Brothers.

[Howard Hughes in BlueSuedeShoes]

St Johnstone (0 honours)

Aye but they finish higher up the league than is which is FAR more important.......

[Isabella Duke]

I would bracket Dundee along with Dundee United in terms of size of club, at least in potential anyway.

The difference between the 2 clubs over the past 40 years has been that United have been run brilliantly, had an incredible manager in Jim McLean and established a fantastic youth system that has provided them with many great players and huge transfer income while Dundee have done the complete opposite! I expect Dundee to come back eventually!

[bluto]

The club is as big as the place it has in your heart.

That's pretty much the....aherm....size of it.

That's pathetically corny!

But I like it.

On topic, ICT and RC are both in growing, currently affluent towns. In the 60s inverness had a popn of 17000, now it's 56000 and, as I said, still growing. Ict has potential to overtake St Mirren (Dingwall is much wee-er and possibly reached its best). ICT is in with a chance of cup glory, too.

[pozbaird]

Surely Dundee United were run 'brilliantly' by having Eddie Thompson willing to spunk away the family fortune on them and running up massive debts, before (allegedly) Mrs Thompson said enough is enough, and stopped him flushIng the family fortune down a tangerine coloured toilet.

I don't know how 'big' we are. If it takes into account population in surrounding area, attendances, honours, years in top flight, or a zillion other considerations. I certainly regard us as one of Scotland's bigger and better clubs, doing better than yer' Hamiltons, Falkirks, Dunfermlines, Dundees and Livingstons etc.

My concern is that the ICTs, Ross Countys, Particks, St Johnstones and Killies of this world could be leaving us in their wake. Many, many clubs must look at us and wish they had what we have - the modern stadium, the dedicated training ground, the indoor airdome, the financial footing, the League Cup in the archives, the community initiatives, the youth set up, and a squad containing guys like Thommo, Teale, McGowan, Kello, McGinn, and McLean.

Everything is in place. While no-one has a divine right to success, we shouldn't be perennial relegation pamper soilers. We should be regarded in the same breath as Aberdeen, Hibs, Dundee Utd, Motherwell - capable of a shite season and being at the wrong end of the table for sure, but definitely not thought of as joint favourites for the drop every year, and proving those pundits invariably right, by being down and dirty in the lower spots in the league time after time.

The current BoD have put the foundations in place. In fact, more than foundations, see list above of thIngs we have that many others must covet. Maybe a change at the top is needed to inject new ideas and energy even more than mere investment.

Still, bigger than Morton and massively better than the Sevco.

Edited March 5, 2014 by pozbaird

[Drew]

That's pathetically corny!

But I like it.

You're right, it is horribly corny, but it is how I see it, to be honest.

It would be a bit like asking me how important my kids are. Its an emotional attachment that goes some way towards ruling out objectivity.

For me, St Mirren are huge, and massively more significant than Celtic, Manchester United, or Barcelona. In terms of our operations and scale, we are, however, miniscule in comparison.

Perhaps I'm missing the point....

ETA:

not using the phone now, so easier to elaborate.

Unless there is a standard measure as to how the size of clubs is gauged, this will inevitably be a difficult thing to agree on (just see the gazillion spats on P&B for evidence of this).

Average attendances is a decent measure, I'd have thought, but these can fluctuate over time, and are affected by external factors such as the prevailing financial climate. General socio-economic circumstances will have a bearing on most clubs, however, so perhaps these things even themselves out over the piece.

I think we need to look at the broader picture, in terms of how football in Scotland is administered, and its future as an engaging, attractive way to spend your time, and, critically, you hard-earned. Getting caught up in discussion and debate about whether our club is bigger than the one in the next town is fine for a bit of distraction, but there are more pressing concerns.

In summary, I'd be more concerned about sustainability than size (perhaps a point with which many women would concur....).

Edited March 5, 2014 by Drew

[Bud the Baker]

I always think of it in tiers

Tier 1 - Celtic (& Rangers if they ever stabilize financially)

Tier 2 - Aberdeen & Hibs (& Hearts if they can successfully negotiate a CVA)

Tier 3 - The rest of the SPFL & the full time clubs outside.

Tier 4 - The part-time clubs.

Within the tiers the ebb & flow of fortunes will see some teams doing better than others at any point in time and even teams doing better than teams in higher tiers or vice versa eg, Hibs & Aberdeen (until this season) have underperformed with respect to say Motherwell in recent seasons but you can't really argue Motherwell are a bigger team than the other two.

*********************

Rangers & Hearts will probably return to their historical places in the fullness of time. Some Dundee Utd fans reckon they should be lumped in with the Tier 2 sides but my opinion is they are a Tier 3 side albeit the biggest one.

I suppose the interesting (well if you're reading this thread you've got to accept that it is) point is how long can a team survive full-time outside the top flight? The club currently in most series trouble are our rancid cousins from Smellyville who look like they're going to miss out on the Newco bonanza (always assuming Newco don't crash & burn again) with their Chairman issuing annual threats to go part-time it might finally happen if/when they get relegated and with a dilapidated stadium it would be hard to see them making a speedy recovery.

[rabuddies]

I would bracket Dundee along with Dundee United in terms of size of club, at least in potential anyway.

Dundee it has to be said are probably bigger than us. In their last SPL I think their average attendance was over 6,000. Their honours include a league title, a handful of league runner-up places and semi-finals in the European Cup and Fairs Cup. Like a lot of clubs they have fallen foul of over ambitious boards who tried to spend for success, with neither the money nor the brains to back it up. We have been lucky that our board have not been gullible enough to fall into that trap and we should be thankful. The fakes are a well run club which is why they punch above their weight - although it will be interesting to see if their new chairman can emulate his faither, in my view the most successful club chairman of the last 40 years.

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

Being in the SPL is where we all want to see our club. Winning a national trophy is the icing on the cake.

If Danny had us up a few more places I'm sure he would not be under pressure at least he gives youth a chance.

There is potential at Saints Fergie proved it as did our European nights unfortunately it takes a special person too tap into it

[oaksoft]

The fans decide how "big" a club is and the management of said club tend to act on behalf of the fans.Hibs had a manager not cutting it and got rid,we have a manager not cutting it,nobody seems in a rush to do anything.Many of our fans think he is a legend,others the antichrist,but if results and ambition are the benchmark for a "big" club then im afraid we are pondlife

Deary me. Does anyone have smelling salts for this poster? I believe he may have fainted.

Edited March 5, 2014 by oaksoft

[Lex]

Ultimately it doesn't matter at all,

however for all the advocates of slightly better league mediocrity your figures regarding St.Johnstone's major trophy successes speaks volumes for me.

It's about enjoying the ride with your team. I've no interest in bragging rights of we have a bigger fan base etc...

I want a sustainable club that lives within its means, investing in the local community, producing young talent and providing said talent with a platform to preform, whilst trying to play football maintaining a secure future on and off the park. Success when it infrequently comes is phenomenal, but the building bricks are there for us to establish ourselves once again in the bracket you are eluding to.

Therefore to answer your question I think we are currently about our level all things considered. Other clubs will have ups and downs as will we, but we are playing more of the long game by getting our house in order.

ICT and RC currently buck the trend as they have not been saddled by 90s and early noughties debt chasing the 'glory' days of top flight football. St.Johnstone have their house in order, I think. Therefore excluding these three is there a team ahead or around us that by virtue of your point shouldn't be there at present?

I know you say that the Saintees have their house in order, and i'd largely agree. But then again, so do we, at least off the park. We are (rightly) the envy of pretty much every provincial club in the country. We own or own purpose built brand new low maintenance stadium, state of the art training facility and we have a major trophy in the cabinet. We're debt free too of course. In theory everything is in place for us to really kick on in the league, but for whatever reason it's not happened. In my opinion our house is as much if not more in order than the Saintees, yet we can't seem to finish above them in the top flight in recent times.

Like i said, i think we are the joint 7th biggest team in the country with two other clubs. Therefore i think our 'natural level' would be between 7th and 9th in the top league, and we are currently 9th in the top league and level on points with 8th. On the surface we are pretty much where we'd expect to be.

The caveat is that due to non footballing reasons we will finish above 2 teams this year who are bigger than us and who, under normal circumstances, finish above us every season (The Ibrox club and Hertz). You could argue therefore, that due to non footballing reasons our league position has been artificially bumped up by 2 positions and that we are underachieving, that's splitting hairs though.

I always think of it in tiers

Tier 1 - Celtic (& Rangers if they ever stabilize financially)

Tier 2 - Aberdeen & Hibs (& Hearts if they can successfully negotiate a CVA)

Tier 3 - The rest of the SPFL & the full time clubs outside.

Tier 4 - The part-time clubs.

Within the tiers the ebb & flow of fortunes will see some teams doing better than others at any point in time and even teams doing better than teams in higher tiers or vice versa eg, Hibs & Aberdeen (until this season) have underperformed with respect to say Motherwell in recent seasons but you can't really argue Motherwell are a bigger team than the other two.

*********************

Rangers & Hearts will probably return to their historical places in the fullness of time. Some Dundee Utd fans reckon they should be lumped in with the Tier 2 sides but my opinion is they are a Tier 3 side albeit the biggest one.

I suppose the interesting (well if you're reading this thread you've got to accept that it is) point is how long can a team survive full-time outside the top flight? The club currently in most series trouble are our rancid cousins from Smellyville who look like they're going to miss out on the Newco bonanza (always assuming Newco don't crash & burn again) with their Chairman issuing annual threats to go part-time it might finally happen if/when they get relegated and with a dilapidated stadium it would be hard to see them making a speedy recovery.

Lumping Dundee United in the same tier as Morton and Raith and the like? That's quite a generalisation. In my opinion the Arabs are roughly the same as the Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen. Within that tier you're splitting hairs. Aberdeen could probably argue that they are the biggest of the 4 with their history and possibly slightly larger fan base. But then again, each of the other city clubs have won at least 1 trophy in the last decade, Aberdeen haven't.

I would have 4 tiers among the full time clubs. The Old Firm or whatever they're called now or obviously streets ahead of the rest of us. Then the above mentioned 4 city clubs are behind them but a good bit ahead of the rest of us. Then i'd say us, Killie and Motherwell are the countries leading provincial clubs. The rest of the full time clubs are in the fourth tier behind us.

Like i said in the OP i struggle to place the highland clubs and Dundee. The heelan' clubs recent addition to the league set up means it's obviously unfair to compare their history to the rest of us, but in their short time in the senior league they've both already made more major final appearances this century than St Johnstone, Morton and Partick Thistle combined. I think i would have them at the top end of the 4th tier knocking the door to get into our tier. ICT in particular, but they can't seem to get any fans through the door no matter how well they do. For example last season ICT finished 4th (their best season ever) had a proper local derby and had an average home gate of 4038. We finished 11th, had no proper local derby and had an average home gate of 4389.

Dundee are a basket case in virtually every sense of the term. I certainly accept that they have more fans than we do, but they've been worse than us for the best part of 50 years. How long does fan base alone allow a team to have a decent claim to be bigger than another? 80 years? 100 years?

Edited March 5, 2014 by Lex

[Bud the Baker]

Lumping Dundee United in the same tier as Morton and Raith and the like? That's quite a generalisation. In my opinion the Arabs are roughly the same as the Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen. Within that tier you're splitting hairs. Aberdeen could probably argue that they are the biggest of the 4 with their history and possibly slightly larger fan base. But then again, each of the other city clubs have won at least 1 trophy in the last decade, Aberdeen haven't.

I would have 4 tiers among the full time clubs. The Old Firm or whatever they're called now or obviously streets ahead of the rest of us. Then the above mentioned 4 city clubs are behind them but a good bit ahead of the rest of us. Then i'd say us, Killie and Motherwell are the countries leading provincial clubs. The rest of the full time clubs are in the fourth tier behind us.

Like i said in the OP i struggle to place the highland clubs and Dundee. The heelan' clubs recent addition to the league set up means it's obviously unfair to compare their history to the rest of us, but in their short time in the senior league they've both already made more major final appearances this century than St Johnstone, Morton and Partick Thistle combined. I think i would have them at the top end of the 4th tier knocking the door to get into our tier. ICT in particular, but they can't seem to get any fans through the door no matter how well they do. For example last season ICT finished 4th (their best season ever) had a proper local derby and had an average home gate of 4038. We finished 11th, had no proper local derby and had an average home gate of 4389.

Dundee are a basket case in virtually every sense of the term. I certainly accept that they have more fans than we do, but they've been worse than us for the best part of 50 years. How long does fan base alone allow a team to have a decent claim to be bigger than another? 80 years? 100 years?

Yeah I made some generalizations - you can't have a topic like this and not do so. I said Dundee Utd. were the biggest of the Tier 3 teams and also that Morton were the ones currently in most danger of losing this status. My point is that teams in a Tier have more in common with other teams in that tier than with teams in other tiers regardless of current fluctuations in form.

Like I've said Dundee Utd. are the biggest of the 3^rd Tier clubs in my classification but they've struggled with debt in recent years and have just been bailed out by fans taking over the bank debt. Going back to the 90's when they were relegated they didn't win the old First Division and IIRC it took a last minute equalizer in the play-offs before they beat Thistle in extra time to get them back into the last but one incarnation of the top flight whereas a couple of seasons later Hibs won the same division by over 20 points. Tier 2 teams (like Hibs) will bounce back from relegation in a season or so whereas teams from the third Tier might not and may be forced to spend the best part of a decade in the First Division (like us in the '90's), or Championship as it is now called. OK Hearts may be an exception next season due to Rangers but these are truly exceptional circumstances.

My main point is that trying to base who is the biggest club between ourselves Killie, Motherwell & The Fakes based on trophies some of which were won before WW2 instead of whether a club can currently support full-time football is flawed.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Bud the Baker

[Stuart Dickson]

How can the current "Rangers" be bigger than St Mirren? They have less chance than St Mirren of winning the league title, less chance of playing in the Champions League, and historically all they've won to date is one Fourth Tier League Title.

Lets face it most of this thread is full of the defeatist shite that kills Scottish Football. It ranks alongside football managers and football chairmen who class a successful season as one where you don't get relegated, or one where you've targeted a top six finish. AIm to win the league title every year and if you fail and finished second, third or fourth don't beat yourself up about it - just learn from where you went wrong and set about trying to win the league again next year.

We all know that although money can be a major factor in determining success, but while that is true it hasn't stopped Aberdeen beating Celtic recently, it didn't stop Albion Rovers from putting Motherwell out of the Scottish Cup and it hasn't stopped sides like QoS beating St Mirren.in the League Cup and drawing in the Scottish.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Stuart Dickson

[Dibbles old paperboy]

That's pathetically corny!

But I like it.

On topic, ICT and RC are both in growing, currently affluent towns. In the 60s inverness had a popn of 17000, now it's 56000 and, as I said, still growing. Ict has potential to overtake St Mirren (Dingwall is much wee-er and possibly reached its best). ICT is in with a chance of cup glory, too.

Lex, are ICT, St Johnstone and Partick Thistle not 'city clubs' along with the mighty Stirling Albion? Last time I checked Inverness, Perth,Glasgow (and Stirling) were all on the list of Scottish cities.

If you measure us by income and turnover then the latest stats have us ranked well below Dundee United, Motherwell, Killie and ICT financially.

[Seaside Nipper]

Hmm, philosophical question really , but fwiw you are as big as your last result.................currently Kilmarnock are our bitches.

or fwiw Hmm, quite like this................ problem is too many of us think this is actually correct !!!!

A historical ranking of football clubs competing in Scotland.

[updated to: end of 2012-2013 season]

Club
Rangers
Celtic
Heart of Midlothian
Aberdeen
Hibernian
Motherwell
St Mirren
Dundee
Kilmarnock
Partick Thistle
Falkirk
Clyde

Rank Second Tier Clubs

Greenock Morton
Queens Park
Dundee United
Hamilton Academical
Raith Rovers
St Johnstone
Dunfermline Athletic
Ayr United
Dumbarton
East Fife

Rank Third Tier Clubs

Queen of the South
Cowdenbeath
Albion Rovers
Stirling Albion
Arbroath
Alloa Athletic
East Stirlingshire
Forfar Athletic
Stenhousemuir
Brechin City

Rank Fourth Tier Clubs

Montrose
Livingston
Inverness & Caledonian Thistle
Stranraer
Berwick Rangers
Ross County
Airdrie United
Annan Athletic
Elgin City
Peterhead

Edited March 5, 2014 by Seaside Nipper

[Lex]

Yeah I made some generalizations - you can't have a topic like this and not do so. I said Dundee Utd. were the biggest of the Tier 3 teams and also that Morton were the ones currently in most danger of losing this status. My point is that teams in a Tier have more in common with other teams in that tier than with teams in other tiers regardless of current fluctuations in form.

Like I've said Dundee Utd. are the biggest of the 3^rd Tier clubs in my classification but they've struggles with debt in recent years and have just been bailed out by fans taking over the bank debt. Going back to the 90's when they were relegated they didn't win the old First Division and IIRC it took a last minute equalizer in the play-offs before they beat Thistle in extra time to get them back into the last but one incarnation of the top flight whereas a couple of seasons later Hibs won the same division by over 20 points. Tier 2 teams (like Hibs) will bounce back from relegation in a season or so whereas teams from the third Tier might not and may be forced to spend the best part of a decade in the First Division (like us in the '90's), or Championship as it is now called. OK Hearts may be an exception next season due to Rangers but these are truly exceptional circumstances.

My main point is that trying to base who is the biggest club between ourselves Killie, Motherwell & The Fakes based on trophies some of which were won before WW2 instead of whether a club can currently support full-time football is flawed.

Putting United below the other city clubs just because they needed a playoff to come straight back up is a tad harsh IMO. Surely trophies are more important than how you got promoted back to the top flight? Weren't Aberdeen saved from relegation by reconstruction or something one year?

The city clubs will almost always be in the top flight. Amazingly, next year two of the six biggest clubs in the country will be outside the top league, that opens up a few doors for the leading provincial clubs like ourselves.

We could use only trophies won in the modern era if you prefer, say since the advent of the Scottish Premier Division in 1975, it actually works out better for us. Us and Killie have won two since then, Motherwell one. Clubs like Thistle, Morton, St Johnstone (obviously), Falkirk, Dundee and Dunfermline haven't won any honours in the modern era. Personally I would say that it's disrespectful to our team of 1926 or any team of that era to discount their glorious achievement because of when it happened.

The point is, however you want to cut the cake, be that total trophies, post war trophies, modern era trophies, we come out ahead of every club in the tier below us.

It's not just trophies either. Despite having a pretty dreadful league campaign last season we had a higher average league attendance than every club I listed (Apart from Dundee, but including St Johnstone who equalled their highest ever finish of 3rd last term). Imagine we had finished 3rd last year? I think our average would have been near the 6000 mark.

I'm not saying Killie us and Well are much bigger than these clubs, but there is a clear and discernible difference between us and them, whatever barometer of club size you choose to use.