English Football Promotion/Relegation fan question

[Young Drachma]

So...are there fans out there of lower-division teams who'd never want to see their team move up the ranks? Obviously it's not feasible for most, but...I'm just curious if there's an element of this or if it's pretty much universal that "promotion = good thing."

[Marc Vaughan]

It depends on the circumstances, there are times when you know if you club scrapes a promotion then it'll almost certainly be followed by a dire season and a relegation which can take the edge off things somewhat ....

That being said I don't think many fans would ever say 'no' to promotion, you always manage to fool yourself into thinking the club will somehow manage to survive and build in the higher level

(personally at the moment I'm just hoping Brighton manage to avoid relegation to the basement level this season, being thrashed 4-0 yesterday didn't help )

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

It depends on the circumstances, there are times when you know if you club scrapes a promotion then it'll almost certainly be followed by a dire season and a relegation which can take the edge off things somewhat ....

That being said I don't think many fans would ever say 'no' to promotion, you always manage to fool yourself into thinking the club will somehow manage to survive and build in the higher level

(personally at the moment I'm just hoping Brighton manage to avoid relegation to the basement level this season, being thrashed 4-0 yesterday didn't help )

I don't really pay much attention to soccer but have been to a coulple of Kaiserslautern matches as they battle to try and promote back into the premier league and it's pretty cool. Lot's on the line and they want to be in the premier league, even if it means taking a beating.

Not only can anything happen, but sometimes you'll get the right funding to really push into a long-term strategy for success. For instance, fans of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim are living the dream right now. Hoffenheim is 3rd in points after 22 games in the German 1st division so far. They were a 5th division team in 2000. Not bad for a team situated in a town with a population of 3,000.

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

So...are there fans out there of lower-division teams who'd never want to see their team move up the ranks? Obviously it's not feasible for most, but...I'm just curious if there's an element of this or if it's pretty much universal that "promotion = good thing."

I think my home town club - Rochdale - has taken that as the club philosophy as it's the one team in the entire English professional leagues that has never either been promoted or relegated

[Passacaglia]

That's an interesting question. I wonder if there's a phenomenon there similar to indie music, where a lot of fans don't want to see the club become too popular, so that they can see it more as "their" club, instead of being one out of a bazillion fans.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

That's an interesting question. I wonder if there's a phenomenon there similar to indie music, where a lot of fans don't want to see the club become too popular, so that they can see it more as "their" club, instead of being one out of a bazillion fans.

Well yeah or that they'd start to raise money and sell out or something.

The idea was motivated because I finally broke down and bought WWSM09 (grr...I hate the separate versions) and my dynasty is based on a team that would be purchased by this rich guy at the 7th division, who ended up in the Blue Square Premier and are storming their way to the top of the charts by investing huge gobs of money into this team.

Dutch's story is pretty much what I was aiming for. So rock on.

[Big Fo]

It's a minority sentiment but I have read comments by some fans that watching their team get drubbed in the Premiership is less interesting than seeing them be one of the better clubs in the Championship. But most would rather be in the top league.

[bhlloy]

I still miss the days that Cardiff were in the lower reaches of the bottom division in one way, because the group of supporters was much more tight knit, the atmosphere was way better and there is just this strange sort of nostalgia about the whole thing. The comparison to an indie band is a pretty good one IMO. Of course now I'm thousands of miles away it's a pretty moot point anyway.

Of course if they go up to the premiership this year, I'll get drunk and cry like a baby for a week straight. If they get to the playoff final, I'll even be back in the UK for it. A win there to get into the Prem would easily be the best experience of my life. And we would get absolutely murdered in the Premiership, but the experience and the parachute payments would easily be worth the season of pain. Plus I'd get to see them on TV over here way more often

[ColtCrazy]

The trouble with a lot of teams that make it to top flight football overspend in an attempt to stay up. Look at Leeds and Bradford City. They completely wrecked their teams by giving out massive contracts and not being able to get into Europe.

Teams like Bolton and Wigan seem to do well. They won't challenge the big 4, but they've managed to stay up by not trying to do too much.


I'm a big Crystal Palace supporter. They went up once a few years ago, spent $0, and promptly went right back down and eventually lost their one star player, Andy Johnson. Their owner is an idiot, so I think they are probably better off staying in the Championship till they get some consistency at the top.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

That's an interesting question. I wonder if there's a phenomenon there similar to indie music, where a lot of fans don't want to see the club become too popular, so that they can see it more as "their" club, instead of being one out of a bazillion fans.

Millions of fans don't come instantly out nowhere to purchase season tickets.

In response to the original question, I think the only times people would hope a team isn't promoted is if it's widely felt it's "too soon," often due to the fact that they've just moved up a division. The might be wildly overachieving and then likely to get their asses handed to them all year.

On paper it seems like there's no big deal - you go up and come back down, you're no worse off. But in reality, you buy a bunch of additional players when you go up to try to play at that level, they don't work out, then those players want out when you're relegated and you're left with a total shell of the team you had 2 seasons prior, one that can go into freefall if things aren't stabilized quickly.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

That being said I don't think many fans would ever say 'no' to promotion, you always manage to fool yourself into thinking the club will somehow manage to survive and build in the higher level

Exactly - despite common belief, teams really do just surprise everyone sometime. I think just looking at the EPL in the last few years and seeing Wigan, Reading, and (potentially) Hull all surviving at least one year will have been considered serious shocks.

I mean, i saw literally 0 people predict Hull would stay up this year, they were by far the most written off of the promoted teams. Shit, even Stoke City is fighting tooth and nail and have a reasonable chance of surviving.

I think you always gotta go up, even if you're just hoping for a lucky string of results to keep you alive the next season.

[cthomer5000]

BTW, just imagine where the Detroit Lions would be if we had multiple levels of american football.

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

The trouble with a lot of teams that make it to top flight football overspend in an attempt to stay up. Look at Leeds and Bradford City. They completely wrecked their teams by giving out massive contracts and not being able to get into Europe.

Leeds have been in the top flight for most of their existence. The problem for Leeds is that they expected to be at the very top, and spent huge amounts of money assuming that they would finish there every season.