Which type of club is it the most fun to support?
I have thought about this question a lot, and I think we are surely one of the most fun "club profiles" to support. Here is how I would break it down very broadly.
I sometimes feel like the middle tier is the worst to follow, as they have very little to gain (unless they do some kind of Leicester or sneak into Europa) and are more likely to end up whining in the 3rd tier for a while.
PREMIER LEAGUE BIG CLUBS
Pros: You might actually win something!
Cons: Unrelatable players, treated like a customer, corporate atmosphere with a lot of true fans priced out, rarely play new teams in the league, the same insufferable rivalries year after year.
MIDTABLE PREM TO CHAMPO-SIZED (everyone from Forest, Brighton etc. down to foot of Champo and clubs like Birmingham)
Pros: The Champo is a better division than the PL, there is a very slim chance you might win something
Cons: Your aspiration in the league (getting to the PL) would mean getting hammered a lot, and not having a hope of winning the PL itself. If you scuffle down to the 3rd tier it is considered a huge embarrassment.
SMALLER L1 AND L2 CLUBS:
Pros: You could be anywhere from the Champo (if you massively overachieve) to L2, or even drop through the trapdoor if you are badly run. This makes the overall life of a fan more unpredictable, with a wider spread of what is truly possible. Getting to the Champo is the aim for overachievers, but it is a more fun division than the PL, so it would be a laugh once there. You appreciate cup runs as you rarely play really massive clubs in the league. In general, you appreciate highs more, as there is less entitlement.
Cons: Your players (and possibly manager) get poached when you do well. It is hard to ever really establish yourself above the 3rd tier.
Comments
I'd probably stop coming if we made it to the prem. Everything that's wrong with modern football encapsulated in one grotesque league.
I knew a bloke who stopped coming to games when we left the conference. Wanted to keep it non-league. He died a year later. Coincidence?
I was thinking something similar the other day when Mehmeti got mentioned.
I think the Championship is brilliant. So would you rather be Burnley/Leeds/Norwich, or Bristol City/Preston/Millwall type club?
No point if you don't dream of making it to the top one day imo, no matter how fanciful it seems. It'll probably never happen to us, but the fact that it *could* is a big part of what makes our game so special. America could never.
I was basically lumping all clubs together whose peak is midtable (or maybe 8th-9th) in the Prem, down to the bottom of the Champo, as they all have similar aspirations. I am sure you could make finer distinctions like you did above.
My main point is that I think following a club of our size is more fun than those middle tier clubs being stuck hoping to either get promoted and be a PL whipping boy, or drop into third tier and whine about tinpot clubs. We can still have aspirations, but it seems like we have a wider range of fun outcomes. Being in any tier can be fun for us, as we won't whine about being too big for any division, whereas the Champo middle class have a lot of negatives to being in either the 1st (getting thrashed, corporate sterility) or 3rd tier (slumming it, to their minds).
Put it this way, if Wycombe went under, I would be looking lower down the pyramid (probably St. Albans) than higher if I still wanted to support someone.
I think I'd still rather be in category 3.
We are arguably punching above our weight even being able to field a competitive side for this division - the sugar daddy model is all very well, but what happens if the owner gets bored? Yes, there seem to be enough cavalier speculators out there, but where are the assurances that we don't one day end up with a Reading-style scam artist?
For what it's worth I don't think that will happen any time soon with Lomtadze given the wedge that has already gone into the foundations of the academy, a project that is clearly not expected to come to full fruition until several seasons down the line.
I would also like to have another shot at the Championship, and being at least semi-competitive in it, rather than the weekly punchbag (and not that we were that under GA, we were at least in most of the games, but still). But that way madness lies, with the amount of money you have to spend to even be mediocre at that level.
About the money in L1 even, here's a recent quote from a Lincoln fan, referring to their CEO at a fans forum:
Our budget ended up 12th in L1 last season. Due to the influx of money from the promoted and relegated sides, to maintain a 12th placed budget this season we'd have to increase it by 68%, and we now have a bottom quartile one.
My other club is Rangers. It's fun because
-It's a very different experience to Little Wycombe
-It has a LOYAL following
-Discovering that the Scottish HMRC were Catholic allowed us to do what should happen to Man City and drop down a few leagues.
-A top two finish isn't so rare
-If you can get tickets it's 2 quid more than watching Wycombe
-
I think I'd be pretty happy with anything other than being an Everton type club - never get close to winning anything, getting relegated or doing anything of real note whatsoever.
A big Premier league club would never have the equivalent of the Gasroom. Give me Wycombe with our sense of community and a silly little dream anytime.
It must be strange being a Leeds, Sheffield United, Burnley or Norwich etc fan loving life in the Championship, only to find the prize is something you hate (getting pumped in the Prem). I’ve seen some fans of those clubs say things to that effect.
The Championship is my Woodstock. But overall, pound for pound, being a Wycombe fan during the past 30 years has been an incredible ride. We’ve experienced epic highs and lows and a whole lot more than fans of other clubs. I look at others like, say, Crewe, and think Christ, that must be dull.
Following Wycombe gives incredible highs and lows and the chance to achieve great things. A cup run; being 2-0 up at half time away at Spurs; avoiding relegation from league 2 on the final day of the season; Wembley finals; the championship: top of the league…it’s a lot more than most clubs can offer!
I have seen those comments too - many fans say something to the effect that they like the high of the promotion itself, but hate what comes after, and prefer the Champo overall.
I think we’ve still yet to experience “incredible lows” in relative terms, having never been relegated back out of the Football League since entering it (albeit by the skin of our teeth that one time).
Also not having experienced the consecutive relegations of some of the true basket case clubs is a great thing.
Yes, there have been bad moments, but generally even the bad ones could have been much worse.
I imagine Brentford and Brighton fans feels quite differently. Leeds should have re-established themselves in the Prem but completely fucked it with Jesse Marsch. The gap has widened, for sure, but there are countless examples of clubs making it stick when they get it right.
I think two clubs who have been on amazing journeys lately in that medium bracket are Leicester and Luton, for different reasons. Leicester's achievements go without saying - though I do wonder if it is a bit deflating to have climbed the mountain in both league and cup and know you are unlikely to ever do it again - and Luton's "ultimate yo-yo" must have been a crazy ride...and they look like they may be game for doing the downswing again! 😅
I think the best reason for following a club our size though is you lot, and everyone connected to the club - the people. I live thousands of miles away but somehow feel a part of things. I just don't think that is possible once you even get to medium-sized. The connectedness of it all is brilliant. I have gone off football itself in many ways, but never Wycombe, and that's down to being able to see the whites of everyone's eyes, as it were.
This.
For all of its shortcomings, the EFL is pretty much unrivalled for me in terms of fan experience (I don’t mean this literally in terms of going to games, I mean the long term experience of going through the highs and lows of a club that you can still largely relate to).
I was often the odd one out as a kid when it came to who I support, while all my friends went after the luxuries of the Prem. Nowadays - as we turn 30 and as the Prem becomes more and more sterile, a lot of my friends openly say they wish they had gone the route I did with supporting my local team.
Give me a horrible and freezing 0-0 away to Carlisle / Burton / Fleetwood any day over a plastic league where little seems to genuinely change season after season.
We've been pretty close to being relegated recently and it looks a real possibility this season especially if we don't sack Dyche.
Without any aim, or hope, things stagnate and finally drift downwards. As a supporter from 1957 our journey has been amazing.
However, to sustain our challenge ground and access improvements are necessary.