If the Football League again started from scratch, who'd be where ?

[andysly]

Whiling away a night shift I was just thinking where would Rovers actually actually belong in the system.
I've based this on my perceptions of previous history over the past 30-40 years, club potential, fanbase, stadium and pies.

With perhaps a hint of bias I have Rovers firmly in the third tier despite most of my years them being in the 4th, the last ten years have hauled them up, though the second level maybe a step too far.

I then went on to roughly place every club in a division, the majority of which appear to be in the same one at present.
I'm sure there will be plenty of disagreement particularly with the top division.

Division 1

Chelsea
Man City
Man Utd
Liverpool
Arsenal
Tottenham
Aston Villa
Newcastle
Everton
West Ham
Southampton
Sunderland
Derby
Leeds
Nottm Forest
Ipswich
Norwich
West Brom
Sheff Wed
Sheff Utd

Division Two

Swansea
Hull
Stoke
Crystal Palace
Leicester
Burnley
QPR
Watford
Wolves
Middlesbrough
Blackburn
Charlton
Cardiff
Reading
Wigan
Fulham
Brighton
Bolton
Birmingham
Coventry
Portsmouth
Bristol City
Bournemouth
Preston

Division 3

Brentford
Millwall
Rotherham
Huddersfield
Blackpool
Swindon
Notts Co
Peterborough
Oldham
MK Dons
Chesterfield
Bradford
Port Vale
Walsall
Orient
Doncaster
Crewe
Shrewsbury
Plymouth
Carlisle
Tranmere
Barnsley
Luton
Scunthorpe

Division Four

Rochdale
Fleetwood
Crawley
Colchester
Gillingham
Yeovil
Bury
Wycombe
Burton
Newport
Morecambe
Accrington
Southend
Exeter
Cheltenham
Cambridge
Stevenage
Mansfield
Northampton
Wimbledon
Oxford
Dagenham
York
Hartlepool

[watto-drfc]

Nah leeds should be in the 4th tier

[RoversDave]

They must have really bad pies at Old Trafford.

[andysly]

I've not put clubs in any particular order in their divisions, that was a bit too much to think about at 2am

[auckleyflyer]

Qpr have always been higher, were the leading London club for decades!!
Wolves ahead of sheff U
Maybe Hudders and Barnsley should be a div higher??
Where are Grimsby? solid champ/L1 club for a long time??

[hoolahoop]

Qpr have always been higher, were the leading London club for decades!!
Wolves ahead of sheff U
Maybe Hudders and Barnsley should be a div higher??
Where are Grimsby? solid champ/L1 club for a long time??

I agree on all of those but would also have the Binkickers in Tier 2. Why would Leeds merit a place in the top tier based on their historical mess ?

[RoversDave]

Qpr have always been higher, were the leading London club for decades!!
Wolves ahead of sheff U
Maybe Hudders and Barnsley should be a div higher??
Where are Grimsby? solid champ/L1 club for a long time??

Is QPR slang for Arsenal, QPR won the League Cup in 1966-67.

[NickDRFC]

Qpr have always been higher, were the leading London club for decades!!
Wolves ahead of sheff U
Maybe Hudders and Barnsley should be a div higher??
Where are Grimsby? solid champ/L1 club for a long time??

I agree on all of those but would also have the Binkickers in Tier 2. Why would Leeds merit a place in the top tier based on their historical mess ?

Take the hate tinted specs off for a minute, they've spent a significant period of time in the top division as well as winning it on several occasions

[IDM]

Someone did this analysis properly once, and presented the results on the old BBC 606 forum.

AS far as I can remember, the final positions were determined by ranking each team's average position based on their entire football league history ie where they finished each season, using data up to 2008 and a minimum qualifying period of 10 seasons.  Therefore only few of the teams promoted from non-league were included (such as Wycombe) and teams that had left the league stayed in (Lincoln etc).  The rankings for when the bottom two tiers were div3 north and south were - if I remember - given equal status north and south, ie assuming 44 clubs in divs 1 and 2, then the champions of div 3 north and south would both be ranked 46, then the second placed teams in 3N and 3S would both be 48, 3rd places would both be 50 etc...

Doncaster were lower mid table in Div 3, so I reckon by adding in the next 6 seasons we would have improved a couple of places.

Barnsley were definitely in the 2nd division - I think they are known to have been in that division for the most seasons ever...

The forum page with this on will have long since been deleted I reckon...

[River Don]

Are Chelsea really numbrer one?

For a longtime they hovered around upper mid table but then they got lucky. Man City also struck lucky.

Certain clubs have geographic advantages but there is no real reason why the potential of Newcastle isn't the same as Liverpool. Liverpool got lucky for a longtime with Littlewoods money.

Leeds got very unlucky. The likes of Villa and Wednesday have underperformed for a longtime.

And how did Man Utd become so dominant? They experienced a tragedy. If something like that had happened to Spurs how different things might have been.

[hoolahoop]

Qpr have always been higher, were the leading London club for decades!!
Wolves ahead of sheff U
Maybe Hudders and Barnsley should be a div higher??
Where are Grimsby? solid champ/L1 club for a long time??

I agree on all of those but would also have the Binkickers in Tier 2. Why would Leeds merit a place in the top tier based on their historical mess ?

Take the hate tinted specs off for a minute, they've spent a significant period of time in the top division as well as winning it on several occasions

Not at all Nick , Leeds would be 24th based on their seasons in the top flight.......check it out and in terms of their silverware they have won little in comparison to most top flight clubs.
Leeds Utd first appeared in the top flight honours as runners-up in the 64/65 season. Hardly historically top flight material whatever "hate hat" I'm wearing is it now Nick ?
There is little dispute as to how good that team were under Review. The level of understanding between the players was phenomenal. Not always "classy in fact seldom so but boy could they grind their opponents into dust.

[BillyStubbsTears]

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/all-time-table

[Filo]

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/all-time-table

Interesting, we're four places above a former UEAFA cup winner!

[RoversDave]

Mighty Bury.

[River Don]

The all-time tables are interesting but we're talking if the league were to start from scratch again.

Past performance is only an indicator.

[hoolahoop]

The all-time tables are interesting but we're talking if the league were to start from scratch again.

Past performance is only an indicator.

Which current and historical facts would you include then RD . Would it be weighted to the historical I.e pedigree eg Everton 9 wins against ManCity + Chelsea 4 wins a piece? Perhaps financial clout Citehs multi billions against West Ham's huge debt ? Perhaps fan base Sunderland against Leeds Utd ?
Seems to me that you could go on forever with the variables and that would mean IMO working off historical data only as risk assessors would. I know that seems to be a strange analogy but IMO the over-riding weight must be attached to the historical. The here and now will soon become tomorrow's history wont it ?

[River Don]

I just think clubs in London and the SE would probably be more powerful and the big norther ones less so.

It might mean a club like Reading or Stevenage doing much better than they have historically.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The all-time tables are interesting but we're talking if the league were to start from scratch again.

Past performance is only an indicator.

Impossible to tell. If a Qatari Sheikh bought Hartlepool and pumped £10bn into them, they'd be top of the league in 10 years time.

Who'd have thought 20 years back, that historically moderately achieving clubs like Man City and Chelsea would be goliaths of English football in 2014?

[bobjimwilly]

Who'd have thought 20 years back, that historically moderately achieving clubs like Man City and Chelsea would be goliaths of English football in 2014?

Exactly this. Didn't Man City get beat by Boro 8-1 just 5 or 6 years ago?

[River Don]

The all-time tables are interesting but we're talking if the league were to start from scratch again.

Past performance is only an indicator.

Impossible to tell. If a Qatari Sheikh bought Hartlepool and pumped £10bn into them, they'd be top of the league in 10 years time.

Who'd have thought 20 years back, that historically moderately achieving clubs like Man City and Chelsea would be goliaths of English football in 2014?

If a Russian hit man whacks Abramovic tomorrow, Chelsea might easily go into freefall as well.

[idler]

Who'd have thought 20 years back, that historically moderately achieving clubs like Man City and Chelsea would be goliaths of English football in 2014?

Exactly this. Didn't Man City get beat by Boro 8-1 just 5 or 6 years ago?

Wasn't in the nineties? Or am I thinking of Huddersfield. I seem to remember horrible shirts with diamond patterns as the Wilson Brewery colours I think.

[wilts rover]

29th November 1997, League Div 1 (now the Championship) Stockport County 3 - Man City 1, interesting to follow the future paths of those two clubs.

City were relegated that season, along with Reading and Stoke.

[IDM]

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/all-time-table

That just ranks teams by overall points gained though.

A team that consistently finishes 4th-8th in the 3rd or 4th division would have more points than a team that always finished 10th-14th in the top division, so would be higher?

The one I was on about ranks teams by summing and averaging their league positions at the end of each season.

[Dutch Uncle]

http://www.doingthe92.com/stats/stats_league_average.asp?step=183&ID=1

Average position 17th in League 1

Biggest current over-achievers - Swansea currently 43 places above their historical average