Tim Sansom asks the sixty-four thousand dollar question, that has baffled many managers and chairmen over the years - how to get into the Premiership and stay there?
Every single football club wants to know how to get into England’s top football division but only a few teams have managed to realise that achievement. Even fewer of those teams have managed to say there and make a success of their moment at the top table of football action. A quick look at the Premiership tables from the early nineties shows a whole mini league clubs scattered across the other three leagues. One team has even been renamed and now plays their football in the concrete roundabout hell of Milton Keynes.
Certain clubs have spent money beyond our wildest dreams to get into the Premiership. They have behaved like a Christmas shopper and New Year partygoer who has cleared their account on presents and celebrations, but is now suffering the credit card hangover and dreary weather of January.
It is easy to behave like know-it-all financial advisors saying that these clubs should have been a bit wiser about financial matters. When you are trying to ‘live the dream,’ in the hyped up world of modern football, it is difficult to not get too carried away in a mix of hysterical excitement and unrealistic expectation. .
Hull City and Portsmouth Football Clubs are starting to have their hangovers whilst still in the Premiership. I am reminded of a Sunday night towards the end of last year when I was listening to a radio discussion about Hull City Football Club. After another victory contributing to the Tigers’ outstanding start of the season, a happy Tigers fan came on the radio to tell the nation and the world to ‘bring on Europe’ to the KC Stadium.
The host seemed uncomfortable in admitting that Hull City could be playing in the Champions League during the 09/10 season. However, as the table stood at the start of December 2008, there was a strong possibility that Hull could have been playing against Europe’s premier football outfits at the expense of one of the so-called ‘big four.’
I can vaguely remember the dismay of some commentators who believed that Hull versus Real Madrid would represent the ultimate humiliation of English Football. They need not have worried. Europe has not come to East Yorkshire and the club have become mired in an off and on the pitch mess that has the potential to affect their long-term existence in English football.
I have never been to Hull. I can not say that I have even been close to the place but I sense that the club is an integral part of the neighbourhood. It did not seem to possess the faceless business image of certain Premiership teams and the fans were generally proud of their team. Regardless of the on-pitch half time team talk at Man City, or the bizarre singing by the manager at the end of the final game against Manchester United, everyone associated with this club seemed to be enjoying their time in the Premiership.
The slow thudding headache is starting to beat away in the mind of Hull City Football Club and Portsmouth are starting to regret their binge drinking. The Championship, League One and League Two are becoming unhealthily full of clubs that can do nothing more than lye down in a darkened room in a misty haze.
Southampton, Norwich City, Crystal Palace, Coventry City, the two Sheffield outfits, Leeds United, Nottingham Forrest, Derby County, Reading and Ipswich Town Football Clubs are some of the teams that have tasted Premiership glory and are struggling to recreate passed glories. Seasons keep on passing and the memories of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea coming to town are starting to be consigned to historic DVDs and misty-eyed nostalgia. The fans of these teams are either frustrated or begrudgingly accepting mid table mediocrity.
Hull are at the risk of joining this mini league of teams where there is constant optimistic talk of play off challenges, and the glory years of the past. The good players have gone to firmly established Premiership outfits. You have to possess a cool temper to cope with the spilt blood on the boardroom carpet after a particularly painful relegation.
So how do you survive in the Premiership if your club has been lucky to gain promotion? The ultimate pessimistic attitude from the boardroom is based on the belief that promotion was an unplanned freakish event. Despite the` probable protests of fans, there is no investment in new players. The ultimate pessimistic board will be planning for relegation before the Christmas trimmings are taken down in the fog and frost of January 6th.
The slightly more optimistic boardroom will enjoy the promotion party but think that anything above fourth bottom in the league is a bonus. Trips to Old Trafford and the Emirates will involve the parking of a bus in front of the goal and hoping that the result is not too embarrassing.
Any additional cup competition is seen as an unhealthy diversion from the essential task to maintain the Premier League status. Fans of these clubs will expect to see the very fringes of their youth teams playing in these cup competitions. In some ways, this is a prudent and uplifting use of resources. It is good to see that there are some other players at your club outside of your first eleven but it is difficult to engineer enough enthusiasm for your team for anything other than the six point relegation dog fights.
There have been teams that want to ‘have a go’ in the Premiership and these sides are either regarded as ignorantly reckless or a ‘breath of fresh air’ in the top league. Before the Tevez saga and the decent into Icelandic chaos, West Ham returned to the Premiership in 2005 with a swagger that took them into the top half of the league and a European place. Despite surviving in the Premiership, this latest spell in the top table has been generally chaotic for the Hammers. Relegation has remained a constant and real threat for West Ham throughout the last four years.
Outsiders could wonder why a fan wants to see his team reach the summit of English football and watch their boardroom either loose their financial nous or adopt a dramatically pessimistic approach to the Premiership campaign. Would the fan really want their beloved club suffer a weekly humiliation at the hands of the league’s top sides? Being in the Premiership will certainly help the club finances with extra TV revenue but you should be prepared for a certain amount of collateral damage if your team fails to get into the Premiership and stay there.
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