2025 relegation dogfight thread

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

The problem with English football is that this has been coming for 40 odd years. When they stopped sharing gate receipts for league fixtures in the early 80s set the ball rolling. Before then, many clubs potential were sky high. You could support a bog standard lower league club and potentially get a 10-15,000 gate for a big cup tie or league fixture when you were barely getting 3000 in in the first place for normal matches. Hillsborough changed that again by bringing in all seaters and limiting the potential for clubs to grow their fanbases.

In the 90s and 00s, a lot of underachieving clubs from big centres of population (Hull, Swansea, Stoke, Reading to name a few) managed to get new stadiums built on the cheap or through city council grants which enabled them to reap the rewards of a multi-use facility as well as football and catapult them to the Premier League. This got them out of the lower two divisions and enabled them to stay at second tier level for many years at the bare minimum. The big losers were clubs like mine, Grimsby, Tranmere, Port Vale etc who were all established second tier clubs despite our respective small sizes compared to your Man City's, Leeds', Sunderland's and West Ham's but didn't have the fanbase, facilities or investment to compete with these clubs.

In the 2010s and 20s the problems are now twofold. Insane player wages/transfer fees on bang average players and foreign investment in clubs going all the way down to the National League level. In the 90s, Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough was one of the richest owners in English football. He's now one of the poorest in the top two divisions and that's a damning indictment of where our game lies. Americans own a third of the 92 clubs so I believe these days and the likes of Shrewsbury and Tranmere are in line for their own American takeovers as well if rumours are to be believed. Massive investment has catapulted bang average third tier clubs into the upper echelons of English football (Likes of Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford, Brighton) which has moved clubs like Bolton, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Charlton further down the pecking order from their natural levels.

With investment in player wages being at an all time high, funds to improve the infrastructure of clubs are at new lows. Despite their obvious potential being in centres of large population, how can clubs like Bristol Rovers, Northampton, Peterborough, Leyton Orient etc grow their fanbase to higher levels whilst being severely limited in small or outdated facilities not exactly fit for modern football? I'm not saying build bland Lego grounds all over the country, but there's too much of a desire now to scalp loyal fans who have been going years than trying to make infrastructure bigger and more appealing to grow a fanbase that could take you to the next level.

When Crewe were automatically promoted from this level to the Championship with an insanely good team in 2003, I thought we'd be an established Championship club with one eye on breaking into the Premier League for the next 5-10 years. And that was a seriously realistic prospect at the time as the parity between the best and worst sides wasn't as big a gap as it is now. But other clubs caught up and surpassed us with our Academy and the players we now keep are obviously inferior to the ones we had 20 years ago. I never thought we'd end up in League Two again but we did in 2009 after chronic mismanagement. We went up to League One in 2012 again and I thought we'd be an established League One club for years and even then we struggled in a league with far less disparity. Now we've a chance of going up and I'm just hoping we can survive for more than 2 years at League One level if we make it because it looks such a bloodbath of a league. The only way we could possibly compete is if we went down the Wycombe route and got a sugar daddy to fund it so we could punch above our weight. But even then, that's no guarantee of success. Just look at how much money Carlisle and Gillingham are spunking in the league below to be nowhere near promotion to the third tier!

 

[Throbber_for_Dunk]

So, Garry Monk has been confirmed as unsackable by the board.

I imagine his dossier on the owners is full of out of focus shots and has no smoking gun at all if it's anything like his football, but it's clearly working.

Hints at Ben Strang (DoF) terminated at some point instead, and the purse strings being loosened for the January window, but yeah.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

So, Garry Monk has been confirmed as unsackable by the board.

I imagine his dossier on the owners is full of out of focus shots and has no smoking gun at all if it's anything like his football, but it's clearly working.

Hints at Ben Strang (DoF) terminated at some point instead, and the purse strings being loosened for the January window, but yeah.

Anyone who gets beaten by us at their own ground needs to take a long hard look at their life choices..

 

[EricSabin]

The problem with English football is that this has been coming for 40 odd years. When they stopped sharing gate receipts for league fixtures in the early 80s set the ball rolling. Before then, many clubs potential were sky high. You could support a bog standard lower league club and potentially get a 10-15,000 gate for a big cup tie or league fixture when you were barely getting 3000 in in the first place for normal matches. Hillsborough changed that again by bringing in all seaters and limiting the potential for clubs to grow their fanbases.

In the 90s and 00s, a lot of underachieving clubs from big centres of population (Hull, Swansea, Stoke, Reading to name a few) managed to get new stadiums built on the cheap or through city council grants which enabled them to reap the rewards of a multi-use facility as well as football and catapult them to the Premier League. This got them out of the lower two divisions and enabled them to stay at second tier level for many years at the bare minimum. The big losers were clubs like mine, Grimsby, Tranmere, Port Vale etc who were all established second tier clubs despite our respective small sizes compared to your Man City's, Leeds', Sunderland's and West Ham's but didn't have the fanbase, facilities or investment to compete with these clubs.

In the 2010s and 20s the problems are now twofold. Insane player wages/transfer fees on bang average players and foreign investment in clubs going all the way down to the National League level. In the 90s, Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough was one of the richest owners in English football. He's now one of the poorest in the top two divisions and that's a damning indictment of where our game lies. Americans own a third of the 92 clubs so I believe these days and the likes of Shrewsbury and Tranmere are in line for their own American takeovers as well if rumours are to be believed. Massive investment has catapulted bang average third tier clubs into the upper echelons of English football (Likes of Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford, Brighton) which has moved clubs like Bolton, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Charlton further down the pecking order from their natural levels.

With investment in player wages being at an all time high, funds to improve the infrastructure of clubs are at new lows. Despite their obvious potential being in centres of large population, how can clubs like Bristol Rovers, Northampton, Peterborough, Leyton Orient etc grow their fanbase to higher levels whilst being severely limited in small or outdated facilities not exactly fit for modern football? I'm not saying build bland Lego grounds all over the country, but there's too much of a desire now to scalp loyal fans who have been going years than trying to make infrastructure bigger and more appealing to grow a fanbase that could take you to the next level.

When Crewe were automatically promoted from this level to the Championship with an insanely good team in 2003, I thought we'd be an established Championship club with one eye on breaking into the Premier League for the next 5-10 years. And that was a seriously realistic prospect at the time as the parity between the best and worst sides wasn't as big a gap as it is now. But other clubs caught up and surpassed us with our Academy and the players we now keep are obviously inferior to the ones we had 20 years ago. I never thought we'd end up in League Two again but we did in 2009 after chronic mismanagement. We went up to League One in 2012 again and I thought we'd be an established League One club for years and even then we struggled in a league with far less disparity. Now we've a chance of going up and I'm just hoping we can survive for more than 2 years at League One level if we make it because it looks such a bloodbath of a league. The only way we could possibly compete is if we went down the Wycombe route and got a sugar daddy to fund it so we could punch above our weight. But even then, that's no guarantee of success. Just look at how much money Carlisle and Gillingham are spunking in the league below to be nowhere near promotion to the third tier!

Great post.

Northamptonshire has a catchment of 750,000 so could conceivably support a premier league side, like you say any improvements to the ground haven’t materialised to even thinking about getting above our usual 5-7,000. 15 years ago we were promised a 15,000 seater stadium at Sixfields, it’s still not finished and capacity will be 8,000 when it’s done.

I’d love us to have a 15,000 seater stadium and just flog season tickets for peanuts, it’d take years for the fan base to get anywhere near that number but there’s no other feasible route. Build a stadium that’s far too big, sell a ‘parent and child‘ season ticket for £100 and try to retain their support through into adulthood.

As it is we’ll slip into the bottom division again sometime soon.

 

[dannylad01]

The problem with English football is that this has been coming for 40 odd years. When they stopped sharing gate receipts for league fixtures in the early 80s set the ball rolling. Before then, many clubs potential were sky high. You could support a bog standard lower league club and potentially get a 10-15,000 gate for a big cup tie or league fixture when you were barely getting 3000 in in the first place for normal matches. Hillsborough changed that again by bringing in all seaters and limiting the potential for clubs to grow their fanbases.

In the 90s and 00s, a lot of underachieving clubs from big centres of population (Hull, Swansea, Stoke, Reading to name a few) managed to get new stadiums built on the cheap or through city council grants which enabled them to reap the rewards of a multi-use facility as well as football and catapult them to the Premier League. This got them out of the lower two divisions and enabled them to stay at second tier level for many years at the bare minimum. The big losers were clubs like mine, Grimsby, Tranmere, Port Vale etc who were all established second tier clubs despite our respective small sizes compared to your Man City's, Leeds', Sunderland's and West Ham's but didn't have the fanbase, facilities or investment to compete with these clubs.

In the 2010s and 20s the problems are now twofold. Insane player wages/transfer fees on bang average players and foreign investment in clubs going all the way down to the National League level. In the 90s, Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough was one of the richest owners in English football. He's now one of the poorest in the top two divisions and that's a damning indictment of where our game lies. Americans own a third of the 92 clubs so I believe these days and the likes of Shrewsbury and Tranmere are in line for their own American takeovers as well if rumours are to be believed. Massive investment has catapulted bang average third tier clubs into the upper echelons of English football (Likes of Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford, Brighton) which has moved clubs like Bolton, Huddersfield, Barnsley and Charlton further down the pecking order from their natural levels.

With investment in player wages being at an all time high, funds to improve the infrastructure of clubs are at new lows. Despite their obvious potential being in centres of large population, how can clubs like Bristol Rovers, Northampton, Peterborough, Leyton Orient etc grow their fanbase to higher levels whilst being severely limited in small or outdated facilities not exactly fit for modern football? I'm not saying build bland Lego grounds all over the country, but there's too much of a desire now to scalp loyal fans who have been going years than trying to make infrastructure bigger and more appealing to grow a fanbase that could take you to the next level.

When Crewe were automatically promoted from this level to the Championship with an insanely good team in 2003, I thought we'd be an established Championship club with one eye on breaking into the Premier League for the next 5-10 years. And that was a seriously realistic prospect at the time as the parity between the best and worst sides wasn't as big a gap as it is now. But other clubs caught up and surpassed us with our Academy and the players we now keep are obviously inferior to the ones we had 20 years ago. I never thought we'd end up in League Two again but we did in 2009 after chronic mismanagement. We went up to League One in 2012 again and I thought we'd be an established League One club for years and even then we struggled in a league with far less disparity. Now we've a chance of going up and I'm just hoping we can survive for more than 2 years at League One level if we make it because it looks such a bloodbath of a league. The only way we could possibly compete is if we went down the Wycombe route and got a sugar daddy to fund it so we could punch above our weight. But even then, that's no guarantee of success. Just look at how much money Carlisle and Gillingham are spunking in the league below to be nowhere near promotion to the third tier!

Excellent post.

I'd also add that the EPPP (or whatever it's called) means that the Premier League clubs can hoover up the best young talent for relative peanuts, so it's harder for the smaller clubs to keep their gems and sell them on for big money in the future. Here at Shrewsbury we regularly have players taken by West Brom and Wolves, and have had players at 14 and 15 go off to Everton and Man United, never really to have been heard of again.

At Shrewsbury we've hit the ceiling without further investment. Our last published accounts (22/23 season) shows that we had our highest ever wage bill of £5.2m but probably our smallest squad of probably 18 first team pmayers, which meant one game towards the end of the season we had 10 senior players starting with an academy player making his league debut, then a bench with only 3 academy players who had barely played a minute of first team football and a keeper. That wage bill got us to 12th position, and would barely regsiter at the top end of the league. It also resulted in our biggest ever loss of £3m and blew the cash reserves that had been built up pre covid. Now the plan is to save costs wherever possible.

The takeover is progressing, but nobody knows who it is. Rumours suggest that it is an American, but other Rumours suggest a consortium. There is a possibility that it may be done by the end of January. It'll be a sad day should we go from a local businessman trying to run the club sustainably to an overseas owner with no connection to the club. Problem is, the way that football has moved on, even in the last 5 years, we're not likely to compete higher than the bottom of league one. As has been said previously, the teams coming up have more financial power this season, so that has meant fewer teams that we'd usually fancy finishing above.

Unfortunately I missed our glory days in the 2nd tier in the 80's, with my first season going being our 1991-92 relegation season from the old division 3.

 

[Luke Imp]

Yep, good post TNO.

Give it a few more years and we might see a closed shop at the top end of L1 just like there is in the top 4-6 of the PL.