Neville Wels- 28 August 2010

Türkiye’de yaşayan bir expat Neville’ın gözünden Championship analizi…Yıllık ortalama seyirci sayısı ve gelirleriyle Avrupa’nın çoğu liginin üzerinde yer alan Championship umarım sizlerin ilgisini çok çekecektir.

The Npower Championship doesn’t get much attention outside of England and Wales but there are many remarkable things about the second tier of English football that make it for many football supporters more attractive than the Premier League itself. As we shall see in many ways it is what the ideal league competition should be and therefore an example for all to take note of.

Let’s kick-off by having a look at how the league works. The Championship consists of 24 teams so it’s a big league with a season of 46 matches. At the end of the season the bottom three teams are relegated to League 1, which is in fact the third tier of English football, and the top two teams are promoted to the Premier League. The four teams finishing 3^rd to 6^th then play off against each other for the final promotion spot.

The crowds. One indication of the vibrancy of a league are the attendances. On that score the Championship measures up very well. Last season the average crowd was over 18,000, with Champions Newcastle averaging an amazing 43,387 spectators per game. With only two out of the 24 teams averaging below 10,000 and 9 teams averaging over 20,000 the level of support is also consistently high. In the 2008-2009 season more people attended Championship matches than attended Serie A making it the fourth best supported league in Europe  (admittedly with 24 teams there are quite a lot more games played)  

Unpredictability. This league constantly confounds the experts. Last year’s relegation favourites Blackpool found themselves promoted through the play-offs into the Premier League while one of the stronger teams in the division Sheffield Wednesday were relegated to League One. As well as being unpredictable the races at the top and bottom of the table are often very tight. Last season Newcastle ran away with the title but the race for the play-offs went right to the end of the season. This year with no Premier league giant the race promises to be more open than ever. 

The play-offs and the play off final. The third-placed and sixth-placed teams and the third and fourth-placed teams play each other in a knock-out match over two legs with the winners going on to play each other in a single match final at Wembley stadium. For many supporters this is the only chance they will get to see their team play at the national stadium in front of a 90,000 crowd. The match is billed as the biggest match in world football and with some justification as the winner will be guaranteed over 90 million pounds of television income over the following 4 years even if relegated after one season (these are known as parachute payments).  

The play-offs and the play off final. The third-placed and sixth-placed teams and the third and fourth-placed teams play each other in a knock-out match over two legs with the winners going on to play each other in a single match final at Wembley stadium. For many supporters this is the only chance they will get to see their team play at the national stadium in front of a 90,000 crowd. The match is billed as the biggest match in world football and with some justification as the winner will be guaranteed over 90 million pounds (1) of television income over the following 4 years even if relegated after one season (these are known as parachute payments).

Away games. In the Premier League you often find that away supporters are allocated only a couple of thousand tickets. Away support in a place like Old Trafford can find itself drowned out by the noise of 70,000 home supporters. In the Championship you often find that the percentage of tickets sold to away fans is higher resulting in a better atmosphere especially for a keenly contested derby match.

A level playing field. Or should we say a slightly more level playing field, certainly when compared to the Premier League where the gap between rich and poor is huge. Even the parachute payments don’t seem to make that much of a difference as most clubs tend to spend all the money before they get relegated leaving them no better off. Out of the three relegated clubs this year, Burnley are the only one not to have already spent their 4 years of television money. Here more than in most leagues a clever manager who trades wisely on the transfer market and brings in the right loan players from the Premier League can make the difference between relegation and promotion. Last year in the Premier League when Wolverhampton Wanderers played away at Manchester United they fielded their second team. The manager argued that there was no point in chasing a point that they couldn’t win and that it would be better to preserve his first eleven for the more winnable home match against lower opposition at the weekend. In contrast every Championship team plays to win every match.   

Big teams and big players. The Championship contains teams with some of the most illustrious history in English and European football. Three of the original 1888 founders of the English Football League (Burnley, Derby County and Preston North End) play in the division. Only two teams in the Championship (Doncaster Rovers and Scunthorpe United) have never played in the top tier of English football. Big sides include double European champions Nottingham Forest and UEFA Cup winners Leeds United and Ipswich Town. As well as giants of the past there are also potential giants of the future. Owned by the fifth richest man in the world Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Queen’s Park Rangers are therefore said to be the richest club in world football. There is also a mix of talented players loaned from Premier League clubs and seasoned professionals who are too old for the top flight but still wanted to play a season or two more. This season Bristol City have England World Cup keeper David James between the sticks, Cardiff have the services of David Bellamy on loan from Manchester City (with all their new signings they obviously felt that they didn’t need him but were not willing to loan him to Premier League rival) and Crystal Palace have just announced the signing of Edgar Davids on a pay-as-you-play basis.

Long season, non-stop entertainment. With 46 matches as well as the Carling and FA cups the Championship season is a two-match a week affair. There is no need to go through withdrawal symptoms and start watching meaningless Europa League Group matches between Eastern European teams that you’ve never heard of.  It’s also funny that even though the players are on a fraction of the salary of their Premier League counterparts, Championship players don’t seem to suffer so much from exhaustion.

So, with all these reasons, if you are a hard-core football fan and you like the English style of play, then you could do much worse than to start following this invisible giant of European football. The first-step is to choose a team, so here are some teams to watch this season:

Queens Park Rangers: As mentioned above the richest team in the world. Now that has left the club they seem to have decided to leave the management to manage the club and the manager to manage the team. In Neil Warnock they have perhaps the most capable manager at this level in England.     

Derby County: Managed by Nigel, son of the legendary late Brian Clough the man who made Nottingham Forest the champions of Europe after taking Derby to a UEFA Cup Final. Nigel is the polar opposite of his brash, opinionated father, but even if he has a fraction of his father’s managerial ability then Derby could far.

Cardiff City: FA Cup finalists two years ago, Cardiff were unlucky to lose in the play-offs and with Craig Bellamy leading the line they should stand a good chance of at least getting in the play offs.

Burnley: As mentioned above they don’t have the debt burden of the other relegated teams, but with an unproved manager it remains to be seen whether they can make their greater financial clout count.

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(1) http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/sportsbusinessgroup

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