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A historical ranking of football clubs competing in England since organised competitive football began on a nationwide basis with the inaugural FA Cup in the 1871-72 season.

[Updated to: end of 2012-2013 season]

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The About a Ball Ranking is a points scoring system devised our statisticians to grade each league club according to their historical achievements since the beginning of organised football in this country. We felt the need for such a ranking after hearing numerous lower division chairmen claiming that their club is one of the biggest in the country and should rightfully be in the top division. However, there are only 20 places in the Premiership and therefore only 20 clubs deserve to occupy them, so we decided to find out which clubs really are sleeping giants and which are currently flying well above their historical status.

How it works

Points awarded as follows:

Notes: The scores include any points scored by a club under a former name. In cases where clubs have merged or re-formed, the new club has been awarded the points accumulated by its previous incarnations wherever there is a continuation or substantial link between the old and new clubs.

Criticisms and Improvements

There is no account taken of when the points were scored, so a team (e.g. Sunderland) could have scored a large portion of their points a long time ago in a very different era. The teams did not all join the league at the same time so founder members such as Burnley have scored their points over a much longer period of time than “new” clubs such as Wimbledon/MK Dons. The system takes account only of on the pitch successes and not off the pitch factors such as attendance and annual budget which could indicate a big club. The About a Ball ranking could be improved (and also complicated) by including points for average attendances and annual budget/profit, dividing points totals by the number of years clubs have been in the league, or by giving less weight to points scored a long time ago. However, we are satisfied that our system accurately ranks the 92 league clubs based on historical success and identifies clubs currently under or over achieving.

Conclusions

It is clear that Liverpool are by far the most successful English football club ever, which was the expected result. However, their lead has been drastically reduced by Manchester United over the past two decades. There is a considerable gap to third placed Arsenal, who themselves have a comfortable margin over Aston Villa and Everton, separated by only a few points in fourth and fifth respectively. Chelsea have recently risen several places to sixth, and lead the rest of the chasing pack followed by Manchester City, who have recently overtaken Spurs, Newcastle and Sunderland. Of the 20 clubs contesting the 2011-2012 Premier League, 14 were historically among the top 20 English teams and are therefore competing at their correct historical level. The other six have risen above their traditional status. Wigan Athletic are currently the most over-achieving club in the country, having reached the dizzy heights of two whole divisions above their historical level.

When we turn to underachievement, supporters in Sheffield have the most to be concerned about, with both Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. having dropped two divisions lower than their historic status. They should both be comfortably inside the country’s top twenty but unfortunately they’ve hit hard times of late and slipped down the league.

All the other 29 clubs that have ever scored points under this system have been included in the study in case they ever return to league football. Of course, there’s no chance of that ever happening for many of them because they have been dissolved or disbanded over the years. Grimsby Town, Luton Town and Lincoln City, however, will be hopeful of making it back in the not too distant future. Their scores would put them in the second and third tiers of English football. It’s interesting to note that teams such as The Wanderers and Bradford Park Avenue are still statistically among the top sixty achievers in the country.

It is strictly forbidden to copy or reproduce these tables without permission. Any breach of copyright may lead to prosecution. The tables will be updated annually and any feedback on the results/corrections to data is welcome.

aboutaball.com 2013

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