Where do we rank in the list of British football clubs

The People

The People

Well-Known Member
Personally for only Liverpool and Man Utd are bigger than us
Though the game has changed and your EPL sides have grown and have fans world wide and income we can only dream about
But that aside as solely a British football club with our fans, heritage and tradition only the two clubs I’ve mentioned can claim to be bigger
 
The People said:
Personally for only Liverpool and Man Utd are bigger than us
Though the game has changed and your EPL sides have grown and have fans world wide and income we can only dream about
But that aside as solely a British football club with our fans, heritage and tradition only the two clubs I’ve mentioned can claim to be bigger
Click to expand...
Liverpool and United were the diddy clubs in their respective City’s for most of their history, something we have never been
 
DutchVanDerLinde said:
The big 5, in no particular order, in Britain is Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Rangers, Celtic.

The arguments there after are too subjective and will be skewed ever more by English TV money.

Everyone after that is much of a muchness.
Click to expand...
That’s the big 5 David Murray always mentioned


Not in anyway defending him , just saying what he said
 
Historically up there with the best,Over the last 20 to 30 years we’ve fell away because of the money pumped into the English game,Add that to the fact Scottish football tried unsuccessfully to put us out of the game in 2012 leaving the reputation of the game in the gutter and destroying any realistic competition for nearly a decade hasn’t helped.
 
Club size, we’re top 4 for sure, and prior to Sky bank rolling English football and selling the rights overseas, we were close if not on a par with Man Utd for annual shirt sales. We also paid higher wages than most English clubs back then.

Unfortunately it’s changed days, we’ve no chance of competing financially with the EPL, even social media wise their clubs have millions of followers, it’s on a different level.

We should have maybe started in the English lower leagues back in 2012 rather than rebuild in Scotland, very much doubt it was ever a considered option though.
 
Wickbear said:
Club size, we’re top 4 for sure, and prior to Sky bank rolling English football and selling the rights overseas, we were close if not on a par with Man Utd for annual shirt sales. We also paid higher wages than most English clubs back then.

Unfortunately it’s changed days, we’ve no chance of competing financially with the EPL, even social media wise their clubs have millions of followers, it’s on a different level.

We should have maybe started in the English lower leagues back in 2012 rather than rebuild in Scotland, very much doubt it was ever a considered option though.
Click to expand...
It really should have been to be honest, I thought when the registered the company in London that was a sign, would loved to have watched Scottish football squirm and die out without us
 
We are resting on our laurels we are a mid team now in Europe when at one time we had the best attendances. Christ Newcastle get more every weekend our Ultras are one of the smallest in Europe in the top leagues and our stadium is nearly empty at full time .Ibrox needs expanding safe standing needs implemented now our support at home is stale.
 
LFRFC said:
That's patently not true is it, we don't have the biggest stadium and it's easy to get tickets to most games.

Newcastle sold about 250,000 member access to tickets, MyGers has about 53,000 memebers, we don't actually have that many people wanting to go and watch our games other than those who already do.
Click to expand...
Source:

Manchester 2008
Seville 2022
 
Manchester United, Liverpool, Rangers, Celtic, Arsenal are the top 5. (And probably in that order).

I think most neutrals in the UK would possibly put Celtic above us solely on their European Cup win, but I’d disagree.
 
BlueSpruce said:
So when did Newcastle take a similar number to a city?
Click to expand...

Their fans monetised their support in the form of membership

People travelling to a city on a piss up isn’t actually that much help to Rangers, or supporting Rangers. I’m sure loads of the people had a lovely time though.
 
DutchVanDerLinde said:
The big 5, in no particular order, in Britain is Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Rangers, Celtic.

The arguments there after are too subjective and will be skewed ever more by English TV money.

Everyone after that is much of a muchness.
Click to expand...

Agree with this but arsenal are a long way back from the other 4 when it comes to insanely loyal fan bases. Case in point would be they year we took over the Villareal stadium in the last 16 and Arsenal didn’t even sell out their own allocation in the semi final the same year.
 
LFRFC said:
I’m not downplaying it, but that’s not 250,000 people is it.

It’s not the numbers who went to Manchester
Click to expand...
I never said it was. But it’s certainly not a case of the only people who want to go to games are inside the ground already.

Stick all these Premier League teams in Scotland… Or a league equivalent to Scotland… and you really think there would be 200k membership for games?

Aston Villa, in my opinion a big club in England, went down one league and had to close part of their ground because the interest in going to Villa Park fell off a cliff.
 
The difference is, us and them are so big compared to the rest of the Scottish league, it's too lopsided.

No matter be it man u or liverpool,their away fans will always be outnumbered at any of the grounds as they all have a decent size of local supporters. Tbh, that's the way it should be.
 
It depends how you define big.

Number of fans? If so what level of fans?

I always make it really simple when talking with sky sports FC fans.

How many seasons ticket holders do you have?

How many would you have playing in Scotland?

How many would you have playing in the Scottish third division?

If we're talking fans who will actually spend money on the club Vs just watching on TV, us and them are in the top fifteen. If it's actually go to/would go to a game, top ten. Scottish football is on its arse right now. We're at our irreducible core though. Most English premiership teams are the biggest they could ever possibly be.
 
We would be the biggest club in Britain IF we were in the Premier League but it's daft to suggest we are now

There's only so much you can do playing in a backwater that no one watches. Like it or not, the majority of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal etc fanbases come from outside of Britain now.

The only way we eclipse them in size is if we do the same. Either we join the EPL or some form of Super League in future. Until then, we can't claim to be anywhere near England's top clubs.
 
If we are talking over all of our History and not just the here and now, with regards support we are in a league of our own. This was taken from a thread on here. Kings of the Big Crowds.


The list below gives the amount of times each club has played in front of a crowd of 100,000 or more in the UK.

41 Rangers
26 Celtic
12 Man United
10 Liverpool
9 Aberdeen, Spurs
7 Arsenal,Newcastle
6 Aston Villa, West Ham, Man City, Everton, Hibernian,
4 Notts Forest, Leeds, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Morton,
3 Sunderland, Bolton, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Chelsea, Norwich, St Mirren,Hearts,
2 Blackpool, West Brom, Preston, Southampton, Brighton, Clyde, East Fife,i
Dundee, Dunfermline, Eintract Frankfurt,
1 Sheffield United, Birmingham, Luton, Blackburn, Burnley, Sheffield
Wed, Fulham, Ipswich, QPR, Watford, Stoke, Benfica, Munich 1860, Real Madrid

Note 14 of their games were against us.
 
The People said:
Personally for only Liverpool and Man Utd are bigger than us
Though the game has changed and your EPL sides have grown and have fans world wide and income we can only dream about
But that aside as solely a British football club with our fans, heritage and tradition only the two clubs I’ve mentioned can claim to be bigger
Click to expand...
Are you using number of fans as the measure?
There are teams in the Championship in England who have significantly more money than us.
If it’s fan base you are using then we’re definitely in top 10 I’d think
 
LFRFC said:
Their fans monetised their support in the form of membership

People travelling to a city on a piss up isn’t actually that much help to Rangers, or supporting Rangers. I’m sure loads of the people had a lovely time though.
Click to expand...
Doesn't read like you did. Pity.
 
Depends how we're judging and by what metrics. Over the course of the last 150 years, overall? We're somewhere in that top five. Probably were the biggest club from the 1920s right up to the 60s at least.

In 2024, with the world watching the Premier League, where all the money is? The biggest British clubs are all English.
 
If we played a game in Antarctica I don’t think any team would have more fans watching following. We are a massive club playing in a diddy league. We badly need a board who will try and get us out of Scottish football
 
Ask the arrogant English and they won't have us in the top 15. A Fulham supporter said to me that they were bigger than the old firm because they were in the championship. This is what we're up against in a British argument
 
Willger said:
If we are talking over all of our History and not just the here and now, with regards support we are in a league of our own. This was taken from a thread on here. Kings of the Big Crowds.


The list below gives the amount of times each club has played in front of a crowd of 100,000 or more in the UK.

41 Rangers
26 Celtic
12 Man United
10 Liverpool
9 Aberdeen, Spurs
7 Arsenal,Newcastle
6 Aston Villa, West Ham, Man City, Everton, Hibernian,
4 Notts Forest, Leeds, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Morton,
3 Sunderland, Bolton, Wolverhampton, Leicester, Chelsea, Norwich, St Mirren,Hearts,
2 Blackpool, West Brom, Preston, Southampton, Brighton, Clyde, East Fife,i
Dundee, Dunfermline, Eintract Frankfurt,
1 Sheffield United, Birmingham, Luton, Blackburn, Burnley, Sheffield
Wed, Fulham, Ipswich, QPR, Watford, Stoke, Benfica, Munich 1860, Real Madrid

Note 14 of their games were against us.
Click to expand...
Could that be because Ibrox and Hampden were the only club grounds that held over 100,000 though if we are looking at context?
 
The People said:
Personally for only Liverpool and Man Utd are bigger than us
Though the game has changed and your EPL sides have grown and have fans world wide and income we can only dream about
But that aside as solely a British football club with our fans, heritage and tradition only the two clubs I’ve mentioned can claim to be bigger
Click to expand...
I remember being on holiday abroad in the 90,S and there was a lot of Man Utd fans in my hotel, they brought up the subject of who was the biggest team and it was them who said Rangers because we had more supporters clubs around the world than them, I was really chuffed when they said that.
They had based it on supporters clubs and had obviously done some research to come up with that statement. That was then so don't know how much things have changed.
 
LFRFC said:
I don’t really think I’m a great Rangers fan.

I just think it’s a bit silly talking about talking about how many went to Seville or Manchester given the number of fundmentaly members who want to attend games we have.

Manchester and Seville shows a lot of people wanted to go and get pissed and have a laugh, our supporters who wish to attend games is bettter reflected in our membership numbers.
Click to expand...
Rangers' record attendance is over 50,000 more than Newcastle's.
 
The Sultan said:
Manchester United, Liverpool, Rangers, Celtic, Arsenal are the top 5. (And probably in that order).

I think most neutrals in the UK would possibly put Celtic above us solely on their European Cup win, but I’d disagree.
Click to expand...
I disagree wholeheartedly

A club that boos anything to do with the British army / fallen heroes, supports Palestine and the IRA and lets not forget about their shameful past about child abuse
 
das said:
Could that be because Ibrox and Hampden were the only club grounds that held over 100,000 though if we are looking at context?
Click to expand...
That is only a part of the list, it goes on to detail how many had crowds of 90,000, 80,000, 70,000 right down to 20,000, and Rangers are miles ahead of everyone else.
 
club175 said:
If we played a game in Antarctica I don’t think any team would have more fans watching following. We are a massive club playing in a diddy league. We badly need a board who will try and get us out of Scottish football
Click to expand...
I’m not sure it’s that simple.

There’s certainly an argument that playing in Scotland helps us being a big club.
 
club175 said:
If we played a game in Antarctica I don’t think any team would have more fans watching following. We are a massive club playing in a diddy league. We badly need a board who will try and get us out of Scottish football
Click to expand...
When Wrexham played pre season in North Carolina their 30K supporters outnumbered Chelsea’s 20K, all from a documentary
 
Coza said:
Agree with this but arsenal are a long way back from the other 4 when it comes to insanely loyal fan bases. Case in point would be they year we took over the Villareal stadium in the last 16 and Arsenal didn’t even sell out their own allocation in the semi final the same year.
Click to expand...

That's just one area of argument, though I agree with it. Who's to say which one trumps another.
I consider Newcastle a fairly big club, but they've won nothing in 50 years. They're bigger than Man City, Forest, Villa or West Ham in my eyes, but if it was just trophies there's no argument. Multifaceted argument with too much interpretation and opinion.
 
MartinS93 said:
That isn't the same as having actual support though, is it? I don't know how you can even prove that.
Click to expand...

That’s true.

You need to look at ‘active’ support.

And Rangers have the two largest travelling supports in European footballing history. Manchester and Seville. And all within the last 16 years.

Case closed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Latest posts

Back
Top