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Guest guinness_fiend

The only true "Big Clubs" (international brands) in England at the moment are Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool (over Arsenal).  Rangers and Celtic have a larger fanbase abroad than we do.

 

You can go anywhere in the world and people know the names.  We don't have anywhere near the sort of support abroad that these teams do (even if the foreign Chelsea contingent has only emerged over the last few years).

 

The only clubs that argue about being "Big Clubs" are those that are decidely mediocre in the grand international scheme of things.  We have this discussion every year.  As do every other mid-table club's fans.

 

This whole discussion is, I'm afraid, utterly tedious.

 

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Guest guinness_fiend

I think you under-estimate how respected we are in countries like France & Spain.

 

Respect isn't the word I'd use.  People my age (28) and above remember and respect us as a throwback from the 90s but younger fans have no idea about our history.  We've not been on most people's radars for nearly a decade now.

 

Plus, being known in France and Spain is one thing, the rest of the world is something else.  The term "big club" for me is akin to "McBrand" and we don't come close to competing with the real big boys worldwide - from Manchester United to Real Madrid to Barca to Bayern.

 

In any event, I wish people would stop using the term, as it gets under everyone's skin and I'm fairly sure that commentators only use it to wind up the fans.

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I think you under-estimate how respected we are in countries like France & Spain.

 

Respect isn't the word I'd use.  People my age (28) and above remember and respect us as a throwback from the 90s but younger fans have no idea about our history.  We've not been on most people's radars for nearly a decade now.

 

Plus, being known in France and Spain is one thing, the rest of the world is something else.  The term "big club" for me is akin to "McBrand" and we don't come close to competing with the real big boys worldwide - from Manchester United to Real Madrid to Barca to Bayern.

 

In any event, I wish people would stop using the term, as it gets under everyone's skin and I'm fairly sure that commentators only use it to wind up the fans.

 

On the nail...

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I think you under-estimate how respected we are in countries like France & Spain.

 

Respect isn't the word I'd use.  People my age (28) and above remember and respect us as a throwback from the 90s but younger fans have no idea about our history.  We've not been on most people's radars for nearly a decade now.

 

Plus, being known in France and Spain is one thing, the rest of the world is something else.  The term "big club" for me is akin to "McBrand" and we don't come close to competing with the real big boys worldwide - from Manchester United to Real Madrid to Barca to Bayern.

 

In any event, I wish people would stop using the term, as it gets under everyone's skin and I'm fairly sure that commentators only use it to wind up the fans.

 

On the nail...

 

Indeed.

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I don't care really, it's a stupid term.

 

There are successful clubs and unsuccessful ones - ones with history of achievement and ones with less. It's all relative.

 

I don't see the point in fans taking any satisfaction from things like attendences for example - they're partly accidents of geography and partly due to success (meaning glory hunting basically).

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"I know how big this club is. It has a big history, and fantastic supporters. The history, and how good the supporters are, is a very well known fact in France."

 

Hatem knows the score.

 

he heard newcastle were after him so looked us up on wikipedia.. probably :)

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