It seems to me that a lot of our supporters still see us as a Premier League club that happens to have fallen on hard times and currently find ourselves languishing in the 3rd tier. I personally have always seen us as a top-half Championship club that had a good spell in the top flight and currently finding ourselves during a below average period.
This got me thinking of what our average position is over a period of time, so I decided to work out what our average is over the last 50, 40, 30, 20 & 10 years and I was surprised with some of the results.
50 year Average: 14th in Championship
40: 12th in Championship
30: 13th in Championship
20: 20th in Championship
10: 3rd in League One
Breaking the last 50 years down into 10 season chunks (starting in 72-73 season)
72/73-81/82: 6 seasons in the Championship, 4 in League One
82/83-91/92: 4 seasons in the Premier League, 6 in The Championship
92/93-01/02: 3 seasons in the Premier League, 7 in the Championship
02/03-11/12: 5 in the Premier League, 2 in the Championship, 3 in League One
12/13-21/22: 5 in the Championship, 5 in League One
*Using current names for divisions.
So, on average we're a mid to lower Championship team overall, but seem to be a team in a decline over the last decade. For a club our size this simply isn't sustainable and if things continue as they are there will come a point when it simply isn't viable to have a 27k stadium and we will have to cut our cloth accordingly or we could find ourselves with the stark reality of the club going belly-up forever. Worrying times are still very much with us.
Sorry for a rambling post, but boredom sometimes gets the better of me.
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Good question though as it defines individuals expectation levels.
Edit - didn't answer did I? In my lifetime, mid to lower 2nd tier in the pyramid. We now have a generation for whom 3rd tier is the norm 😟
However there are a fair few Premier teams who are a similar size and some smaller.
33rd
after-which we go into obscurity, dropping down divisions due to rising sea levels and The Valley being flooded (not even the good people of Doncaster can save it) but then we become the best water polo team the world has ever seen.
Personally, Everton and Wednesday fall into this category with size of support and stadium coupled with 'success' years gone by.
Too many people look at sustained trophies, for me it can be argued Man United are the biggest in the world.
Our natural place in the football pyramid has historically been mid table 2nd division but sadly that’s sliding
But in terms of size potential and history we are definitely a top 30 club and ‘bigger’ than a few in the Prem
Id rather be a Bournemouth fan at the moment though…
Similarly with away tickets, they're currently relatively easy to get, and you can bring friends along for the day out.
For most of my lifetime we were a run of the mill second tier side and i think that would be about our level, (as the 50/40/30/20 year averages in the original post kind of confirm).
Charlton has to be in that top tier of potential in terms of its catchment area, location (ie London and access to a young and affluent fanbase) and room for expansion of the ground. Most clubs can’t tick two of those boxes, let alone all three.
Are we a big club ? I suspect we are a lot bigger than people realise, including our own fan base.
But there's no way you can class Charlton as being in the 'top tier'. There's only 20 PL spots and there's a ton of clubs not currently in the PL who are either bigger than us (Leeds, Sunderland, Sheff Weds, Leicester, Derby, Southampton) or at least on a par with us (Ipswich, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Stoke, Birmingham, Bristol City, Cardiff).
In any given metric (aside from academy quality) we are not top tier.
Apparently size doesn't matter IF you can get the maximum out of what you have !
Luton ten years ago won the Conference.
Cafc ten years ago 18th in Championship.
Charlton were 3 divisions higher than Luton.
23/24 season as of 11/9/23
Luton are 20 in Premier.
Cafc are 17 in League 1.
Charlton are 2 divisions lower than Luton town.
We are like the Divorced man who lived in a lovely pleasant semi detached house in Keston but now after a messy divorce (ex with good lawyer and 4 kids of school age) we has ended up in a one bed flat in Penge and we keep moaning about how shit it is.
Up until 2016 we could still probably have been seen as a Championship team with the odd spell in the top league though more often than the odd dip into the lower leagues.
Genuinely feels like the size of the club has been shrunk and damaged since RD appeared. Since his arrival we've been a league one team with the odd spell in the Championship. That is what failure looks like when you can see a club has slipped so much further down the pyramid for so long.