Our historical performance

[atypical_boro]

Appreciate our historic performance pre-Gibson but if anything shouts out from the Gibson years, it's money.

Roughly 10 years of gradual improvement, followed by 10 years or so as a top flight team (when we were punching above our weight financially) followed by 10 fairly fallow years where Gibson is now a small fish in a big pond.

Abramovich was 2003, looks like we held our own for a couple of seasons before more multi-billionaires joined the fun and we've struggled to compete since?

His 30 year stint as chairman is more like 12 years of unprecedented achievement, followed by 12 years of hitting historical 'norms', the next 12 (of which we are halfway through) I am really hoping don't turn into 12 years of unprecedented failure.

 

[atypical_boro]

Complete myth.

What's a myth? We HAD come 5th and then 4th, seems inconceivable that some folk (especially our own fans) wouldn't have fancied us to challenge for the title.

Or do you just mean the 'best start' bit? Cos yeah that's just a factually incorrect statement.

 

[Capybara]

I quoted a post (twice) that said our best ever start to a season was scuppered by the war. We'd lost two and drawn one.

 

[atypical_boro]

I wonder if Charlton Athletic fans say the same thing about Hitler?

 

[atypical_boro]

I quoted a post (twice) that said our best ever start to a season was scuppered by the war. We'd lost two and drawn one.

You quoted my post that said we'd came 5th, then 4th, then started the war season badly (all of which are true).

 

[GazBoro]

Where do these myths come from?

Huh? It was a tongue in cheek comment, Germans bombing boro and all that, Boro for the title? Come on!

At least 1finny knew I wasn't being serious.

 

[Boro_Interlinked]

Like the graph. But.. is there anywhere we can get ice core proxy data to see where Boro finished in pre industrial times ?

 

[1finny]

We'd lost two and drawn one when war was declared. Where do these myths come from?

We were above dirty Leeds tho

 

[Capybara]

Huh? It was a tongue in cheek comment, Germans bombing boro and all that, Boro for the title? Come on!

At least 1finny knew I wasn't being serious.

Fair play.

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

I wonder if Charlton Athletic fans say the same thing about Hitler?

Nah, team of bottlers they were in those days.

 

[FishofContemplation]

I think football has changed a lot over the Century.

Northern industrial towns were more represented in the higher divisions pre-war, and clubs towards the South East in easy access of Heathrow were lower down the leagues.

Brentford, Palace, Brighton, Bournemouth and Luton rarely poked their heads above 3rd tier pre-1950s, and some only did it much later. Now, they're a quarter of the PL.

There has been a general slide towards the South East. I'm not sure how it's SG's fault, but I'm sure it is.

The football league when it started consisted of six teams from Lancashire, and six teams from the north and west Midlands. That was never sustainable.

They’ve had southern teams for at least a century, but back in the day when the third division had north and south sections, they moved the likes of Walsall and Grimsby between the two. Now the National League moves the likes of Bishop’s Stortford and Gloucester city. You can laugh all you like, but there has been a massive shift to the south. Northern clubs that live on their Edwardian era glory are delusional.