Which is better, The Premiership or the Coca-Cola Championship?
The rich and glamourous Premiership appeals to many fans due to the influx of world class stars, this year alone has seen the arrival of Liverpool’s Fernando Torres, Manchester City’s Elano and Manchester United’s Owen Hargreaves. Whilst Championship sides are signing the likes of Stern John and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, who are leading the scoring charts for their clubs.
The obvious differences between to two leagues is the players, however a key difference is investment. The Premiership gains a lot more investment via Television deals for example. However, does investment bring entertainment?
As entertaining as it is to watch the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United, i believe the Championship brings more exciting and passionate football than the Premiership. This year’s Championship has seen a fantastic battle at either ends of the table, whereas the Premiership has seen the same four teams competing for the top spot once again. With three promotion places up for grabs in the Championship, there is potentially 11 teams who could make the top 6 and fight for promotion. Along with perhaps 9 clubs struggling against relegation, it creates a fantastic league.
The battles at either end of the championship are not only entertaining and thrilling for the fans but without a doubt interesting for the neutral. With teams like Leicester currently in the bottom 6 beating teams like West Bromich Albion (top 3 for most of the season) 4-1, this sort of surpise result is a real possibility in all championship games. How many times do the bottom 6 teams in the Premiership beats the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea or Liverpool? Once in a blue moon!
The host of young talent on show in the championship is blatent, with many of the young stars being poached to the big Premiership sides (proving their talent), a shame for the Championship, but a gain for the Premiership! Players like Gareth Bale, 18, Theo Walcott, 19, who moved to Premier League clubs in the past two seasons from Championship club Southampton, and Dan Gosling, 18, moving from Plymouth to Everton. Also Cardiff’s young starlet, Aaron Ramsey, 17, is rumoured to have attracted attention from Newcastle and Manchester United.
The opposite seems to happen for players in the Premier League, with older stars dropping down a league. Teddy Sheringham, 41, dropped from West Ham to Colchester, Jason Euell, 31, from Middlesborough to Southampton and Andy Griffin, 29, moving from Derby to Stoke when Derby achieved promotion to the Premier League.
As a Southampton fan obviously I’d love Southampton to gain promotion to the Premier League, due to the financial benefits that come with it and the type of player Saints could attract due to playing in the top English League, but for those reasons alone. However, at the moment I’d rather watch Saints fight it out in the Championship, going into everything game with a good chance, instead of being like Derby County this year in the Premiership struggling to beat anybody.
The Premiership is a fantastic league, without a doubt, but as a Championship Club supporter I thoroughly enjoy watching the entertaining, competitive football it brings every week. All Championship clubs are fighting for promotion to the top league, however life in the Championship (with the exception of the money worries it brings for most clubs) isn’t as bad as some think.
If the Championship had the money of the Premiership, would it be recognised more for being the fantastic league that it is? Or would it still be looked upon as a weaker league in comparison?
April 1, 2008 at 8:27 am
Really good, i think its really well written and thought out.
However i think some of the points that you make are one sided the same as any fan of a particular club, the main reason why the Premiership is more exciting is because of the standard of football not necessarily the results,you watch the master class that Man Utd gave to Liverpool and have to applaud even though they are scum, i think thats the difference where as you get flashes of brilliance from the championship you get it every week in the top flight and thats why the attendances and viewing figures are higher.
April 19, 2008 at 7:03 pm
The standard’s not always great in the Premiership. Anyway for me football isn’t ballet – I would rather my team won by any means possible (especially for example because of hilarious errors by the opposition goalkeeper). Another issue is that corruption is everywhere in the professional game – and you can never be sure that what you are watching has not been fixed – all Italian football fort example has been fixed for decades – like when Milan threw that FA Cup Final in Turkey a couple of years ago. That was so blatant that they didn’t even try to hide it – allowing a much inferior team to come back in the second half for a ‘magical’ and ‘romantic’ victory. You might as well watch WWF wrestling ewhich, frankly, what the pro-game is getting like now. Non-league football is best, I say.