Who is the smallest club to have played in The Championship

[Central Belt Caley]

I’m gutted I missed a piece of Scottish Football history when my dad wouldn’t take me to Fir Park to watch Gretna vs The Caley when there was only about 400 odd folk there 

[Fuctifano]

11 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

If someone with a less demanding work life than the A-lister that I am cared to come up with a table of seasons spent in the second tier over the past 35 seasons, then that'd be as appreciated as it would be interesting.

Not 35 years but since we went to 4 leagues of 10 in 1994/5 up til the end of last season so 29 seasons. Average position also included for each season a team spent in second tier. The seasons in top flight / outside second tier should be accurate but not 100% as bit of manual counting there.

QoS a bit higher than I thought but other than that as you'd expect. The table of "most championship-y teams" is :

Morton

Raith

QoS

Falkirk

Ayr

Dundee

Partick Thistle

St Mirren

Dunfermline

Airdrie

Also amended your quote

Edited February 23 by Fuctifano

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, AUcal said:

Always thought it was mental that the Gretna story was lapped up by the media so much, but I guess these are people who only have a focus on 2 clubs and understand nothing about football economics and logistics outside of that.

Well, they were desperate for stories that might have encouraged people to buy their papers/watch their TV programmes. Combine that with complete ennui with Scottish football, or even a lack of interest in the first place, and it's no wonder the press were so keen to make it into a sensational feed-good story.

The collapse will have shifted some units too. There'll be plenty of journalists still salivating whenever clubs announce they're having financial problems.

[GordonS]

On 23/02/2024 at 10:20, Fuctifano said:

Not 35 years but since we went to 4 leagues of 10 in 1994/5 up til the end of last season so 29 seasons. Average position also included for each season a team spent in second tier. The seasons in top flight / outside second tier should be accurate but not 100% as bit of manual counting there.

QoS a bit higher than I thought but other than that as you'd expect. The table of "most championship-y teams" is :

Morton

Raith

QoS

Falkirk

Ayr

Dundee

Partick Thistle

St Mirren

Dunfermline

Airdrie

Also amended your quote

Clydebank? They should only have about 7 seasons on this, if any. If you're counting the phoenix club as the successor then you should take one year off - they didn't join the west juniors until the year after Airdrie ate the former club.

Edited February 24 by GordonS

[A Diamond For Me]

On 23/02/2024 at 03:49, ICTChris said:

The Gretna thing doesn't even seem real now.  The thing I remember about it was that when it was clear they were going to go up they started talking about building an eco-stadium and everyone took it at face value.  A P&Ber, a Morton fan I think, who worked as an architect was given some work by Gretna to produce the technical drawings for the eco-stadium or something like that.  He was never paid and would post about it regularly on the Gretna thread - you'd have people in the media peeing themselves at Gretna and Mileson and then go onto P&B and there was thsi guy who wasn't getting the few hundred quid he was owed for a few hours work and think "hmm something isn't right here".

Also, one thing that was clear was that when it became clear that while it's possible, or was then, to go through the bottom two leagues fairly easily, to do well in the top two tiers you need to actually spend money, Mileson chucked it.  They fell away really badly in their title winning season and then their top flight campaign was farcical - Rowan ALexander turning up to manage the team on day one and getting locked out, I'm sure they almost got evicted from Fir Park for not paying anyone, some of the most random players ever put together.  Deeply odd and then they went bust and everyone just banished it all from memory.

 

This was abiously a while ago and I can't swear that I remember it accurately, but I think he was replaced by Irons towards the end of the season Gretna won the First Division, but not officially sacked by the club until some point the following season.  In the interim period he turned up at an Airdrie vs. Gretna game but was refused entry to the stadium.  I remember there being conflicting rumours about why he wasn't allowed in, with most either saying that Gretna had requested he not be allowed in or that he was somewhat tired and emotional.   I don't know if the right story was ever known, but it was a pretty sordid affair.

[Stellaboz]

Based on that list, definitely Gretna. 

While I was researching for my thesis, I came across an unpublished book on Gretna. Some of the stories were mental, all those rumours of envelopes of cash under the table etc? True. 

But it was billed as a wee fairytale despite the completely artificial structure behind their ascend. 

[Sarto Mutiny]

On 23/02/2024 at 10:10, Central Belt Caley said:

I’m gutted I missed a piece of Scottish Football history when my dad wouldn’t take me to Fir Park to watch Gretna vs The Caley when there was only about 400 odd folk there 

We played them midweek at Fir Park when they were dying on their arse and the crowd was 501. I was the 1. It was the record for the lowest ever top flight attendance iirc for a couple of weeks, until the game you mentioned.