The Premiership Versus The Championship

As an avid Norwich City fan (yes, let's be havin' you.. Get it all out now) my jealously towards the premiership clubs is massive. Exact figures are hard to find, but rough figures seem to suggest that the team who finish bottom of the Premiership this season (read : Derby) will have received approximately £30million in a combination of prize and television money. Compare this to the championship where the table topping side (A harder one to call, but at the moment I'd have to put my money on WBA) will apparently take away between £2.5-£5million and it is easy to see the size of the gulf that exists. However the point of Hoofball is that there is more to football than money. Football continues to exist thanks to one thing; the fans. This may be simplistic, but if the fans dissappeared the money pouring into the game would soon dry up. Fans may cite a number of a reasons for their total dedication to the game, but at the end of the day (my favourite footballism) they watch football to be entertained.

So what is more entertaining, the Premiership or the Championship? In terms of sheer quality these is no doubting that the Premiership is more entertaining, the footballing joy of watching the creative ability of Fabregas, Ronaldo and Torres week in week out will always beat the experience of watching Alan Lee, Chris Brown and Darius Henderson. What should not be missed though is that there are teams in both leagues who choose to play football, as well as there being teams who choose to play slightly more direct. For every Arsenal there is a West Brom and for every Bolton there is a Watford.

For me, excitment is generated through uncertainity and this is where the Championship has the edge. Realistically, at the start of the season the Premier League title was only ever going to go to one of three or four teams and now, two-thirds of the way through the season, the only suprise is the almost predictable (yes, I know that is contradictory) way in which Liverpool have fallen off the pace. Whilst the bottom of the table is a bit closer, with the obvious exception of Derby, there is a huge lack of excitment, despite the tension. Could it be that the threat of relegation, and the financial penalties that come along with it, simple remove all of the 'fun' from the game and leave room for nothing but nerves?

Compare this to the Championship, where at the start of the season somewhere close to 12 teams would have fancied their chance at topping the table come the end of the season. Fast forward to 35 games into a 46 game season and we find four teams battling it out for the top two spots, with a further ten teams all within ten points of the other two remaining play off places. Couple this with the fact that there are ten teams within ten points of the bottom place and you can clearly see how every team in the league is still fighting for something. In fact, Blackpool, currently sitting in 14th place, are ten points ahead of bottom placed Scunthorpe and ten points behind fifth placed Plymouth. A three or four game winning streak could easily lead to them challenging to play Premiership football next season, where as a three or four game losing streak could see them facing the prospect of being a League One team next season!

For me the Premiership will always be the place I want my team to end up, but in truth pushing for promotion is always a lot more fun than constantly avoiding relegation. I'm sure fans of teams such as Fulham secretly long for a season back in the Championship, to try to rediscover some of the joy of being a football fan.

In short, there is no short answer. The pros and cons of both leagues can be easily seen and it simply comes down a matter of personal preference. Those who enjoy the unexpected will find that the Championship is a place where suprises are thrown up every week, while those who enjoy the experience of seeing sublime talent on show will undoutably continue to be drawn to the Premiership.

Me? I'm somewhere in the middle.