Fancy a kickabout, gents?

How to not get relegated: a Kickabout with the Gents Guide.

Evening gents…it’s been a long time since I last wrote a column entry- well, written anything. I’ve promised this for sometime now- even before the World Cup (which I will write an article on next, probably, unless Gary Neville’s a twat again and that takes precedence). Now, if you don’t know, I’m a West Bromwich Albion fan- an unfortunate circumstance which means I support the ‘yo-yo club’ of English football for the past…7 years or so. That’s because we keep getting promoted to the Premiership, and then relegated again- we have only survived once, in a record breaking and heart attack inducing ‘Great Escape’- no other team has stayed in the Premier League if they were bottom at Christmas. We dispelled the inevitability of that omen, and saved ourselves from being absolutely drubbed, a la Sunderland and Derby County.

So, unlike most football fans I have an acute experience of promotions and relegations- I’ve seen more than most do in their footballing lifetime. Such is the cost of supporting a team who aren’t dull, dishwater, established and middle-of-the-road team. That’s right- even if this is the kind of excitement that threatens to give me cancer or something: it’s more exciting than being, well, Bolton, Everton, et al?

So- how what things help steer the fate of a season, bribe the gods of football and bring you the heady heights of financing that being in the topflight gives you.

I will at the end of each section be selecting 1 doer, and 1 failer. Give you a clue- the former’s good, the latter’s fucking kamikaze shit.

1)      “Come Correct”

A team’s first season in a new league is like an extended job interview- the second is a honeymoon, where it can still go pear shaped when your club tells you that they have a child, and it’s not yours.

Or signed Jimmy Bullard, you choose

Hull City is a prime example of a team which shaved survival in their first season, and did not survive ‘the difficult second season’.

What do I mean by “come correct”? This is the makeup of your squad. You need to find the right balance- like a cake, or a sexual woman, the proportions need to be right- just the amount of experience, youth, and utter sluttishness to be able to survive the big hard, overinflated cocks that the established clubs wield. Teams have a single summer to adjust themselves to a completely different level- the amount of money put in also doesn’t get expected results. West Brom, for example, in their previous season spent over £20 million in transfer fees; we still got relegated. This was because we spent on mostly untested players, and did not adequately strengthen the areas which most needed to be- the defence and the spearhead of the attack: the focus also was on larger transfer fees with lower wages, at the expense of needed experience. In the January we loaned Mulumbu and Marc-Antoine Fortuné from the French leagues. Suddenly, with the former providing steel (inexperienced steel, but steel nonetheless) and the latter providing link-up play with our midfielders and other strikers up-front, we looked like we may be able to survive. It was too little, too late, and these changes should have been enacted in the summer pre-season. We now have both of these players, and are now reportedly focussing on wages rather than transfer fees.

Indeed, Stoke City stayed up despite being a less effective team in the lower tier than Albion. This was because they could not be bullied off of the ball, and took advantage of fanatical home support: the Britannia is the loudest stadium in the country, which is incredible considering it’s the fraction of the size of larger grounds: Psychology as much as money wins out in football.

Doer: Fulham

Failer: Wigan Athletic

2)       Walls and a Roof.

Yes, that's Wigan's stadium. Oh wait, there's footballers out there, not schoolboys!

Secondly, the club needs a proper structure in order to have hope. This not only includes the stadium (the physical characteristics don’t matter so much, only that the turnstiles turn- Wigan are a prime example of a relegation candidate, having an attendance of below 15,000 at a PL game only a couple of weeks ago- pathetic), but also backroom staff, finances, and a proper coherent plan. Teams have to be ‘ready’. If the first season doesn’t find your weaknesses, the second will- Hull City, Bradford City, Ipswich Town, West Brom, the list goes on. Will Wolves and Birmingham this season join these infamous ranks? Bradford’s setup was so ill-prepared that they massively overspent in their second summer, and now reside on the bottom rung of the football league.

Therefore, it’s not enough to have the field and the requisite players. If you can’t supply more players when needed, or support more, then your club will collapse into debt- and debt is the plan A, route 1, straight-into-the-sun path into obliteration as a club. This is why West Brom have kept returning- because we are well ran. This is also one of the reasons why we probably have not stayed up in the past- but the club’s long-term life is clearly being considered, even if it has the added bonus of benefiting the owner’s pockets at the cost of a few seasons’ happiness. Look at Liverpool and Manchester United (and probably Chelsea in years to come): they only can survive with their debt levels because they are on life-support from their owners, and keep winning trophies. The only reason why they have not pulled a Leeds United and nosedived is because of 1) luck, and 2) reputation, 3) stupid, rich capitalist owners (who kind of caused this mess too).

But you ask the Victorian giants- clubs like Preston North End, Burnley, West Brom, Notts County, Blackburn et al: and they will tell you, time at the top does not last forever. In-fact, in a century WBA could have swapped places with Manchester United. Time will tell.

A deficiency in any of these areas is a serious hindrance to survival.

Doers: West Bromwich Albion, Bolton

Failures: Newcastle United, Blackpool

3)      Hope

Lastly, you need hope. Not just a brilliant structure, or the correct squad, but hope. Teams with the previous two factors in abundance have tumbled- established ones- because they lacked hope and coherence as a unit. It doesn’t matter if you have a team of Christiano Ronaldo, Pirlo, Casillas and Jimi Hendrix- if they don’t work together or play properly, you will not stay up because you won’t be able to win the points needed. This is a more metaphysical factor than the others, which really involve how you set yourself up preseason and in the years prior- this is how you conduct yourself in the heat of battle itself.

Team spirit, whatever you want to call it, it’s needed. This may be down to the management, it may be down to the collective and personal motivations of the players themselves- Leeds United have an infamy for producing petulant assholes on their playing staff, which is why Brian Clough was not able to work his magic at arguably the biggest club he managed. When relegated 2 and a half decades later, they suffered the same problems: overpaid, under-motivated. The same is true of Newcastle United and other teams.

Importantly, however, in the long run (as Fulham perfectly embodied under departed daimyo Roy Hodgson) hope should be transformed into Ambition. But that’s a different article.

This guy can tactically slice your throat open with one look

Doers: Stoke City, Wolves,

Failures: Wigan, West Ham

Predicted relegation candidates: Wigan, West Ham, Blackpool/Bolton