One city one team

[Alex]

What if... 

What if we had one big club in the same city? Outside London of course.
For example:
Aston Villa in Birmingham
Sheffield Wednesday in Sheffield
Everton in Liverpool
Notts County in Nottingham
etc...
 

 

I will try to explain what I mean. Look at Bristol - big and important enough city in England but they don't have really strong team. If they put all their resources into one club Bristol Rovers as the oldest in the city they could get more benefits. Is not it? Leeds and Derby have one club and those clubs are more successful than Bristol's.
So what do you think, is that good idea to have one big club in the same city? 

[RetroPie]

Some cities are big enough to warrant two big teams, such as Liverpool.

Others aren't as much.

This reminds me of when the council purposed that Notts merged with Forest, it just won't work. 

[DangerousSausage]

Erm, such a move probably wouldn't end well for us

You can't strike such a simple correlation. For instance, Bradford City are the only professional club in their city, and yet are at least a division below both Bristol clubs despite Bradford being bigger. Likewise, Leeds is one of the biggest cities in the UK, yet its one team has only just returned to the top flight after nigh on two decades in the second and third division. Manchester United and City have won loads of trophies since Leeds' last title in 1992, despite the multitude of clubs in the Greater Manchester area.

It misses the point anyway - it's about tradition and supporting your club, and the vast majority of fans wouldn't sacrifice their clubs for the sake of having a successful but newly formed club in the same city. And besides, the idea that we're holding Florist back, or that Port Vale are holding Stoke back, doesn't hold any water - and most fans wouldn't transfer their support to a merged Frankenstein club for the reason I've just described, so you couldn't simply add the two fan bases together.

[Alex]

@DangerousSausage
I didn't mean to merge the clubs. My point is if one club in the same city have more opportunity than two. 
Does Derby County have some advantage over Nottingham's clubs? Or Leeds United over Birmingham's. 
I am not talking about how the clubs use their opportunities, it's obvious that Liverpool's or Manchester's clubs are better managed than Leeds United. 
Once again my question is if one club in the same city initially or by definition have more opportunity than two.

[Piethagoram]

@AlexI think you are hinting towards leaning on a city franchise system. Franchise in the UK is a "dirty" word ever since MK Dons  took over from the old Wimbledon FC

People need to "buy in" to the idea, and as for football, its a non starter IMHO

 

[Alex]

Actually I didn't think about franchise system. 

[Chris]

There're smaller clubs in Derby, just none which really compete for fans with them other than Burton which gains a fair amount of fans from the city of Derby.

I wouldn't say it gives them an advantage or, any other team with a sole presence within their city.

Once upon a time, it might have had benefits from having rich board members who are businessmen within a city of one club but that's something which really died down with the multi-million pound owners and, eventually billionaires that came into football [Sky deserves some credit for pricing these people out]. 

[Joshua]

Liverpool - Everton

Manchester United - Manchester City

Rangers - Celtic

All thrive on the competition between having two teams in the same cities, I think places like Derby benefit from having one large club but I don't think it gives them any advantage. It just benefits them when it comes to selling merch, selling out their stadium etc.

[liampie]

think it would be boring if every city had just one team, there is no room for competition and i think its better as it is.

[DangerousSausage]

I get your meaning now @Alex. It's an interesting thought. Take the city of Liverpool as an example - if Everton had never left Anfield and Liverpool FC had never been founded, how would football history have panned out? Individually, Everton may well have benefitted from not being in Liverpool's shadow, with a larger supporter base and more sponsorship. But would they really have matched Liverpool's 19 titles? It's impossible to say, but I doubt it.

As @liampie says, competition in one city livens things up and increases interest in football. Look at Glasgow - Rangers and Celtic are by far the biggest clubs in Scotland, and they got into that position by feeding off each other and their rivalry. And Liverpool and Everton have won the title 28 times between them. Derby is a one-club city with a population half that of Liverpool, but they have only won the title twice, under one exceptional manager.

[NCRichie]

If you change the scope of what we know, how many good young players would've been lost over the years? Would Steven Gerrard broken through in an Everton squad?

Lots of youngsters would've been lost.

Interesting notion though.