"Big Club"

[Piccsnumberoneblue]

I once had a table that pulled together quite well many of the deciding factors of what makes a big club. It was based on seasons in the top flight, trophies, Seasons in Europe, average attendances etc, with points awarded for each. We came in at a rather disappointing 8th. Around the same level as Sunderland.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

I'm never sure, cos it's disloyal to not see City as a big club, but...

the OP is right we are about 9th in terms of the tin we've won. However it's less than ten cups (excluding Charity shields) and 4 (+1) of them were won 1968-1970.
That was the only time we've put a string of successes together. Otherwise we've spread them out a bit 1904 1934 1956...
I'm not saying they should be ignored. The opposite. But there's an argument that for 120+ of our 125 years (sorry John) we haven't even been top 10.
That said we are a fuckin big club and getting bigger.

That's not really true though. We've gathered 9th most points during the existence of English top flight out of all the clubs so overall we've been there and thereabouts most of the time.

[Tokyo Blue]

2) Fan base. If it's a matter of fanbase and unwavering attendances during shit periods, then we fall into this category.

I have been in crowds of 17-18,000 at City and my old man has been in crowds of under 10,000, including the infamous smallest league crowd in our history. So do we really fit into this big unwavering fanbase thing?

I think it is irrelevant as any fanbase criterion is nothing more than an emotional crutch for the unsuccessful. How many fans we've got or had would mean fuck all if we were winning trophies regularly. Did any City fans from the late 60s and early 70s give a monkey's crutchpiece what the crowds were in the 67-68 season? Not the ones I know.