Most Sucessful Football Teams?

[Negative Creep]

Prompted by a bit of friendly banter at the workplace as my team picked up another trophy today. The resident Spurs fan, after being reminded they've only won the league in black and white, claimed Spurs are the 3rd most successful team ever. Is that really right? I know they won things some time ago, but do they really have the 3rd best record of all the clubs?

[bodhi]

They do yes.


However this is mostly in Spurs fans minds, so we'll leave em to it.

[jayfish]

Right I'm an insomniac and had vague notions of doing this at some point anyway, so I thought I'd put a bit of maths into it; I've stuck every winner of the English top flight, FA cup, League Cup, EuropeanCup/Champion League, Uefa Cup and Uefa Cup winners cup into a spreadsheet.
I've also split post WWII results out for a 'modern era' set of results.

Who is most sucessful depends on what you look at as important, wether you include prewar and wether you add some form of weight to certain competitions being more valuable.

So top 10 teams by various measures:-

Domestic Titles

1.Man United 29
2.Liverpool 25
3.Arsenal 23
4=Everton 14
4=Aston Villa 14
6=Spurs 10
6=Newcastle 10
6=Blackburn Rovers 10
9=Sunderland 8
9=Chelsea 8

Domestic Titles Post WWII

1.Man United 26
2.Liverpool 21
3.Arsenal 16
4=Spurs 8
4=Chelsea 8
5.Everton 7
6.Wolves 5
7.Leeds 4
8=Newcastle 3
8=Man City 3
8=Portsmouth 3
8=Derby County 3
8=West Ham 3

Total Domestic and European

1.Liverpool 33
2.Man United 32
3.Arsenal 24
4=Everton 15
4=Aston Villa 15
5.Spurs 13
6=Newcastle 10
6=Blackburn Rovers 10
6=Chelsea 10
10.Sunderland 8

Total Domestic and European Post WWII

1=Liverpool 29
1=Man United 29
3.Arsenal 17
4.Spurs 11
5.Chelsea 10
6.Everton 8
7=Wolves 5
7=Leeds 5
9=Man City 4
9=Nottingham Forest 4
9=West Ham 4

And then just for interest and using my personal scale of Champion League>Leaguetitle>FA CUP>secondary european cup>League Cup i weighted them with a multiplier of 5,4,3,2,1 respectively
(I don't expect you to agree with such a weighting, it was meerly an excercise)

Postwar only

1.Liverpool 115
2.Man United 109
3.Arsenal 60
4.Spurs 36
5.Chelsea 35
6.Everton 28
7.Leeds 21
8.Nottingham Forest 21
9.Wolves 20
10.Aston Villa 17

By any measure Spurs are ranked between 4th and 6th, so tell your mate he's wrong, the stats don't lie

The only 2 things I can think that spurs would be classified as 3rd for are
1. Number of FA cup wins; Man United 11, Arsenal 10, Spurs 8
2. Most deluded fans, behind Newcastle (needs no explaination) and Man City for thinking they will break into the top 4

Oh btw I'm a Spurs fan...

Edit to note, damn that Arsenal team, 3rd by any measure...(shakes fist....One day.....one day.....<mutter><mutter>)

Edited by jayfish on Sunday 31st May 04:53

Edited by jayfish on Sunday 31st May 04:57

[Corpulent Tosser]

Er, Glasgow Rangers, well over 100 titles.

Though as an Aberdeen supporter it rankles to say it, they are probably the most successful team (without jayfish's ranking of course)