Author: August Warren | Created: 4/26/2020
The tables below show the highest of highs and the lowest of lows
across the four tiers of English football during any given 10 year period.
The "Roughest Decades" represent the lowest points
where clubs were losing the most amount of positions over any given 10 year period, while the
"Best Decades" represent the strongest growths. Note, other clubs could have had their
"best decades" while they continue to lead the Premier League or worst periods as they languished
in the middle of League Two or kept going up to the Championship only to be relegated the next year
over and over. "Best" and "Roughest" are more defined as the periods with the greates swings in either direction.
Click on a specific team to see that decade represented in the chart above.
The data used for this project was sourced from the engsoccerdata R package
developed and maintained by James Curley (jalapic) -- massive thanks to them for building such a useful
and rich source of football data, not only in England but across Europe. Each season datapoint represents the final, end of
season standing for each club; again, thanks to James for providing a great example
on how to derive these values from the game-level dat provided. I highly recommend using this package if you're looking to do any similar analysis.
This project was largely inspired by Sunderland 'Till I Die, a Netflix show about Sunderland FC as
it was relegated from the Premier League to the Championship and then once more to League One. I was curious to see how this fall
stacked up against other clubs in the history of English football. Rather than measuring static decades, I decided to look at a
moving ten year window for the greatest number of positions gained and dropped per season. The most recent decade (2009-2019) for Sunderland currently
ranks in at the 174th roughest decade in English football history, which is also the roughest decade in the club's 100+ year history, as they dropped 4.1 positions
per season on average.
This additionally helped shine a light on some tumultuous decades for Welsh. Specifically the 1923-33 seasons for Cardiff City, dropping 8.5 positions per season and being
relegated from the very top of the top tier to the very bottom of the lowest tier. On the other side, 2002-12 saw the greatest
single decade of sustained growth for any club in the history of English football for Swansea City as they jumped from the bottom
of League Two to the middle of the Premier League. Swansea also saw a rough decade in the 80's after a meterioic rise to the First Division in the
decade prior, they dropped back down to the lowest tier a few seasons later. Here's a great read on
the factors that contributed to that era of Swansea's history