Lately AFC Bournemouth have continued to impress in the English second tier The Championship, with five straight victories. They will celebrate the new year as league leaders. In the German Bundesliga FC Augsburg are upsetting the top teams, now in sixth place. I love to see new clubs breaking ground. But hey, are these REALLY new clubs in top football?
For most of us our childhood experiences defines normality, whether it concerns sports, politics or technical gadgets. I still think it's a bit odd that the Swedish parliament consists of eight parties and not five. After 25 years, a united Germany is still kind of a new concept to me, since the wall stood my whole childhood. Streaming services aside, I'm amazed by the more than 13 or 57 channels to choose from on television.
When IFK Göteborg were promoted to the Swedish top tier in 1976, I saw them as a new team that probably wouldn't challenge the likes of AIK and Malmö FF. I later realised that this was one of the big clubs with seven championships, and that they only quite recently had been relegated. Of course they stayed up and later won the UEFA cup twice.
Many youngsters today probably look at my favourite English team in the same way. It was only a few years ago that Stoke City reached the Premier League. However, if you read your football history you'll learn that the club was founded back in 1863, and was one of the original league clubs (I'm sorry to say that great victories are scarce, to say the least...).
We need to make our young ones realise that by learning about history, you understand more about the present. As a Stoke fan I can read about the decline of the pottery and mining industry, partly coninciding with the club's years in the third division. Then I can reflect on the success of gambling giant Bet365, coinciding with the re-establishment of The Potters as a PL club.
If you read about Spanish history (e.g. in Jimmy Burns' excellent "Barça - a People´s Passion") you get a better understanding of why FC Barcelona is so much "more than a club". You can read about the shipping trade to get clues on the origins of many of the great European football clubs.
What about Bournemouth and Augsburg, then? Well, Bournemouth would actually be a new club in the top tier if promoted. Augsburg currently play their fourth season in the Bundesliga, so they have to be considered a new challenger. I will welcome Bournemouth to the Premier League and will be happy to analyse the importance of the fact that their hometown´s population has grown by 15% percent since the birth of the Premier League, and that their stadium is sponsored by a "lifestyle concierge services" company.
