Big League Clubs From Small Towns
I’m from a town of 4,000 people. The idea that my hometown would host any kind of professional team is laughable. So I was surprised recently to find out about Gretna FC, a Scottish club from a town of 3,000. Gretna won promotion last season and will play in the Scottish Premier League for the first time ever beginning this year.
Gretna players celebrate their promotion
The town of Gretna is best known as the wedding capital of Scotland, a distinction it initially gained by catering to underage English couples looking to take advantage of the Scots’ less restrictive marriage laws. Gretna FC also has a history of eloping, as the club played until 2002 in the Northern Premier League of England. Since returning to Scottish football, the Weddingmakers, as Gretna are affectionately known, have moved quickly through the ranks and next year will play the likes of Rangers and Celtic. But Gretna, it turns out, is not the only top division team from a small town.
Compared to Gretna, Mattersburg is a relative metropolis. The Austrian town of 6,300 is known for the wine its local vineyards produce as well as the food company Felix Austria. The town is also home to local club SV Mattersburg, which plays in the Austrian Bundesliga. The team was led to a 5th place finish last season by former German international (and winner of the most intimidating player ever award) Carsten Jancker.
Carsten Jancker will eat you for breakfast
Austria’s Bundesliga also has SV Ried, from the town of Ried im Innkreis (population 11,500). The club, which boasts former Feyenoord defender Tomasz Rzasa, won the Austrian Cup in 1998.
Across the border in Switzerland, the town of Aarau (population 15,500) has a top division team FC Aarau. The club boasts a grand total of zero players I’m familiar with, but the town is, apparently, where Albert Einstein went to high school.
The town of Paços de Ferreira has a population of 8,500. Located half an hour from Porto, the town is best known as the furniture capital of Portugal and home of FC Paços de Ferreira, whose nickname is, creatively enough, Os Pacenses, or “those from Paços.”
FCV Dender may not be world beaters, but coming from a town of 17,500, that they are in Belgium’s Jupiler League is in itself an achievement. Through the grapevine I’ve heard that “the inhabitants of Denderleeuw are nicknamed schiptrekkers (ship pullers) because before the age of mechanic propulsion the villagers of the borough of Huissegem were professional boat and ship pullers.” Today, FCV Dender boast former Ajax midfielder Stanley Aborah, who also seemed like he was going to be something special for me on Football Manager.
Across the border in France, one the more successful clubs is also from a small town. That club would be Sochaux, from the town of Montbéliard (at 27,570 people, it almost seems too big to make this list). Montbéliard borders Sochaux, which is best known as the location of a Peugeot car assembly plant (indeed, the company started the club, which is officially known as FC Sochaux-Montbéliard, in 1928 to provide entertainment for its workers). The club are experiencing a bit of a renaissance in recent years and even beat Olympique Marseille to win the 2007 French Cup.
Sochaux celebrate their French Cup victory
The highest concentration of top division clubs from small towns, though, goes to the Scandinavian countries. As Hans Honestad points out in his article Viking and Farmer Armies: The Stavanger-Bryne Norwegian Football Rivalry, “rural community life maintains its position as a vehicle for national virtues in Norwegian public discourses.” Perhaps that is why Lillestrøm SK, based in a town of 14,000 with the same name, boasts the Norwegian record for permanence in the Tippeligaen, having been in the top division since 1975.
Just across the North Sea, Denmark also has a top division club from a small town. That would be FC Nordsjælland, which hails from the town of Farum (population 18,000). If you get bored of watching American left back Heath Pearce play for FC Nordsjælland, you can always pop into Farum to see the nearly 1,000 year old church.
Farum’s famous church
No country can match Finland for its successful small town clubs. The land of the Finns has four clubs in its top division that come from towns of under 20,000 people. Those clubs are IFK Mariehamn (from Marienhamm, population 19,000), MyPa (Anjalankoski, 17,000), FF Jaro (Jakobstad, 19,000), and FC Haka (Valkeakoski, 20,000).
Do you know other top division clubs from small towns? I’ll admit, I got bored after looking through the major countries of Western Europe, Brazil, and Argentina, but I’m sure there are others scattered throughout the globe. Leave a comment if you know where they are.
June 25th, 2007 20:29
Do you mean to imply that FCYS isn’t a professional side? YS resents the slight.
June 26th, 2007 14:33
Gretna is a small town, even for the SPL. It helps to have a millionaire benefactor like Brooks Mileson.
July 1st, 2007 11:49
Well done on a great article. It always helps to put the successes of a team in context by remembering how small their home town is.
July 5th, 2007 14:09
Gretna are a millionaire’s hobby.
You could also try Chmel Blasany in the Czech Gambrinus Liga, a village of 2,600 and Cobh Ramblers have played in the Eircom Premier Division.
One small point about Aarau, they get support from the whole canton and not just the town..
July 9th, 2007 23:06
Check out Asteras Tripolis, recently promoted to the Greek Super League. The team has never played in the top flight. But after winning promotion, the new rich owners are planning to build a 15,000-seat stadium in the city of Tripolis (pop. 29,000). They just signed Flavio Pinto, a player from Botafogo.
The team’s recent success has generated unusually great interest in the Greek diaspora. Tripolis is at the center of a once-poor and war-torn region, the Peloponese, that is the homeland of many Greek immigrants to cities such as Chicago and Toronto.
July 9th, 2007 23:09
Pending construction of their new stadium, Asteras will host visitors (including Olympiakos, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens — who feature former World Player of the Year and World Cup champion Rivaldo) at the 2,297-seat “Gipedo Astera.”
http://www.stadia.gr/tripoli/tripoli.html
October 8th, 2007 18:16
Heerenveen in the Netherlands has a population of around 25000, and about as much people fill their stadium every other week. That’s because they are more or less seen as the national team of the region Friesland, whose inhabitants rate their Frisian identity a lot higher than their Dutch identity. They even play the Frisian anthem before games.
But the undisputed champions of overachievers are ofcourse Villareal, a town of forty something thousand, with a club that can afford to bench a player like Riquelme.