Smallest town in the first division of your country

Thunder_PT · Post by **Thunder_PT** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 05:08

Cities with teams in Portuguese top flight (2009/10):

Lisboa (Sporting and Benfica) 564,657
Porto (FC Porto) 240.000
Amadora (Estrela da Amadora) 176,239
Braga (SC Braga) 175,063
Matosinhos (Leixões) 168,451
Guimarães (Vitória SC) 161,876
Coimbra (Académica) 137,212
Setúbal (Vitória FC) 120,117
Leiria (U. Leiria) 119,870
Funchal (Nacional and Marítimo) 100,847*
Figueira da Foz (Naval) 62,601
Olhão (Olhanense) 42,272
Vila do Conde (Rio Ave) 32,094
Paços de Ferreira (Paços de Ferreira) 8,500

Metropolitan areas:

Lisbon (Sporting, Benfica, Est. Amadora and Vit. Setúbal) 2,641,006
Porto (FC Porto, Leixões and Rio Ave ) 1.700.000

*Funchal once had 3 teams at the top flight at the same time (Marítimo, Nacional and União da Madeira). Could it be the smallest town in Europe to achieve this?

QPPR · Post by **QPPR** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 17:17

map

The town of Heerenveen proper actually only has around 29.000 inhabitants. The Abe Lenstra stadion can hold 26.800, and will be expanded to 33.000 in a year or two. So Heerenveen will join that select number of towns with a stadium bigger than its population.

Heerenveen, and AZ as well, have a high regional appeal, and no nearby competitors. The club nearest to sc Heerenveen is Cambuur, from Leeuwarden, the provincial capital. Since there is a huge cultural gulf between Greater Leeuwarden and the rest of Friesland, most of the province (around 480.000 people) supports sc Heerenveen.

AZ is the only club (well, except for FC Volendam, which is from one of those rather insular fishing towns the surrounding area doesn't get along with) in the province of Noord-Holland north of the North Sea Canal and the Amsterdam urban area, a region of around 610.000.

spoonman · Post by **spoonman** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 22:01

Last year, I drove past AZ's stadium on holiday (on the way to Egmond aan Zee).

It looks quite impressive from the outside. I was surprised to learn that it only holds 17,000 people.

Forza AZ · Post by **Forza AZ** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 12:23

spoonman wrote:Last year, I drove past AZ's stadium on holiday (on the way to Egmond aan Zee). It looks quite impressive from the outside. I was surprised to learn that it only holds 17,000 people.

It looks bigger because there is nothing around it.

mistral · Post by **mistral** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 17:37

seso wrote:
mistral wrote:On a related theme, I was just wondering what the smallest town/city to have (or have had) two teams in their country's top division might be?
Volos is the smallest with about 85,000 people and Niki Volou and Olympiakos Volou.

So far, Volos seems to be the winner in this category. Pretty amazing when you think that cities the size of Bonn, Wiesbaden, Plymouth and Augsburg have never had a single team in their national top division.

Thunder_PT wrote:Funchal (Nacional and Marítimo) 100,847*

*Funchal once had 3 teams at the top flight at the same time (Marítimo, Nacional and União da Madeira). Could it be the smallest town in Europe to achieve this?

That's quite remarkable for a town of that size on an island 500 kms (perhaps even more) or so from mainland Portugal. How did the teams manage to get decent crowds?

P.S. Have Novosibirsk, Omsk or Ufa ever had top flight football teams?

Cirdan · Post by **Cirdan** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 20:09

mistral wrote:So far, Volos seems to be the winner in this category. Pretty amazing when you think that cities the size of Bonn, Wiesbaden, Plymouth and Augsburg have never had a single team in their national top division.

Size can be a bit deceiving in that case... Volos is Greeces 13th largest city, Bonn only the 19th largest in Germany, Plymouth the 19th in England.

Lyonnais · Post by **Lyonnais** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 07:28

Auxerre is the smallest city* in France

* metro area (much more relevant to me than city population itself)

Code: Select all

Metro area		City
9 644 507	Paris	2 203 817
1 349 772	Marseille	847 084
1 348 832	Lyon	480 778
1 000 900	Lille	232 432
888 784	Nice	350 735
761 090	Toulouse	444 392
753 931	Bordeaux	235 878
518 727	Lens (Douai-Lens)	36 257
419 334	Grenoble	158 746
357 395	Valenciennes	43 387
331 363	Nancy	107 434
291 960	St Etienne	180 773
287 981	Montpellier	254 974
272 263	Rennes	214 813
194 825	Le Mans	148 169
133 195	Boulogne	45 036
116 174	Lorient	60 286
113 059	Sochaux (Montbeliard)	4 419
66 410	Monaco (Menton-Monaco)	32 020
40 945	Auxerre	39 971

Cirdan · Post by **Cirdan** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 15:08

Lyonnais wrote:* metro area (much more relevant to me than city population itself)

Depends a bit... Leverkusen is in the Köln metro area, but I'm pretty sure they don't get many fans from Köln.

Also, with stats about metro area there's always the question of what you include into the area. I mean, sometimes for a single country there are halfway working definitions, but comparing stats from different countrys usually doesn't make a lot of sense... and for Germany, there are often various definitions that differ extremely (eg Ruhr: you may "only" include Duisburg-Essen-Dortmund, then you get ~5 mio, you may also include Düsseldorf, then you get ~7 mio, you may also include Köln-Bonn and other surrounding citys, then you get ~12 mio).

Lyonnais · Post by **Lyonnais** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 16:07

oh yes, I wouldn't even try comparing countries. That's so different.
I've read somewhere that France counted half of the cities / villages of the whole Europe (36,000 cities in France).
That's the reason that the metro area population (as per the official definition of the INSEE) is more relevant to me than the city population - although this can be discussable. Marseille has taken the 2nd place just because INSEE decided to include Aix-en-Provence in their metropolitan area. Why not, but it's discussable.

Anyway, for sure, it doesn't make sense to me to say that say Lens has only 40,000 - whereas a bit like in the Ruhr (although much less wealthy), they are part of a dense industrial region - or Sochaux only 4,000 (although technically true) whereas they are in the Peugeot area in Montbeliard.

Mack · Post by **Mack** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 02:22

mistral wrote:
seso wrote:
mistral wrote:On a related theme, I was just wondering what the smallest town/city to have (or have had) two teams in their country's top division might be?
Volos is the smallest with about 85,000 people and Niki Volou and Olympiakos Volou.
So far, Volos seems to be the winner in this category. Pretty amazing when you think that cities the size of Bonn, Wiesbaden, Plymouth and Augsburg have never had a single team in their national top division.

Thunder_PT wrote:Funchal (Nacional and Marítimo) 100,847*

*Funchal once had 3 teams at the top flight at the same time (Marítimo, Nacional and União da Madeira). Could it be the smallest town in Europe to achieve this?
That's quite remarkable for a town of that size on an island 500 kms (perhaps even more) or so from mainland Portugal. How did the teams manage to get decent crowds?

P.S. Have Novosibirsk, Omsk or Ufa ever had top flight football teams?

I have tried to look at the Norwegian league history. There are a few smaller places that had two teams competing at the highest level many yaers back, but the league system was organised in groups and play offs in the older days. A more compatible league system isn't really worth looking at before 1963.

Some of the major cities in Norway has had two teams in the top division and even big cities in Norway are small compared to the rest of Europe. Oslo have had more than two teams on several ocations. Also Bergen and Tondheim have had two teams in the top division. But I couldn't find any smaller than 85.000.

The closest is Strømsgodset and Mjøndalen that both played in the top division between 1972-1976. These bitter rivals are both considered to be from the city of Drammen. Drammen has a population of 60.000. But this doesn't really count, since Mjøndalen is a village in Nedre Eiker municipality. The neighbouring municipality across the city river and is more of a suburb of Drammen. Nedre Eiker has a population of 21.000. Nedre Eiker and Drammen combined has a population of 81.000, but must be considered as two different places.

At the moment my home town Tromsø has a team in the top division and a team in the second highest division. Now Tromsdalen is only one point behind the 5th place in the Addecco-league wich qualifies for play of games to the Tippeliga. But there are many rounds left to play and if Tromsdalen is promoted it would be a shocking achievment. Tromsø has a population of 65.000. Maybe a European record? This could be an extra motivation.

Executor · Post by **Executor** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 08:35

Well, Tromsø already holds a record: the most northern city with a team in a Top League in Europe (perhaps even in the world? I didn't check Canada, but I doubt it). Maybe even in the entire history?

Michele · Post by **Michele** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 09:31

Executor wrote:Well, Tromsø already holds a record: the most northern city with a team in a Top League in Europe (perhaps even in the world? I didn't check Canada, but I doubt it). Maybe even in the entire history?

Canada doesn't really have a top league. Their best teams play as part of the US league system and I think only Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are involved there. So that's really no competition.

mistral · Post by **mistral** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 14:27

Executor wrote:Well, Tromsø already holds a record: the most northern city with a team in a top league in Europe?

At 69° 40'N, I think we can safely that Tromsø is likely to have the world's most northerly football team for quite a while to come. It also helps that it's in one of the most beautiful parts of the world as well. It might be cold up there, but the scenery is magnificent.

QPPR · Post by **QPPR** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 15:07

Thunder_PT wrote: *Funchal once had 3 teams at the top flight at the same time (Marítimo, Nacional and União da Madeira). Could it be the smallest town in Europe to achieve this?

Kerkrade (pop. 43368 in 1950) had 3 clubs (Bleijerheide, SV Kerkrade and Juliana) on the highest level between 1948-1953. Back then the top flight consisted of four regional leagues of 14 clubs though, so 56 clubs in total. The four winners played a mini league for the national championship. Those 3 clubs, together with Rapid '54 have since merged to form Roda JC.

Dordrecht (pop. 76297 in 1950) also had 3 clubs (Emma, DFC and EBOH) playing on the highest level around that time.

spoonman · Post by **spoonman** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 15:53

mistral wrote:
Executor wrote:Well, Tromsø already holds a record: the most northern city with a team in a top league in Europe?
At 69° 40'N, I think we can safely that Tromsø is likely to have the world's most northerly football team for quite a while to come. It also helps that it's in one of the most beautiful parts of the world as well. It might be cold up there, but the scenery is magnificent.

Thanks for pointing that out. Your post has just prompted me to look up the English Wikipedia article about Tromsø, and I've learned that electronic music duo Röyksopp hails from Tromsø.

And actually, it doesn't seem to be that cold up there: The lowest temperature ever was -18°C, and the January average is just -4°C. But 2 months in winter without sunlight must be quite depressing...

BTW: This is one thing that I love about football and international cup competitions: As a football fan, you get to learn things about foreign countries and cities that you probably wouldn't ever get to know in another context.