Why This Is the BEST Championship Season of the Century

Three wins in a season. 14 years in the Premier League ended a third relegation in five years. Wolves West Ham and Burnley fell out of the top flight in the same spring and landed on a division

that was already loaded. The champions

of League 1 arrived with 103 points and five defeats all year. Rex here, two points off the playoffs last season.

Birmingham are here, spending American money like it has somewhere to be.

Southampton and Middlesborough are here too, both of whom got within one game of the Premier League last May and came away with nothing. At the other end, West Brom, [music] Blackburn, and QPR, clubs who used to live in the top

flight, will spend the season fighting to stay in the division at all. And the

Docker derby is back. Milwall against

West Ham 14 years since the last one. A

fixture born on the London docks and inherited like a surname. This is the [music] best championship season of the century, and it has almost nothing to do with talent. It's density, every

with talent. It's density, every ingredient that makes a division great, landing [music] in the same table in the same year. And underneath all of it, the

same year. And underneath all of it, the competition changed its own rules this year to make the ending more dramatic than it [music] already was. The same

thing that makes it thrilling is what makes it merciless. Most of these clubs are going to fail. Welcome to mega football. Let's get started.

football. Let's get started.

The championship is always chaotic. That

is the entire appeal of it. What makes

this year different is how much arrived at once. Wolves came down after 8 years

at once. Wolves came down after 8 years in the Premier League and the manner of it was brutal. Three wins across an entire season. Every one of them at

entire season. Every one of them at Molyneu. They did not win a single away

Molyneu. They did not win a single away match all year. Went [music] through a stretch of 19 games without a victory of any kind and lost 11 in a row at their lowest point. By the time they were

lowest point. By the time they were relegated, [music] the club had already burned through two managers and a third arrived in June to begin the rebuild.

That is a club arriving in the championship with genuine topflight players and absolutely [music] no confidence, which historically is one of the most dangerous things this division deals with because [music] the

talent does not disappear on the way down. It just needs somewhere to

down. It just needs somewhere to breathe. Burnley arrive as the most

breathe. Burnley arrive as the most familiar face at this level. They have

been relegated, promoted, relegated, promoted, and relegated again in the last five seasons. A club that no longer belongs cleanly to either division. They

know the championship intimately. They

know how to win it. They have done it recently and convincingly, and much of the group that did it is still there.

Their new manager was appointed in July, which gives them a shorter runway than they would like. But nobody in this league will look at Burnley and see an easy afternoon. And then West Ham, whose

easy afternoon. And then West Ham, whose fall is the one with the longest shadow, 14 consecutive years in the Premier League, ended. This is a club that was

League, ended. This is a club that was playing European football 3 years ago and won a Continental Trophy doing it. A

club that spent over a decade as a permanent fixture [music] in the richest league on Earth and built everything it owns on that assumption. Relegations

like this reshape clubs for years. The

ones that go straight back up survive them. the ones that do not spend the

them. the ones that do not spend the next decade explaining themselves. What

they bring down is a squad [music] full of internationals, the biggest stadium in the division by a distance and a decision that tells you everything about how seriously they are taking this.

Jared Bowen is staying. The club

captain, an established Premier League forward with an England career, has chosen to drop a division and lead the promotion push rather than move on.

Players of that profile usually leave.

Bowen stayed and he is expected to be simply too good for this level. the kind

of forward who wins games on his own in months when the football is bad and the pitches are worse.

Southampton spent the second half of last season as the best team in the division. They went 21 games unbeaten.

division. They went 21 games unbeaten.

They won seven in a row. They beat

Middlesborough over two legs in the playoff semi-final and booked their place at Wembley, but they never got there. The EFL disqualified them for one

there. The EFL disqualified them for one of the biggest scandals in recent years.

Middlesborough were reinstated in their [music] place and Southampton begin this campaign on minus four points before a ball is kicked which sounds like a disaster and probably is not. This is

still a club with Premier League infrastructure. The manager who oversaw

infrastructure. The manager who oversaw that unbeaten run and a squad that was demonstrabably the strongest in the league across the runin. They start

behind. They do not start weak.

Middlesborough went to Wembley in their place and lost the final in the 95th minute. There is no gentle way to

minute. There is no gentle way to describe what that does to a club. They

finished level on points with Southampton across the whole season, were handed a final they had not won on the pitch, and then watch the promotion place disappear in the last seconds of

the last game. Now they go again under a manager appointed midway through last season after their previous one was poached by Wolves in November. Bristol

City are the third of these and they made the shrewdest move of the summer.

When Lincoln won League One, the manager who built that team was the most wanted coach outside the top two [music] divisions. Bristol City moved within

divisions. Bristol City moved within days of the season ending and took him to Ashton Gate. A club that spent last season in mid-table churn, now has Michael Scubala, the best young manager

in the lower leagues. What links these three is unfinished business, and it is the most dangerous thing a championship club can carry into August. These are

the clubs that know this division best and knowing it is worth more here than almost anywhere else. They understand

what 46 games does to a squad, what February feels like, which away trips decide seasons. They have the

decide seasons. They have the infrastructure, the crowds, and the budgets [music] to survive the parts of the year that break lesser clubs. And

all three have spent the summer being told that Wolves, West Ham, and Burnley are the ones who will go up. Rexom

finished seventh last season, two points outside the playoffs, and their reward was nothing at all. That is the detail worth holding on to because it says more about this club than any documentary

episode. A side that arrived in the

episode. A side that arrived in the championship expecting to survive instead spent the year going toe-to-toe with the division and finished as the best team that failed to qualify. They

scored freely and beat serious opposition at home. They are no longer a novelty. They are a championship club

novelty. They are a championship club that came within two points of the playoffs and has spent the summer trying to close that gap with the resources to do it and a manager who has taken them up through the pyramid [music] without

ever losing the dressing room.

Birmingham are the other version of the same idea. They won league one at a

same idea. They won league one at a caner came up and finished comfortably in the top half in their first season back. The kind of quiet consolidation

back. The kind of quiet consolidation that usually precedes a serious push.

The American ownership has not slowed its spending. The stadium ambition is

its spending. The stadium ambition is real and the squad has been built for a division above the one they were in. Set

them against Southampton and Middlesborough and you get the collision at the heart of this season. Old Premier

League pedigree on one side. New money

with no recent history at top flight on the other. Both convinced their model is

the other. Both convinced their model is the one that works. Both chasing the same three exits. The championship

usually holds one project like this. It

is currently holding several and they have all peaked in the same year. There

is no fixture in English football that frightens people the way this one does.

Milw Wall against West Ham is not a rivalry built on trophies or title races or anything that happened on a pitch. It

is older [music] and simpler than that.

Two working communities on opposite banks of the same river [music] who spent a century being told the other one was taking their work, their contracts, their living. The football club was just

their living. The football club was just where it [music] got settled. By the

time these two met properly, the hatred was already fully formed, inherited, [music] passed down through families, absorbed long before anyone was old enough to attend a match. That is why it

never fades. Most rivalries need contact

never fades. Most rivalries need contact to stay alive. This one has survived 14 years of complete separation, and it will be exactly as poisonous in September as it was the last time. It

has never had the weekly familiarity [music] that softens other derbies.

These clubs have shared a division for only 13 seasons in their entire history and stood in the top flight together exactly [music] once. It disappears for years at a time, then detonates. Every

meeting carries the weight of everything that [music] went unresolved during the absence, and a great deal has gone unresolved. This fixture has produced

unresolved. This fixture has produced nights [music] that English football has spent decades trying to move past.

Riots, stabbings, a stadium invaded, police operations planned across an entire city. Its firms have their own

entire city. Its firms have their own books and their own films. [music] The Metropolitan Police still classified at the highest risk level they have, which is not a historical footnote, but an active assessment of what happens when

these supporters are in the same post [music] code. The last meeting was

[music] code. The last meeting was February 2012. West Ham 1 went up and

February 2012. West Ham 1 went up and stayed up. In the 14 years since, the

stayed up. In the 14 years since, the fixture has existed mostly in memory and in [music] myth, which has only made it larger. In September, it returns to the

larger. In September, it returns to the den, and it will be the 100th competitive [music] meeting between them. Milwall have never won at West Ham

them. Milwall have never won at West Ham in a league match. Not [music] once across 12 attempts spanning 80 years.

West Ham have never won at the New Den.

Whoever breaks that this season breaks something that has held for [music] generations. And Milw Wall are not

generations. And Milw Wall are not arriving as anyone's underdog. They

finished third last season and lost in the playoff semi-finals. The strongest

version of this fixture in decades with both [music] clubs genuinely chasing promotion. The rest of the map is almost

promotion. The rest of the map is almost unfair. The Black Country Derby returns

unfair. The Black Country Derby returns with Wolves and West Brom [music] in the same division. East Lanasher returns

same division. East Lanasher returns with Burnley and Blackburn. Portsmouth

and Southampton meet again on the South Coast. [music] And in Wales, Cardiff,

Coast. [music] And in Wales, Cardiff, Swansea, and Rexom are all here, which delivers Cardiff against Rexom [music] and far more dangerously, the South Wales Derby. That is five genuine

Wales Derby. That is five genuine historic rivalries, plus a London cluster of four [music] clubs in one division in one season. The density at the top does something ugly at the

bottom and it is the part of this season most people are underrating. West

Bromich Albian nearly went down last year. A club that spent most of the last

year. A club that spent most of the last two decades in or around the Premier League survived by four points having been docked two for breaching financial rules and got through the season by

using three different managers. That is

not a club looking upward. [music]

Blackburn Rovers finished a place below them and their problem was starker.

Across 46 games, they could barely score, the second worst attacking record in the entire division. Their manager

left in February. His replacement's

contract expired in May. And Tony Mobre returned in June for a second spell at Ewood Park. Mobre knows this club and

Ewood Park. Mobre knows this club and this level as well as anyone alive, which is exactly why nobody at Blackburn is pretending this is anything other than a rescue [music] job. Queens Park

Rangers have not played Premier League football for over a decade now, and last season they conceded more goals than almost anyone. [music] The drift has

almost anyone. [music] The drift has been slow and it has all been in one direction. Three clubs with real

direction. Three clubs with real topflight history, all of whom would sit comfortably in mid-table in a normal championship. All of whom are now in a

championship. All of whom are now in a genuine relegation fight because of who else is in [music] this league. Lincoln

City won 103 points last season and went 29 games unbeaten. Then the manager who built that team left for Bristol City days after the title was confirmed and the champions of League 1 went into the

summer looking for a coach. The scale is the problem. [music] Sincl,000.

the problem. [music] Sincl,000.

West Ham's ground holds more than six times that. And Wolves, Southampton, and

times that. And Wolves, Southampton, and Middlesborough all operate on budgets Lincoln cannot see from [music] where they are standing. There is a version of this season where they are the best

story in England. There is a more likely version where the level proves too high.

Both are alive and Lincoln will find out which one by Christmas. In March, the clubs of this division voted to change the way their own season ends. And the

timing could not have been better. The

championship playoffs have expanded from four teams to six. Now third and fourth go straight through to the semi-finals while fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth fight it out in a brand new opening

round in one match. No second leg, no [music] way back. The bracket then recedes. So the highest survivor faces

recedes. So the highest survivor faces the toughest remaining opponent. And the

last two standing meet at Wembley for the richest prize in world football, one game. That is what has been added. A

game. That is what has been added. A

club that finished [music] 20 points better off across a full season can be removed from the promotion race [music] in 90 minutes by a side that scraped into eighth. Apply it to last year and

into eighth. Apply it to last year and the effect is immediate. Rexom, [music]

who missed out by two points, would have been playing knockout football in May.

So would the club below them. Under

these rules, six of the 24 stay alive into the postseason, which means the run-in stays alive for far longer, for far more clubs in a division where nobody was safe to begin with. Wolves,

[music] West Ham, Burnley, Southampton, Middlesborough, Bristol City, Birmingham, Rexom, Sheffield United, Norwich [music] Milwall. Every one of those clubs has a

Milwall. Every one of those clubs has a credible argument for promotion. Every

one of them has money or history or momentum or all three. Most of them are going to fail, not narrowly, comprehensively. Some of these clubs

comprehensively. Some of these clubs will finish 14th, sack a manager in February, and spend next summer explaining to their supporters what went wrong. Even maybe one of them will drop

wrong. Even maybe one of them will drop into League One. And given the wage structures involved, one of those relegations will do damage that takes years to repair. That is the [music]

trade. The same density that makes this

trade. The same density that makes this the most watchable championship in memory is exactly what makes it merciless. You cannot have 11 serious

merciless. You cannot have 11 serious contenders [music] and three promotion places without eight stories ending badly. Every ingredient landed in the

badly. Every ingredient landed in the same year. Premier League [music]

same year. Premier League [music] pedigree, parachute money, outside investment, a fairy tale promotion, the return of England's most notorious rivalry, a survival scrap involving

clubs who used to play in top flight, and a brand new format designed to squeeze the last drop of drama out of April and May. The best championship season of the century starts now. And by

the first weekend of May, most of the clubs in it will have nothing to show for the whole thing. That is exactly why it is the one to watch. Subscribe to

Mega Football, hit the bell, and we'll see you soon.