The Top Five Clubs Never to Have Played Premier League Football
Since 1992 the Premier League has hosted 49 different clubs. Former teams like Ipswich, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Oldham have all fallen on tough times through poor performance, bad management, and just pure bad luck.
On the flip side to that there are some good teams that haven't been able to crack the EPL. Let's take a look at the best five teams that haven't been able to make it to the Premier League yet.
Millwall
Millwall have been a historically good side but have somehow never been able to make it into top-flight football. They came closest in 2001/02 when they were narrowly beaten by Birmingham City in the play-off final. They regularly finish up not far off of playoff positions in the Championship but just haven't had that extra bit to get promoted.
Luton Town
Luton might have been unlucky once, but Preston North End have been on multiple occasions. They were founder members of the Football League back in 1888 and have spent 17 of the last 21 years in the second tier. That earned the team play-off appearances four times, losing in the final to Bolton (3-0) in 2001 and West Ham (1-0) in 2005. They were beaten semi-finalists again in 2006 and 2009, but they did win a Wembley play-off to return to the Championship in 2015.
Preston North End
Bristol is the biggest city in England to never have hosted Premier League football but the Robins have come close. In 2008, they were beaten in the play-off final by Hull City, who secured their first-ever Premier League spot in doing so. Since then, a top-six finish has been tough to come by. They placed eighth in 2019 and like Millwall, appear to be stranded in midtable and hoping for a bit of luck to see them achieve promotion.
Bristol City
Bristol is the biggest city in England to never have hosted Premier League football but the Robins have come close. In 2008, they were beaten in the play-off final by Hull City, who secured their first-ever Premier League spot in doing so. Since then, a top-six finish has been tough to come by. They placed eighth in 2019 and like Millwall, appear to be stranded in midtable and hoping for a bit of luck to see them achieve promotion.
Peterborough United
Peterborough United are not one of football’s traditional big sides, and unlike the others on the list, they’ve never come close to the Premier League or the top flight. They were only elected to the Football League in 1960 and haven’t been promoted to the Championship without being relegated straight away since 2012. They were promoted last season but are already struggling, and Premier League football looks to be a distant dream right now.
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All the way from the Land Down Under, I created Wolfgang Sport as I enjoy writing and watching British and American sports. Started in 2017, I started the blog as a way to connect my passion for sports in the US & UK.
Millwall really sounds like the type of club to have played in the EPL. I don't what it is about them.
Great list.
Millwall vs West Ham would be AMAZING in the league
It'd be a blood bath!
Youre not wrong! Id hate to be a steward that day
As my Dad is a Bristol City fan I follow their results closely and usually go to a couple of games a season.
Bristol is a strange city in the sense that it is one of the few in England where you could argue that football isn't the number 1 sport. The West Country in general is big on Rugby Union and you've got plenty of the country's top sides in the area (Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Exeter) not to mention South Wales just a stones throw away where the egg shaped ball once again dominates.
That being said Bristol City was recently bought by a relatively wealthy investor alongside several other sports clubs in the city that fall under the banner of Bristol Sport.
Results in the last couple of years have been disappointing particularly at home. They are going through a bit of a rebuilding period now and have appointed Nigel Pearson, a manager with a proven track record for getting clubs into the Premier League. There are quite a few players coming in and indeed out as a result and I'd expect them to be a club to watch next year.
At the same time it's difficult for clubs in their position because even when a team gets relegated from the Premier League these days as long as they haven't been completely mismanaged then they enter the Championship with significantly more funds than the sides already there.
Thanks for your reply appreciate it! You're 100% right. Parachute payments last for 3 years after relocation and that's considering they don't earn promotion again in that period. Sunderland did the double drop, and once that money stopped coming in it's actually crippled them because their books still replicate Premier League costs with some player contracts.
Mate I hope Bristol get up there for ya.
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I don't really watch the championship, but I don't think if any of this teams had made it there they'd survive.
Also you seem to have made a mistake. You didn't write about Luton, and wrote about Bristol twice.
Damn I had one job! Thanks for pointing out.
Luton Town were one of the unlucky losers; they were relegated out of the top flight on the final day of the 1991/92 season meaning they just missed out on being founding members of the Premier League. It hit them hard, falling out of the Football League altogether but they’re back on the right path now, recently returning to the Championship. Luton Today also reports that a new stadium is in the offing so there are some promising times ahead.
Odd how some clubs yo yo up and down and some just keep missing out. I think if you don't have the finances in place then you have no chance as spending 200 or 300 million is what it takes to get up and stay up with no guarantees still. Brentford is the one who has never been anywhere and are actually not that bad so it can happen.
Brentford story is amazing. Their owner from what I remember crunches numbers and loves analytics. That's how he bought players on the cheap but crunching and analysing data and then was able to gain promotion as those players excelled under his system.
Sounds a bit like that Brad Pitt movie "Money Ball" or something like that.
While I don't follow this sport, I am familiar with Millwall because of the notoriety of their fans for being really hardcore and dangerous. I could just look this up but in the effort of creating conversation, where are they now in the rankings?
Typically sitting mid-table again. They're a little bit like the Seattle Mariners of the Championship (second division)
Could have bet Bristol have been in and out of the epl before seeing this post. Never looked it up tho, just assumed.
Thanks for this info