More than 50 teams have played in the Championship over the course of 20 years, some of those only briefly featuring before returning to the big time (Aston Villa, Newcastle United, West Ham United), others who have spent more time in it than they’d have believed
or imagined (Leeds, Middlesbrough) and others who have enjoyed their brief foray there on their way up the EFL divisions (Burton Albion, Wycombe Wanderers, Yeovil Town). Then there’s the seemingly permanent fixtures of Cardiff City, Derby and Queens Park Rangers, clocking up close to 2,500 matches in the division between them.
In one of two articles looking back of 20 years of the Championship as we know it, we take a trip down memory lane and look back the title winners and the statistics that underpinned their success.
Between 2004-05 and 2012-13, the league was won with an average of 92 points, which is skewed slightly by the 100+ point seasons of Reading in 2005-06 and Newcastle in 2009-10. Teams with fewer than 90 points won it five times in the first nine seasons but since 2013-14, every single champion has earned 90 or more points, with the average for Championship winners across these past 11 seasons jumping to 95 points.
West Brom won the league with 81 points in 2007-08, which would have been enough for only a fifth-place finish in 2023-24, a season in which Ipswich Town came second with 96 points, a tally that would have won them the
league in 13 out of the previous 19 seasons. Between Leicester and Ipswich, they earned themselves a combined total of 193 points to gain promotion in 2023-24; compare this with 2007-08 (160 points) and 2012-13 (166) when far lower tallies were required to reach the Premier League.
Sunderland won two of the first three Championship titles, with one of the worst-ever Premier League campaigns sandwiched in between. In 2004-05, fresh from losing in the previous season’s play-offs, the Black Cats
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started the season bottom thanks to a 2-0 opening-day loss to Coventry and still only had five points after six games (the second fewest for a team to recover to win the league) but eventually went top of the league in March.
They didn’t relinquish control of top spot after a win on 19 March over the side who had put them rock bottom on the opening day, Coventry. Sunderland fans should really have enjoyed
March more in hindsight – they won more league games that month (4) than they did in the entirety of the 2005-06 Premier League season (3) as they finished bottom with 15 points and came straight back down.
The following season, 2006-07, didn’t start much better – they lost each of their opening four games but recovered to become the first and only side in English Football League history to have such a bad start but still win the league. The arrival of Roy Keane was the catalyst,
taking charge of them for the first time on 9 September against Derby with his side 23rd and eventually going top exactly seven months later, on 9 April – the latest into a season any title-winning Championship side has led the table for a first time.
