Ask most football fans if theirs is a ‘big’ club and they will tell you with conviction: of course. ‘Giants’ from the North West to the North East, from Yorkshire to the Midlands to London and across the South will point to historic titles, cup glories, bumper crowds or modern TV riches and insist: ‘We are a huge club.’

Manchester United and Liverpool, with 38 English league titles between them, might reasonably point to last Sunday’s match and argue it was a contest between England’s two biggest teams.

Certainly over the years they have enjoyed serial trophy successes, global adulation, showcased generations of stars and both have rich, stirring histories in more than one sense. Then again, supporters of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City might reasonably scoff at that, arguing that at least their teams are likely to play at the highest European level next season. They’re not scrapping around merely to squeeze into the top four.

Fans of Liverpool and Manchester United will argue that their clubs are the top two in the land

Liverpool fans in the famous Kop watch their side lose to Manchester United in a gripping contest

Manchester United enjoy their Champions League win of 1999 to cap their famous Treble

Liverpool players jump for joy after sealing their league title in 1986 before adding the FA Cup a week later

Frank McLintock, George Graham and Charlie George celebrate as Arsenal complete the Double in 1971

Chelsea won the second league title in the club's history in Jose Mourinho's first season in England

And then there are fans from all points on the map who will, with different levels of justification, swear their club is up there with all those names above, or getting closer by the day, or merely enduring a painful blip, perhaps of decades, but they will be back.

Yes, that’s you, fans of Leeds. And Tottenham. And Everton. And Newcastle, Wolves, Aston Villa, Sunderland, both Sheffield clubs, West Ham, Blackburn... and on and on and on.

So who, objectively, are the biggest clubs in England?

That’s the question Sportsmail answers today. We’ve used no opinion, just hard evidence to determine the answers.

The outcome might surprise you. It will certainly provoke debate.

HERE'S HOW WE WORKED IT OUT Crowds We ranked all clubs on the size of their average gates during this season to reflect contemporary pull. Then we ranked each club by the size of their biggest historic gates. Their overall crowd rank is an aggregate of current pull and also potential based on past highs. Global fanbase We added up the total number of fans and followers for each club on Facebook and Twitter — by far the most popular global social media platforms. Every club has official accounts. Trophies We counted ‘major’ trophies won by each club, giving points for each; 10pts for each European Cup/Champions League win, 8pts for each top-division English title, 5pts for each FA Cup or other European trophy win, and 3pts for each League Cup win. No ‘one-off’ trophies such as the Charity Shield are considered because they are not the product of multi-match competitions. And being a losing finalist does not count for points either — here at Sportsmail, winning is everything, second is nowhere. Average league finish The average league finish position for each of the clubs since 1888-89. Player quality We counted the number of players from each club who have played for England, all-time, ranking the clubs by total. This reflects historic ‘bigness’. We then ranked the clubs by the number of players provided to the 2014 World Cup — a measure of modern ‘bigness’. The overall ranking is an aggregate of these two. Income We ranked the clubs by their income for the most recent season available. The biggest clubs have generally had the most money and been able to buy and pay the best players. Advertisement

THE CONTENTIOUS QUESTIONS How do Arsenal finish above Liverpool? Narrowly is the diplomatic answer! In key areas like trophies, Liverpool are on top. But in others, like crowds, now and historically, Arsenal are bigger, as they are in terms of money, itself partly a reflection of Arsenal’s global popularity in this multi-media age. Why might that be? Arsenal have consistently punched above Liverpool for most of the Premier League era, when the league has been a global commodity. How are Sunderland and West Brom so high? A combination of multiple historic major honours, a tradition of being able to draw big crowds plus current ongoing membership of the Premier League, which in itself brings worldwide attention, and money. Both have also fielded relatively high numbers of stars over the years. Aren’t Leeds too low? Leeds fans will point to the dominance of the Revie era and a Champions League semi-final in the not too distant past, to the size of Elland Road and their potential to be mighty whites again. But there are 14 other teams with a better haul of major trophies. There are 11 others who have a higher all-time average league finish and 14 with bigger crowds when the current season and historic highs are both considered. Leeds rank only 25th of the 58 clubs in the study for the calibre of the players measured by all-time England players plus current global stars, and 23rd for global popularity, and 26th by income. They were giants for a time, some decades ago. But they are much diminished, for now. What did Wolves do to finish so high? They’ve won the league three times and have four FA Cups among six other major trophies. They’re comfortably top 20 in terms of all-time league position and crowds, and have higher global popularity and income than most non-Premier League teams. Advertisement

The starting point, to cast the net of candidates as widely as possible, was to narrow the field to ‘big’ clubs who are currently among the 92 in the Premier League or Football League and who have played in England’s top division for at least one season, ever.

That gives us 59 contenders, from all those named above down to clubs who once spent just a few seasons, perhaps only one, at the highest level a long time ago. We’ve ranked the top 50, with Brentford, Carlisle, Northampton, Wimbledon, Oxford, Swindon, Leyton Orient, Luton and Oldham just missing out.

We ranked each of those 59 teams in six categories to assess how ‘big’ they are in each of them. We’ve considered trophies, all-time league performance by average finish since 1888-89, crowds (for this season, and historically), calibre of players over time (counting England internationals, and World Cup stars), modern global popularity (using social media followings) and money, measuring income.

‘Big’ clubs, by definition, win things, perform consistently at a high level over a long time, attract big gates to see star names, are widely followed within these shores and beyond, and have money, to buy and pay the best players.

Manchester City are jubilant after winning their second Premier League title in three years

Graeme Sharp, Kevin Sheedy, Trevor Steven and Andy Gray with the 1985 European Cup-winners' Cup

Tottenham Hotspur players and families celebrate winning the Double in 1961 on an open top bus ride

Peter Withe and Nigel Spink parade the European Cup in Rotterdam after beating Bayern Munich in 1982

Newcastle captain Joe Harvey receives the FA Cup from Sir Winston Churchill after the 1952 win over Arsenal

Sunderland's Mike Horswill, Ian Porterfield and Billy Hughes take a victory lap around Wembley in 1973

West Ham Players at the Town Hall East Hall Celebrating after winning the 1980 FA Cup

Wolves return home with the FA Cup after beating Blackburn Rovers the 1960 final

In 1992, Leeds were the last team to win the title before the onset of the Premier League era

Peter Osgood and goalscorer Bobby Stokes pose in the bath with the FA Cup after Southampton's 1976 win

Manchester United come out top by some distance. Nobody beats United’s pulling power in terms of attendance, considering both contemporary and historic seasons, and no club is as globally popular as them, or as rich in terms of revenue.

It is who comes second that might cause most debate. Despite their incredible trophy record, Liverpool are pipped to second place by Arsenal, the London club edging them out because of their huge crowds, global appeal and income.

Chelsea in fourth place are catching Liverpool. Manchester City are fifth, then Everton, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Sunderland round out the top 10, in that order.

West Brom in 11th are ahead of West Ham, famously never winners of the English title but also famously providers of three key players for England’s greatest triumph, the 1966 World Cup win featuring Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.

Wayne Rooney, United's talisman, has fired Louis van Gaal's side into the Champions League places

Chelsea won the first trophy of Jose Mourinho's second stint, claiming the League Cup earlier this month

Arsenal ended a ten-year trophy drought by coming back to beat Hull in a memorable final last May

Generations of Hammers fans will have their club fixed in their minds as bone fide giants partly because of the richness of that Sixties summer. Yet they have as much major silverware in their 120-year history as Bolton: four cups, and the last one was 35 years ago.

Southampton, in 15th place, and Stoke, in 16th, are the other current Premier League teams in the top 20 biggest clubs. Nine of the top 20 clubs ranked by trophies alone play outside the Premier League. One of those, Portsmouth, are in League Two, and another two, Sheffield United and Preston, are in League One.

Six of the biggest 20 clubs — Wolves, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton and Nottingham Forest — play outside the top division. It may surprise many that Wolves are tied with Leeds but their nine major trophies to Leeds’ seven gives them the edge.

The six Premier League clubs outside the top 20 could all be argued to be punching above their weight to be there.

They are Leicester (21st), Burnley (26th), Crystal Palace (30th), QPR (31st), Hull (32nd) and Swansea (34th). Yet there are clubs vying for promotion like Derby (22nd overall), Norwich (23rd) and Middlesbrough (29th) who would inevitably leap up the rankings by joining the Premier League, moving from ‘middling’ to quite big very quickly. They still have some way to go to catch United though.

Financed by Jack Walker and fired by the goals of the SAS, Blackburn romped to the 1995 Premier League

Guided by Brian Clough, Nottingham Forest won back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980

Clough and Peter Taylor steered Derby County to their first league title in 1972

Portsmouth players on their way back home after winning the 1939 FA Cup at Wembley against Wolves