John Nicholson

Everyone has their personal preferences and perversions in life. Some people refuse to eat celery, others think its unlucky to wear the colour green, others - specifically CNN reporter Richard Quest - prefer to hang around Central Park in the middle of the night with a rope around their neck and bollocks. Whatever gets you through the night, I say. It's alright.

When it comes to football I have one fierce perversion to confess to you. I've kept it secret for a long time now. You probably won't understand it and you might think I'm very weird and sick.

So this is it: when I see those somewhat inevitable end-of-season pictures of fans weeping because their side has been relegated from the Premier League, their heads in their hands and faces contorted with grief, I just don't understand why. Really I don't. Get a grip, relegation from the top flight simply isn't that bad.

In fact, I think there's much to be said for it as long as your club is well run. Derby, Reading and Birmingham have a lot to look forward to.

Chances are, relegation means next season you'll see your side winning a lot more; you'll start the season with a real chance of doing well and you still get to play at big grounds often in front of bigger crowds.

Although we're often told it's 'the wilderness' if you drop out of the top flight, the reality is quite different and fans who think it is need to stop buying the Premier League's propaganda.

You might be seeing a slightly lower standard of players some of the time - but if you're getting whacked by Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool twice a season, is it any consolation that they're much better players to watch?

Football should be about excitement and drama first and foremost, go down a division and the whole thing is a lot more even, so you can look forward to participating in a proper competition and not some exercise in grim survival where any points off the top four - 20% of your season - is so unlikely that it's always called 'a bonus'.

Perhaps some fans seem feel humiliated by their loss of status, especially if they've been in the top flight for a while, but if you don't invest that much emotional attachment in or respect for the Premier League as a concept or as a competition, then this really shouldn't be an issue.

Relegation can be like a forest fire - clearing away all the dead wood and weeds in order for new growth to happen. You can get rid of the lazy, the overpaid and the uncommitted.

Then there's the money. My God, how everyone is obsessed with money these days - which is in itself is depressing. Yes you'll be worse off in terms of income, if not profit, but let's face facts, what good has having the Premier League's thirty million quid done? All it does is allow you to pay over the odds for players who will leave at the first sign of trouble or at the first sniff of a bigger club being interested in them. The money hasn't helped you compete because everyone else has got it as well so the financial bar is raised for everyone, making nobody better off.

And think about this, if you go down for a few seasons you might have to start developing a lot of your own home-grown players instead, players with a modicum of respect and excitement at playing for your club; players who might show you a bit of loyalty. People like Hull City's magnificent old warhorse Dean Windass, who is still playing for his hometown club aged 39 and scoring loads of goals. People like Deano are the antidote to every money-hungry, whining, poncing, prima-donna.

The Championship will be a cracking division next year with loads of big old traditional clubs fighting it out. It's the fourth most-supported league in Europe so there'll be no shortage of noise and atmosphere. Fans seem happier, less bitter and cynical, perhaps because the players are less high profile and are seen as more honest and hard working than their over-paid cry-baby counterparts in the Premier League.

With the parachute payments kicking in you've got a couple of attempts at getting back up by outspending those around you but there's much to be said for a few seasons' consolidation in the second tier and plenty of football fun to be had. After all, it's the survival of the club that is far more important.

The club will be an important cultural and social part of your life for all your years on earth, so what you don't need is some lunatic chairman going all starry-eyed in the top flight, whazzing out millions he doesn't have and can't afford on some fat Brazilian midfielder with awful hair, or a Dutch striker who has scored thousands in Holland but who couldn't hit a windmill with a truckle of Edam in the Premier League and then being stuck with massive wages and long contracts when you go down. That way lies rancour, bitterness and possible bankruptcy. The club must be well run above all else whatever league you're playing in. Bad administration is to be feared far, far more than relegation.

But merely hanging on to survival in the top flight just so you can spend another season merely hanging on once again just seems soul-destroying to me and it's the reality for at least half of the league every year. You'll obviously never be able to win the league, you'll never even get near the top four, you will probably never get a UEFA Cup place and even if you do your manager will probably see it as a curse for distracting you from the survival battle and put out a team of kids in order to get beaten.

At least at the start of the new season you know there's a chance of some success and even if it doesn't happen there's every chance you'll see your side winning loads more. For example, Ipswich finished a creditable 8th and won 18 games and drew 13. I'd wager their fans have enjoyed their football this season far more than Bolton's, who won nine and drew 10 and lived to fight another day in the top flight. I'd rather watch Ipswich than Bolton and that surely is the litmus test.

There was never any chance of glory next year if any of the three relegated sides had, like Bolton, survived. But now, having gone down, there is every chance.

I would take an exciting season challenging for promotion for most of the season to one whose sole focus is getting the 36 points you need to survive.

More fun than they've had this season lies ahead for all three clubs next season. That is something to relish.

So Derby, Reading and Birmingham fans should not worry nor weep. Save your tears. Reserve your anger for something that deserves it such as the prospect of a Tory government led by a vacuous airhead. That really deserves your ire. By contrast, not having to see your club play Middlesbrough next year is surely a blessing.

Football is about having a good time and about enjoying yourself, it's about drama and hope. For too many top-flight clubs the good times have been replaced by grim survival, the joy has been replaced by bitter cynicism and the drama has been sucked out and replaced with predictability.

So all in all, for all three team's fans, one step down is really one step up.

When not bemoaning Boro's survival, John is selling t-shirts at www.djtees.com