Yo-yo club

A yo-yo club is a sporting side that is regularly promoted and relegated. The phrase is most typically used in association football in the United Kingdom, especially in reference to promotion to and relegation from the Premier League.

The name is derived from the toy yo-yo which goes up and down a string. In Germany the equivalent term is Fahrstuhlmannschaft , in Greece ομάδα ασανσέρ, and in Spain equipo ascensor, all three of them literally meaning "lift team" or "elevator team". In the Netherlands the term is heen-en-weer club (to-and-fro club). In Polish, yo-yo clubs are referred to as wańka-wstańka, which translates to "roly-poly toy".

In England the phrase has been used to describe, among others, Birmingham City, Leicester City, Crystal Palace, Hull City, Norwich City, Queens Park Rangers and West Bromwich Albion.

West Brom were an archetypal yo-yo club throughout the first decade of the 21st-century, during which time they were promoted four times and relegated three times. This was seen by some to be a direct result of the policies espoused by the club's chairman Jeremy Peace, who refused to allow the club to spend beyond its means and has insisted on sound financial management. This tended to leave the club at a disadvantage in the Premier League, when other similarly-sized clubs have tended to spend beyond their means, but strongly placed in the second tier (The Championship) due to the parachute payments received on relegation from the Premier League. However, West Brom has in recent years lost this reputation due to successfully staying in the Premier League for several consecutive seasons. Likewise Crystal Palace reached the Premier League five times, were relegated the following season on the first four occasions, but have now survived since 2013.

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