Football is the biggest sport in the world for a reason. It has everything: tension, politics, the last-minute winner. Nothing beats it. No other sport can generate the audiences, attention and money that twenty-two men kicking a ball every Saturday can. The majority of fans in England support one of the traditional Big Six: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City or Spurs. Kids go to school to brag about their team winning the Champions League last year or the Premier League the year before that. When the majority of football revenue, and, broadly, the success that comes with that money, goes towards those big teams, what happens to the fans whose clubs don’t win?

Your writer is uniquely equipped to answer this question. My club, Brentford, have not won a trophy since the London War Cup in 1942, which, sadly, I can’t quite remember. It is safe to say that I have not exactly been spoiled for trophies in my lifetime, but I would not swap it for anything. Brentford, when I was born in 2006, were in League One, and now they are a solidified mid-table Premier League club who have the squad and transfer market influence to compete for European places year on year.

We’re not alone in this position. Teams like Bournemouth, Brighton and Fulham have transitioned from yo-yo clubs sitting around the Championship into serious European contenders again. Although these clubs are now relatively stable in the Premier League, they lack trophies to go alongside them. Other mid-table clubs have at least won something in the past or, in the case of Palace or Villa, quite recently. But is the existence of the trophyless clubs pointless? I do not believe so.

Football fans are fans because of the journey it takes you on.

Football is all about hope and aspiration. It may be decades before a club like Brentford or Brighton actually wins something, but to a loyal fan, it is a ritual. Football cannot have victory for everyone; it ebbs and flows. It is all about those few upsets every year, the win against a big rival, even if it takes a few years. Winning cannot be everything when the world of football is so unpredictable. Leicester won the Premier League ten years ago, and now they are struggling in League One.

Football fans are fans because of the journey it takes you on. It is not a purely happy experience; even the big teams go through periods of drought. For every crushing loss, there is also the sort of day when you are standing in the away end, it is the last minute, and your academy centre-back has somehow scored the most unlikely of winning goals. Football is about moments, and no matter how bad a team can be over a season, there will always be moments. That is why mid-table teams exist. The fans cannot claim to be favourites every week or every year, but the magic moments are still there. Someday those moments may come frequently enough at the right times, like they did for Palace in the FA Cup last year, and you will see the unexpected trophy win.

Although it would be easier to support a bigger club with more historic victories, more trophies or more fans, I would not have earnt them. There is a degree of reward for winning your 14th FA Cup. However, it cannot compare to a team like mine winning its first major honour. That would bring the greatest reward of all.  It would mean the world to tens of thousands of fans whose relatives never saw it happen.