I know the Premiership is one of the best-supported leagues in the world, but why do elements of the English media dismiss its only feeder league as an also-ran?

Do newspapers like the Daily Mail think that sleeping giants like Leeds, Southampton, West Brom, Wolves, Birmingham, Norwich and Derby lost their massive support when they were relegated from the top flight? Just try buying the Mail on a Saturday or Monday and you’ll be lucky to find anything resembling a report on a Championship team. The Premiership? There’s reams of coverage, but in the case of this particular newspaper, that’s where English football begins and ends.

I couldn’t believe it last week when my own team Cardiff City’s 4-0 win over Mick McCarthy's Wolves – a victory that took them five points clear at the top – was allocated a single meaningless paragraph in Monday’s Mail. I’m sure that would have delighted Wolves fans eager to forget the reverse as quickly as possibly. But one paragraph on the best team outside the Premiership? They have to be joking.

OK, they might argue that Cardiff are only getting gates of around 20,000 at Ninian Park –marginally less than the 75,000-plus who pay regularly to watch Manchester United. But support levels and attendances at games are two different things. Don’t tell me the hundreds of thousands of fans who used to follow Leeds United when they were top of the Premiership in the days of Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka and Alan Smith have all dwindled away. I guarantee that 99 per cent still look out for their results and read their match reports every week (when they can find them and when they don’t lose, that is!). And I’ll wager that the Southampton fans who poured in to watch Matthew Le Tissier's magic are still just as dedicated, despite their team’s relegation.

The Mail will, of course, change tack at the end of this season. The three clubs that go up to the Premiership will suddenly become major players – and be worthy of a page lead virtually every time they take the field. But as for the three teams who go down from the Premiership this season, it’ll be a case of thank you and goodbye. Well, almost certainly so.

The exception will be if one of the big London clubs go down. As any provincial will tell you, the British national media is virtually all London based and London biased -- with the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, in particular, virtually untouchable. If Charlton, Watford or possible even West Ham were demoted back to the Championship, they’d sink to media anonymity like the rest of the world. But could you imagine a national tabloid slashing its massive coverage of Chelsea and Arsenal – even if they (please God) dropped to the league’s third or fourth divisions?

OK, I’m living in cloud cuckoo land because, unless football returns to the good old days when local talent and not meg-bucks foreigners was the basic ingredient of a club’s success, there’s no way the big boys will ever be allowed to go down.

Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be nice to see them grovel in the lower leagues – along with the ‘fans’ who jumped on the bandwagon of success and never knew what it was like to struggle for success. (OK, I exclude the genuine Chelsea fans who supported the club in their mediocre days -- many of whom are, of course, Pensioners!)

If I was a Chelsea supporter, I’d be embarrassed. After all, Roman Abramovich has merely bought them two Premiership titles – and will inevitably buy them the Champions League as well. Two titles, three titles, ten titles...wonderful. But success has to be so much more enjoyable for fans who have waited 45 years to see their team experience any sort of success.

I don’t know if Cardiff are heading back to the top flight for the first time since 1962. Maybe it will happen this year, maybe not. But for God’s sake, Daily Mail and Co, give us credit for trying.