This week on Newstalk Sport, we have focused on three fallen Italian giants.
On Monday night, Off The Ball spoke to Ben Lyttleton about the sad plight of Parma FC who have gone from giving an exotic edge to our '90s childhoods to sinking towards oblivion.
On Team 33, our main feature centered on the decline of the Milan clubs as Forza Italia author and Irish Times Rome correspondent Paddy Agnew spoke to us about the causes of the downfall and whether AC Milan and Inter Milan will ever rise again:
We also know about the cases of Leeds United and Nottingham Forest, who have not returned to the English top flight since they were both relegated over a decade ago.
Glasgow Rangers are also another cautionary tale. And of course, there are clubs like Borussia Monchengladbach, Saint-Etienne who were also once among Europe's greats, although both have attained a level of respectability again.
So I want to look at five clubs who enjoyed success in the past but find themselves far away from the lofty pinnacles they once looked down from.
Torino FC
This is a sad tale. But first, let me take you back to the dawn of the 1940s. As war raged on the European continent, FC Torino had only won the Serie A championship once before.
But that decade would prove to be one of unprecedented success for Juventus's city neighbours.
Starting in the 1942-43 season, the club would win five league titles by 1949. Led by talents like Valentino Mazzola, father of future Inter and Italy legend Sandro, became kingpins of Italian football, setting records along the way.
For example, in the 1947-48 campaign, they won 29 of 40 matches to seal the league title by 16 points, scoring 125 goals with Mazzola scoring 25 of that total.
Sadly, tragedy brought the curtain down on this brilliant side who became known as Grande Torino as the Superga Air Crash claimed the lives of most of the team.
Mazzola and his team-mates were killed when their plane crashed into the hills around Turin in heavy fog, and it is tantalising to imagine how the club would have developed into the era of the European Cup had things not taken an awful turn.
Since then, Torino have never recaptured the glories of the 1940s team, winning Serie A just once (1976), three Coppa Italia trophies and reaching the 1992 UEFA Cup final.
They have also spent periods in Serie B, although they have now reestablised themselves in the top flight and finished seventh last season thanks to the goals of Alessio Cerci and Ciro Immobile - players who both left the club last summer.
Stade Reims
The French club are the answer to a great trivia question. But chances are you've never heard of them.
In fact, they are one of France's greatest ever clubs and reached the first ever European Cup final in 1956, only to lose to the Real Madrid of Alfredo Di Stefano and co.
They were back again in 1959, but again lost the final to the same opposition.
Some of the great footballers of the 1950s lined up for the club from North-East France including the 1958 World Cup top scorer Just Fontaine (his 13 goals in that tournament is still a record for a single World Cup) and Barcelona legend Raymond Kopa who played in their 1956 final.
Stade Reims in 1963
Domestically, they were dominant, winning six Ligue 1 titles between 1948 and 1962 and two French Cups.
After that '62 triumphs, they began a descent into the abyss as generations changed, fluctuating between Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 until 1979 when a long top flight drought began.
Before they returned to Ligue 1 again in 2012, they had to endure financial oblivion, liquidation in the early '90s and relegation to the nether regions of French football.
The club even had to auction off their trophies in 1992, but were able to buy them back for a symbolic fee in 1996
Since their return to the top division, they have managed to survive thus far and find themselves in 15th place this season.
The club's name made it into this Half Man Half Biscuit song
Dukla Prague
Last year, I read a brilliant article in The Blizzard, about a Czechoslovak footballer called Rudolf Kucera, who could have become one of the all-time greats but for a serious head injury suffered at the tender age of 23 in 1963.
While he is still alive, the club he played for does not exist anymore. At one time, though, the original Dukla Prague (an FK Dukla Prague exists today but is not regarded as a successor team) were a force to be reckoned with as they were the Czechoslovak Army team.
Like in much of Communist Europe, these military-affiliated teams tended to do quite well and Dukla were no different, winning eight league titles between 1953 and 1966 and four cups within that time period.
They also provided seven members of the Czechoslovak team that reached the 1962 World Cup final, including that year's European Player of the Year Josef Masopust.
The club were also European Cup regulars, reaching the quarter-finals in 1962 and 1963, losing the 1967 semi-final to Celtic's Lisbon Lions, and also won four American Challenge Cup titles in a row between 1961 and '64,
In 1994 the club saw its links with the army end and also suffered relegation from the top flight, going on to merge with FC Portál PÅ™íbram, to form FK Pribarim.
AEK Athens
This is a club, whose recent story I have followed closely on Newstalk.com in the last couple of years. While, the Greek club are not European giants, they are one of their country's previously established Top 3, winning 11 league titles and 14 Greek Cups.
However, they are currently in the second tier after relegation - primarily down to massive financial problems and related on-field struggles - to the amateur third tier three years ago, which you can read about in more detail here.
But as things stand, they are likely to be back in the Greek Superleague for next season.
Budapest Honved
Just like Dukla Prague - but in a Hungarian sense - Honved were linked to the army. And up until the 1956 Hungarian Revolution - which was crushed by the Soviets and followed by defections to the West - the club were among the strongest in Europe.
Of course you would be if you had a legend like Ferenc Puskas in your team, as well as other great names from the past like Zoltán Czibor and Sándor Kocsis.
From 1949 to 1955, they won five league titles and although the Budapest club enjoyed a resurgence in the '80s, they have only won three Hungarian Cups since their last league title in 1993, also suffering relegation and liquidation just over a decade ago. The date of their peak mean they also just missed out on the European Cup gravy train of glory.
Then again, they share the decline with other Budapest clubs as the Hungarian capital city struggles to provide winning teams.
This season, Honved languish in the bottom half of the top flight.
These are just five examples, but while their glory years died and are unlikely to be resurrected, the legend lives on.
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