Food for thought:
“I can’t stand Liverpool, I can’t stand Liverpool people, I can’t stand anything
to do with them,” said Manchester United captain, Gary
Neville, which lead to his
chant, whilst Liverpool captain, Steven
Gerrard, wrote he wanted ‘Manchester United
to die’ in his
autobiography.
After Neville’s infamous goal
celebration following Rio Ferdinand’s last
minute winner against Liverpool, our captain
said, “I nail my colours to the mast and I expect and accept it
is not going to be accepted by the Liverpool fans.” However,
the FA didn’t accept it either and slapped him with a £5,000
fine.
“It was a new one for me to hear people saying that I had
celebrated too vigorously,” Neville said in response. “The
stick is part of the game. One week, you take it on the chin, the
next you give it out. That is how local rivals have always been,
and always should be.” Hear hear!
The rivalry in football is one of my favourite parts of the
game. The feeling of losing to a rival is absolutely gutting, but
it makes getting one over on them even sweeter next time. These are
the games you look out for on the fixture lists and the ones that
bring about more celebration than any other. They create heroes and
villains and bring about bragging rights for years to come.
Football Fans Census did a poll
of close to 3,000 fans in this country on the topic of rivalry,
looking at which teams regard each other as
their main rival, the derogatory names for their most hated rivals
and the reasons behind the rivalries forming, with rather
interesting findings.
The fans were questioned on who they regarded to be their main
rivals and their second main rivals, with Manchester United,
Burnley, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and Chelsea ranking highest,
with more clubs regarding them as their rivals.
Manchester United have more rivals than any other team, with
fans from five clubs all claiming United are their main rivals.
Arsenal, Bolton, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester City think of United
as their top rival, with Arsenal dumping their traditional rivals
Tottenham Hotspur. Everton and Newcastle consider
United as their 2nd mind rival.
Burnley (Blackburn, Halifax and
Stockport regard them as their main rival; Preston,
Rochdale and Blackpool see them as their second main rival), Leeds
(Bradford and Hull; Huddersfield, Sheffield
Wednesday and Sheffield United), Sheffield
Wednesday (Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield
United; Hartlepool and Chesterfield), Chelsea (QPR
and Fulham; Spurs and Leeds),
Bolton (Bury, Tranmere and Wigan; Blackburn) are the
other teams, alongside Manchester United, in the top 5.
Of the 92 league clubs, less than half (44) shared a two-way
rivalry, with both teams considering each other their main rival,
with the remaining 48 clubs have a mutual rivalry, including:
Birmingham and Aston
Villa, Cardiff City and Swansea, Manchester
United and Liverpool, Cambridge United and Peterborough, and
Millwall and West Ham.
45% of fans see history/tradition as the reason
why their main rivals are so, whilst for 35% the
closest club geographically takes the title of rival.
7% of rivalries formed because of competition or
closeness for their place in the league table.
22% of fans say their current main rival is not
the same as their ‘traditional’ rival, which has changed due to
their traditional rival no longer being in the same league or they
are no longer completing for the similar goals in the same league.
This group of teams include: Chelsea changing their traditional
rivals of Tottenham/Fulham for Arsenal as their main rivals,
Arsenal changing from Spurs to Manchester United, West Brom changing from Aston
Villa to Wolves, Peterborough changing Northampton for Cambridge,
and Rochdale changing Burnley for Bury.
The Celtic-Rangers was voted the fiercest
rivalry in the UK, whilst the Liverpool-Everton was deemed the most
amicable. Of all those asked, 83% felt intensely or very intensely
about their main rivals, with 37% believing these strong feelings
over rivals lead to football violence.
Over three-quarters of fans would rather thrash their rivals
than beat them with a last minute winner, and three-quarters of
fans would support the opposition if their main rivals were playing
in Europe. Following a supposed
need to ’support English teams in Europe’, I’m glad so many people
can be honest and confess. A sad 9% have said they would
support their main rival.
Here’s a selection of some of the names fans call their rivals:
Birmingham refer to Aston Villa as ‘The Vile’, Wigan call
Bolton ‘Nob lot’ - a not very nice anagram of the club
name, Crystal Palace call Brighton ‘Tesco’s’ in reference
to their blue and white striped kits like Tesco plastic bags,
Manchester United fans call Liverpool the ‘bindippers’ in
reference to their supposed slum-like, rat-eating lifestyle (!!),
whilst City call United ‘rags’ because of 1930 folklore
suggesting we didn’t have the money for decent kits so had to play
in rags, Sheffield Wednesday call Sheffield United ‘the
blunts’ as a play on their nickname the blades, and Newcastle
call Sunderland ‘mackems’
as a play on words of folklore that Sunderland workers would
traditionally make the (make ‘em) goods for Newcastle people who
would ‘take ‘em’.
As much as we all may claim to hate our rivals, it’s clear that
the World is a better place for having them in it. Can you imagine
if week in week out you were playing the sides that meant nothing
to you, who you were just playing against for points rather than
pride? The football league would be a much duller place.
Here comes the ‘aww’ moment though, with 59% admitting they’d
miss their rival if they weren’t there. All together now…
