You Dirty Northern Bastards

[zolayes 14,489]

As many members are not from UK I thought I would give some idea of the regional nature of English Football.

The football league started in 1888 previously games were arranged in an ad hoc manner. Aston Villa were the prime movers using the model from the NFL . The original 12 teams were 6 from the Midlands and 6 from the North .

The first winners were Preston North End ...won the double ,,without losing a league game or conceeding a cup goal ..

Today the North still has a dominance . The county of Lancashire has more Premier league sides than any other region .

Blackburn , Bolton , Blackpool ,,,Man City , Man Utd , Liverpool ,Everton and Wigan. Strange their neighbours and rivals Yorkshire currently have none

In the past they had Leeds , the two Sheffield clubs Barnsley , Hull ,Bradford and Huddersfield ..The last named were champions in 3 successive

years back in the 30s.

The North east currently has 2 premier sides in Newcastle and Sunderland.The region was famous in the past for providing so many great English

players. Sadly the supply is drying up.

The Midlands still has a number of Premier clubs although they have been starved of success in recent years ,,

West Brom , Birmingham ,Wolves becoming Yo yo clubs .. The two Nottingham clubs have had their great days. Be careful they are Notts County

and Nottigham Forest. County were founder members of the league and their shirts are now copied by Juve.

Forest of course were European Cup winners under Brian Clough. Other Midlands recently in the Premier are Derby and Leicester.

Derby being the first post war winners of the F.A ,,cup (a game I heard on the radio ..btw it was after the Second world war not the First)

East Anglia have had just 2 top division sides ,,,Norwich and Ipswich ...Ipswich had great success under Sir Bobby Robson but

are now sadly in the doldrums. Norwich will be back in the Premier next season.

The South of England apart from London is somewhat a football backwater.

The SouthWest had Bristol City ,,,but most of there clubs struggle in the lower division.

The South and South East fair little better,, Portsmouth Brighton and Southampton all outside the Premier now.

So to the Capital .,,,in order of importance ,,,CHELSEA ,West Ham. our neighbours Foolham and two inconsequential North London teams whose

names currently escape me .

Finally to Wales ...Perhaps next season we will see Cardiff or Swansea ,,,neither have been in the top division although Cardiff did win the FA cup

No doubt there are errors in this article so please feel free to correct them .

We are a small country but regional differences can be extreme ,,,

I omitted the team from the furthest north ,,,Carlisle who had one season in the top division and one glorious week when they topped it after

beating ,,,,yes,,,Chelsea .

THE dirty northern bastards..

[gary gordon 1,777]

:goodpost: :goodpost:

[kwylino 329]

Class post zolayes. did help my understanding of english football too

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Superb post my friend! Absolutely true as well when you say the north absolutely dominates the south in terms of representation by clubs.