Choose your own Premier League line-up

[SemperEadem]

Barnsley is great for the walk up and the ground. However Stadt is right, drinking in a leisure centre is toss. 

[Sampson]

On 05/01/2022 at 13:24, Stadt said:

Most of England's population lives in the south east but the problem is their clubs are so dull outside of the London lot. Even then having all of West Ham, Brentford, Palace & Fulham (again) is overkill. Not to mention Watford, Brighton & Southampton .

 

A good premier league regional distribution is probably something like

 

London & SE:  6

Midlands: 4.5

Yorkshire: 2

North West: 4.5

North East: 1.5

South West/East Anglia/Wales: 1.5

Tbf, South East and London are 2 separate regions, South East is still the biggest region by population without London.

South West/East Anglia/Wales combined region is also much bigger than the Midlands or North West. North East is also way smaller than anything else, if you want to divide by population equally.

The South East massively underachieves considering it's the largest region of England by population. Portsmouth and Southampton are the only South East clubs who've ever won a league title or FA Cup in that region and they are central south coast which don't really feel like proper South East.

For reference, according to wikipedia:

South East - 9.18mil
London - 8.96mil

North West - 7.34mil
East Anglia/East of England - 6.23mil
West Midlands - 5.98mil
South West - 5.62mil
Yorkshire & the Humber - 5.5mil
East Midlands - 4.83mil
North East - 2.67mil

Rough total - 56.26mil

If you want to include Wales too, then that would go in between East Mids and North East at 3.15mil.

If you were to divide that up evenly by number of teams you'd probably get roughly:
 

South East - 4 clubs (Portsmouth, Southampton, Brighton, Reading)
London - 3 clubs (Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham)

North West - 3 clubs (Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City)
East Anglia/East of England - 2 clubs (Norwich, Ipswich historically, although Watford have been ahead of both over the past 15-20 years. Luton currently ahead of Ipswich too)
West Midlands - 2 clubs (Aston Villa, Wolves)
South West - 2 clubs (Maybe Bristol City and Bournemouth)
Yorkshire & the Humber - 2 club (Leeds, Sheff Wednesday)
East Midlands - 1 club (Leicester)
Wales - 1 club (Cardiff)
North East - 0 clubs

Edited 7 January 2022 by Sampson

[Stadt]

@Sampson my distribution was based on decent/interesting clubs rather than population.

 

The SE underachieved relative to the population because of the number of c. 50k towns. It’s extremely densely populated relative to the rest of the country because it’s quite equally dispersed rather than being highly urbanised like Leicestershire, say.

 

200k is about the the threshold (generally) for a town/city to have won something. Southampton, Reading and Brighton are the standouts - and all

underachievers.

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, Stadt said:

@Sampson my distribution was based on decent/interesting clubs rather than population.

 

The SE underachieved relative to the population because of the number of c. 50k towns. It’s extremely densely populated relative to the rest of the country because it’s quite equally dispersed rather than being highly urbanised like Leicestershire, say.

 

200k is about the the threshold (generally) for a town/city to have won something. Southampton, Reading and Brighton are the standouts - and all

underachievers.

That's true. The South East has a much more packed in population but doesn't have big cities where the population congregates around unlike other regions and is instead just a LOT of large towns and small cities. But it really depends because most city and town boundaries are centuries old now and urban sprawl has meant a lot of these conjoin in reality. 

Lived in Portsmouth for 10 years and while I'd say the actual island city is significantly smaller than places like Leicester, Nottingham and Coventry, the contagious urban area and large towns just off the island like Cosham, Havant, Waterlooville, Portchester, Gosport, Hayling island etc. are all essentially still joined to Portsmouth with no countryside in between and are essentially suburbs of Portsmouth in all but name these days. Havant & Waterlooville itself should be large enough to support a League One side but they've always been well down the non-league (actually remember them playing Hinckley United back in the day). Then you have Fareham and Eastleigh in between Portsmouth and Southampton which essentially join the 2 cities as well.

Hampshire county council has been trying to get the Portsmouth-Southampton metropolitan area recognised as one contagious area since the 70s - which would have a population of around 900,000 and would make it one of the largest urban areas in the country at a similar size to Metropolitan Liverpool and Greater Glasgow (in much the same way how since the late 70s Manchester has managed to convince people it's one huge urban area and overtaken Birmingham as the 2nd city in many people's minds by including other cities and towns like Salford, Sale, Bolton, Trafford, Stockport, Rochdale, Oldham, Wigan etc. as part of one huge Manchester, which were previously considered very separate places (and I imagine still are in the minds of those who live there)), but everyone in Portsmouth and Southampton wants to be associated as separate entities because of long-standing cross-city rivalries. 

So I suppose it depends on how big you consider the catchment area rather than just the city or town proper. Hampshire is one of the largest counties in the country by population and only has 2 league sides and while there are bigger cities than Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire has a 3rd city and several other towns which should be big enough to support League One or League Two sides but don't even have a league side, many of which are essentially just suburbs of Portsmouth and Southampton in all but name, so their catchment area should be huge in theory.

Kent is even worse. Absolutely massive county, 4th or 5th in the country by population and while there are no real big cities, but loads and loads of large towns and who are their biggest team? Gillingham I think.

But because of urban sprawl, Gillingham, Maidstone, Gravesend, Northfleet, Dartford, Chatham, Rochester are pretty much joined together nowadays bar the odd bit of countryside and form an area which is less from side to side than Greater Manchester or the county of West Midlands and has a population of around 700,000 in that small area, which again, if you counted it as one urban area would be one of the biggest in the country, but currently only supports a single league club who are currently in the League One relegation zone.

Let's say Gillingham or Gravesend & Northfleet made it up to the Premier League, in theory they would have the catchment area to easily support a regular a top half Premier League side or any side which represented North West Kent would really.

Edited 7 January 2022 by Sampson

[FuriousFox46]

Everyone in Kent and Essex just supports West Ham, that’s why none of their clubs have ever really taken off.

 

That’s a wider problem for a lot of the Home Counties clubs, they’ve got people there but a lot are ex-Londoners who have moved from somewhere else beforehand so they aren’t as attached to the local teams