The Heart & Soul Of Football – The Local Derby!

There is no greater day on the footballing calendar than your local derby, whether it’s in Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool or London. It’s the two games in the season that you NEED to win, otherwise you face humiliation in school, work or at the pub.

The atmosphere and animosity between football fans on derby day is unbelievable. You wouldn’t believe it is just a game, it’s like life and death to some people they take it that seriously. What it must be like to be a player playing before 40,000 to 60,000 shouting football fans passionately cheering your team on is something that you dream of when you are a child. Then by the weekend after, all is forgotten and you go back to watching your team play another random team.

The two most famous and intense derby’s are the Manchester derby between City and United, and the Merseyside derby between Liverpool and Everton. City and United have been fierce rivals since they were founded, although within Manchester and on the outskirts you are likely to find more City fans than United. United fans come from all over now, London to Ireland to Thailand, because of their success.

Nowadays some people almost accept Liverpool v Manchester United as a derby because they are both members of the ‘big four’ and in the northwest, but that isn’t the case: it is just like any other match, and any fans calling it a derby are obviously not from Manchester. It’s like saying City v Everton is a derby - ask either set of fans and they will tell you otherwise!

The northeast has three main teams that are always battling it out in derby’s, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough, although Sunderland tends to have been in and out of the Premiership lately. Within London the main derby is Tottenham v Arsenal - this is the one that has the fiercest rivalry. Other clubs like West Ham, Fulham and Chelsea don’t really have major rivals, although Chelsea v Arsenal is a big game, but again, because of the whole ‘big four’ scenario.

Derby days will always exist in football whether it’s in the Premiership, Championship, League 1 or even La Liga. Real Madrid v Athletico Madrid is a huge game, but often overshadowed by Barcelona v Real Madrid, even though this isn’t any kind of derby. One of the biggest in Europe is AC Milan v Inter Milan: both teams have sets of extremist fans called ‘Ultras’ who are responsible for violence and riots all the time.

If a player scores or has an excellent game in a derby, he will become an instant hero at the club, and it will stay that way for a long time unless he does something extremely bad. One thing that indicates just how much rivalry there is in football is that hardly any player ever transfers from one club to another within a city. It does happen every so often, but it is extremely rare.