Well, I know Wales has its own league but the football/premier league has admitted them so I am assuming for these purposes that Wales is a part of the premier league catchment area. Not doing so would result in England being underrepresented in its own league! It's hardly a scientific measure of course, it does depend an awful lot where you draw the boundaries! Since the premier league has 20 teams you'd have to divide the country into 20 roughly equally-populated parts to get a truly fair representation. What an odd picture that evokes, a kind of IPL or MLS model with geographically-based franchises; I wonder what the league would look like in that scenario!
Swansea and Cardiff opted out of the new League of Wales when it was formed as they were already in the FL. Lower Welsh clubs felt they would do better in the new league, whereas Cardiff and Swansea would end up being like Celtic and Rangers in the Scottish league (though on a smaller scale). There is no route from the League of Wales to the English PL.
No, what I meant was there is no need to include the population of Wales in the discussion. Swansea and Cardiff are an anomaly.
Ok well I've given my reasoning for that. As I said though, it's a pretty arbitrary measure anyway, and taking 3m off the population won't change anything really.
Well the current distortion is worse than I thought. The South East (excluding London) has a population of 8,635,000 which is about 15% of the population of England and Wales. And I can only think of one Premier League team in that area, where there ought to be 3. London, on the other handhas about 14% of the population but has 6 teams. Wales at 5.5% should have 1 team, not 2, and the South West at 9.5% should have at least 1 if not 2 but of course has none. So it is actually London which is grossly overrepresented, not the North West.
The disproportion is obvious where I am. Hertfordshire's biggest club is Watford and how many times have they been in the top flight? The next biggest I guess would be Stevenage. Bedfordshire just has Luton, and Bucks has MK Dons. Everyone around here supports Arsenal or Spurs.
I know, right?! And on top of having all those awesome clubs right near me, St Albans City (the other Saints) are just a couple of minutes down the road! But yeah, my Dad is from Southampton and he took me to games as a kid. He took me to see St Albans and Luton a couple of times as well, but ...you know.
Not sure about that, the population of South East England including London is about 16m, about a quarter of the country, so they're entitled to five teams and they have six (or seven if you include us), so only slightly overrepresented.
I think you've missed my point. The South East outside London has a slightly greater population than London itself. They are both roughly the same as the North West, or Wales plus the South West, or The North East plus Yorkshire and Humber. London on its own has far more Prem teams than any of those areas individually.
Well yes but a lot of those people who live outside London will be living in commuter/dormitory towns and working in London, and many (if not most) will have strong family connections to London. Some of those towns in the south east (Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Basildon, Crawley etc) were specifically built or developed by the government in an attempt to relieve housing congestion in London so in a way they sort of are part of London.
I read a similar article to this in "WSC" which featured a review of a match between Crawley and Bury which contrasted their fortunes and outlined how the "newer" clubs from the South have tended to thrive and take the place of some of the more "traditional" teams such as those from Lancashire. It was an interesting topic which has an element of truth although I have never seen anyone try to apply the same logic to the PL. I've got to say that I tend to agree with St Godders even if I think the two Manachester clubs will represent the main threat in preventing Chelsea winning the title. The issue does go far deeper, I feel. Many Northern clubs in the lower leagues have been run extremely poorly (think of Stockport Couny) and struggle both to keep a reasonable standard of playing staff as well as fan base who can easily swap allegience to any of the larger clubs. It is a shame that so many old clubs look like struggling to survive whereas younger clubs like MK Dons seem more savvy to the world of 21s century football. Also worth noting the rise of Welsh football too. The only obvious excpetion would appear to be Portsmouth who, I think, have turned the corner and will be back in the Championship within five years.
I haven't missed your point, I just don't agree that London should be classified separately. Not everyone can have a premier league team in their village. People in the South East live close enough to London to be able to support a London team.
I have always said that Bristol City is a sleeping giant. A good owner and a decent stadium and they could really go places.
They've been planning a new ground for some time, this is the latest iteration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_City_Stadium
This might read like heresy, but I've always thought the two teams of Bristol should combine. Together as one [where have I heard that before..?] they could stop faffing around and become a major club.
