Life expectancy: Which football fans are Premier League? Birmingham City fans If you're a Birmingham City fan, you might want to look away now A few weeks ago, I went to watch Crystal Palace beat a fairly dreadful Aston Villa in the Premier League. Unlike the Villa players, their fans occasionally burst into life, at one point singing they were "Villa till [they] die". I was curious about how much of a commitment they were making. Life expectancy is astonishingly varied. So I worked it out (see tables below). For each neighbourhood in the country, I calculated what the nearest English Football League or Premier League team was. I cut down that catchment area to the 100,000 people living nearest to the stadium and then, using the latest official data from Public Health England, worked out average male life expectancy for that group. It's all a bit rough and ready. People move, and they choose teams on more than geography, but it turns out that fans from that Villa heartland of Birmingham are probably not making much of a commitment. Male life expectancy (which, to be blunt, was the issue for that crowd) among people living in that Villa catchment is just under 73 years. For south London-based Palace, it's 78. If it's any consolation, with Villa playing the way they have been, their fans' lives might feel very long indeed. Fulham fans There is some good news for Fulham fans after the club's Premier League relegation That gap between Birmingham and suburban south London reflects a broader trend. Deprived areas are markedly behind the richer. So, the east Lancashire towns, north-eastern London (near Arsenal and Spurs) and the West Midlands are all low performers. Preston, in Lancashire, has life expectancy in line with Mexico. If the west London Chelsea catchment area were a country, it would be second only to Japan. These tables are a bit frivolous, but make a serious point. First, life is harder and more uncertain for people in poorer areas. Staying fit and eating well is expensive. And the gaps are enormous. From the top to the bottom of these samples, it is nine years of life. And remember, this isn't a street or two we have sampled - it is 100,000 people at a time. Second, it is about more than just rich and poor. Local health is also about local culture - some of which is very visible in the data. Using health surveys, we can, for example, estimate the levels of obesity among the clubs' catchments. While obesity is also linked to deprivation, we can say that Gillingham's hinterland in Kent has a particular problem with obesity. Almost one-third of adults in the Gillingham catchment are obese. Crawley fans buying tickets Crawley Town fans could be doing this for many years to come Some areas also have major alcohol problems, which are peculiar and cultural. About 40% of the people living near Newcastle United's ground engaged in binge-drinking in the eight days before the last health survey was taken. For men, that means drinking eight units of alcohol in a single session. For women, it means six units. Newcastle's is a uniquely severe problem. Large local Muslim populations probably account for some of the very low bingeing figures for, say, West Ham, in London, and Bradford. The forces that drive health inequality - like many inequalities - are structural and impersonal. But the way that health inequality expresses itself is local. And that's a major problem for policy-makers.
Life ExpectancyObesityBinge DrinkingLife ExpectancyThe Premier League health areas # Nearest club Life expectancy (yrs) 1 Crawley Town 81.82 2 Fulham 81.65 3 Chelsea Football Club 81.44 4 Wimbledon 80.43 5 Yeovil Town 79.86 6 Wycombe 79.39 7 Cheltenham 79.38 8 Brentford 79.35 9 York City 79.31 10 Nottingham Forest 78.92 11 Watford 78.88 12 Exeter 78.64 13 Brighton & Hove 78.53 14 Torquay United 78.52 15 Bolton Wanderers 78.38 16 Shrewsbury Town 78.35 17 Colchester United 78.10 18 Crystal Palace 78.09 19 Stevenage 78.07 20 QPR 78.06 Championship health areas # Nearest club Life expectancy (yrs) 1 Norwich City 78.04 2 Sheffield Wednesday 77.88 3 Chesterfield 77.83 4 Ipswich Town 77.78 5 Oxford United 77.66 6 Bournemouth 77.65 7 Reading 77.64 8 MK Dons 77.62 9 Fleetwood Town 77.40 10 Scunthorpe United 77.36 11 Crewe Alexandra 77.32 12 Bristol Rovers 77.21 13 Portsmouth 77.18 14 Bristol City 77.08 14 Burton Albion 77.08 16 Carlisle 76.87 17 Swindon Town 76.83 18 West Ham 76.70 19 Millwall 76.65 20 Charlton Athletic 76.58 21 Southampton 76.47 22 Doncaster Rovers 76.42 23 Southend United 76.38 24 Bury 76.36 League 1 health areas # Nearest club Life expectancy (yrs) 1 Peterborough 76.32 2 Northampton 76.25 3 Leyton Orient 76.24 4 Mansfield Town 76.18 5 Dagenham & Redbridge 76.17 6 Morecambe 76.13 7 Stoke City 76.11 8 Accrington Stanley 76.05 9 Plymouth Argyle 75.94 10 Burnley 75.72 11 Hartlepool United 75.64 12 Gillingham 75.55 13 Derby County 75.54 14 Rotherham Utd 75.48 15 Coventry City 75.46 15 Barnsley 75.46 17 Huddersfield 75.36 18 Sheffield Utd 75.34 19 Rochdale 75.31 20 Oldham Athletic 75.28 21 Sunderland 75.27 22 Wigan Athletic 75.25 23 Port Vale 75.24 24 Hull City 75.23 League 2 health areas # Nearest club Life expectancy (yrs) 1 Tranmere Rovers 75.21 2 Tottenham Hotspur 75.15 3 Arsenal 74.95 4 Wolverhampton 74.92 5 Walsall 74.68 6 Preston North End 74.63 7 Manchester Utd 74.50 8 Newcastle Utd 74.44 9 Leicester City 74.10 10 Middlesbrough 74.08 11 Leeds 73.98 12 Everton 73.68 13 Blackburn Rovers 73.65 14 Bradford City 73.56 15 West Bromwich Albion 73.32 16 Blackpool 73.30 17 Notts County 73.03 18 Manchester City 72.97 18 Aston Villa 72.97 20 Liverpool 72.61 21 Birmingham City 72.39
oh S**T !!!!!!!! Now i got a statistic that tells me i only got about 23/24 years left, will i ever see my beloved Hoops win anything again ( apart from these play-off's ), or will i go to my grave a bit like QPR, promising loads but only actually delivering heart ache and the final thought of if only !!!!!!!!!
