The 92 by rivalry...

MillerWhale

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I've just tried matching all 92 league clubs by rivalry (slow day, I know). There's obviously about 15 very obvious rivalries, but then it gets complicated due to differing reasons. Take Leicester. The most notorious club for having no reciprocal rivalry (they claim to hate both Forest and Derby but those two only care about one another). Similarly, there are some clubs that see their main rivals that have fallen out of the football league pyramid (Scunny searching their lost Grimsby soulmates and Dagenham the same to Barnet). Some clubs have differing rivalries due to successes and failures; Man Utd see their bigger game against Liverpool rather than City, Wigan's rivalries had been non league ones until 20 years ago and do Stoke really see Port Vale as a threat/rival?

These reasons make the matching process not so straightforward, but I found it quite interesting to attempt. Below are my pairs....


Arsenal vs Spurs
Man Utd vs Man City
Everton vs Liverpool
Sunderland vs Newcastle
Chelsea vs QPR
West Ham vs Millwall
Southampton vs Portsmouth
Swansea vs Cardiff
Stoke vs Port Vale
Crystal Palace vs Charlton
West Brom vs Wolves
Aston Villa vs Birmingham
Hull City vs Middlesbrough
Burnley vs Blackburn
Leicester vs Coventry
Bournemouth vs Brighton
Derby vs Forest
Brentford vs Fulham
Ipswich vs Norwich
Watford vs Luton
Sheff Wed vs Sheff Utd
Reading vs Oxford
Huddersfield vs Barnsley
Bolton vs Wigan
Rotherham vs Donny
Leeds vs Bradford
Blackpool vs Preston
Bristol City vs Swindon Town
MK Dons vs Wimbledon
Chesterfield vs Mansfield
Oldham vs Tranmere
Rochdale vs Bury
Peterborough vs Cambridge
Fleetwood vs Morecambe
Walsall vs Crewe
Notts County vs Scunthorpe
Leyton Orient vs Colchester
Yeovil vs Cheltenham
Gillingham vs Wycombe
Stevenage vs Crawley
Shrewsbury vs Newport
Burton vs York
Plymouth vs Exeter
Dag & Red vs Southend
Carlisle vs Hartlepool
Northampton vs Accrington (leftover)

Can anyone fare any better at matching the 92?
 

MagpieBee

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Tricky to do, Brentford vs QPR is arguably bigger (though you can also argue the other way)

Chelsea would more likely see their rival as Fulham based on recent history, so I would swap them based on them
 

MillerWhale

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Tricky one, MB, isn't it? That's a good example of how success over decades can change matters.

I have a QPR fan mate that won't even entertain the idea that Fulham or Brentford could be seen as rivals and sees their rivalry more with Arsenal or West Ham. Of course, both these clubs would say that they have far bigger fish to fry than Rangers.
 

Muzzle

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The Bolton V Wigan is incorrect, make it Wigan v Bolton as we don't consider them rivals
 

MillerWhale

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Nearly put you down vs Tranmere based on the 90s. Who would you suggest you be paired with?
 

Dazza

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Reading v Oxford is a tricky one.I know some Oxford fans and whilst some do have a dislike of us there are also some who couldnt care less.You could say the same about Reading v Swindon.Historicly Reading V Aldershot would be our main rival but obviously they are not in the 92 league clubs.
 

Bottega Don

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I would say our biggest rivals in the league are Hull or Doncaster.
 

MillerWhale

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Of course, and some would even say Gillingham, but trying to better match the 92. I mean if Bristol City weren't matched with yourselves, then with whom (now that the Gas aren't here)?
 

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Are Brighton really Bournemouths main rivals? I would say Crystal Palace are and who is Bournemouths main rival?
 

MillerWhale

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I agree. I wanted to pair Palace with Brighton, but that would leave me screwed elsewhere. I actually don't know who Bournemouth woul consider their main rivals?
 

Nook Terrier

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Wouldn't class our biggest rivalry as Barnsley. More Bradford. We hate Leeds and Leeds based Leeds fans don't like us back, the rest don't like to admit they don't like us 'annoying little neighbours' ;)

Bradford, Leeds, Barnsley, Oldham, Wednesday are in order I think of 'rivalry'.
 

Madejski

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Oxford/Swindon rather than Oxford/Reading.

As above the biggest "mutual" rivalry to Reading is probably Aldershot.
 

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Please don't class us v MK as a rivalry. A rivalry usually means a grudging respect and there's no way that we respect that lot.

I look forward to rekindling a real rivalry next season when we play Crawley again.

Anyway, you can't exclude non-league clubs - Stevenage's rivals are Woking although they haven't played each other in years. Brizzle City's rivals will always be Rovers and Yeovil's Weymouth.
 
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Kim Mitten

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Southend v Colchester is the proper derby. Col Ewe have no other rival derby wise than Southend, they have a niggle with Wycombe from their non-league days. Orient - Southend can be tasty, but its more from the Orient side, they don't really have a derby rival as historically every other London club has been above them league wise. Southend count Col Ewe as the derby, so Orient only get a look in when they are in the same division without Col Ewe.
Daggers have no one league wise, they are quite a new team remember, after 4 teams got together to form them, I couldn't even tell you if they have a derby from non-league days - maybe Grays, but that would be a longshot.

The league club that I've always seen as utterly neutral are Gillingham. They have no historical derby, they have this weird thing with Swindon from the 70's which they still cling to a bit but Swindon just laugh at.
 

Muzzle

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Nearly put you down vs Tranmere based on the 90s. Who would you suggest you be paired with?
Hard to say, most Bolton would still say the filth (United) but it isn't recipricated, the likes of Bury and Wigan see us as their rivals, but neither are on our radar, Blackburn has always been an interesting derby but again they would see Burnley as their main so I guess Bolton are the only team who don't have one consistent local rival.
 

HarvSFC

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I agree. I wanted to pair Palace with Brighton, but that would leave me screwed elsewhere. I actually don't know who Bournemouth woul consider their main rivals?

Bournemouth would say "Scummers", but then they stole that nickname from Pompey for us. It's extremely one sided, but on the otherside we're going to be seeing more of Bournemouth in the near future than we will of Portsmouth.
 

Bobbin'

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Yeah we hate Palace although some of their fans claim not to care, but they do. Their man rival is Brighton though, which is fair enough.

Recent years has seen a small rivalry develop with Gillingham after we were accused of trying to steal their fans
 

MillerWhale

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That's an interesting one, Bobbin'.

Surely everyone is trying to steal everyone else's fans?

We've historically disliked Sheffield Wednesday as when we were bottom rung and they were in Europe, a fair few Lily-livered Rotherham folk defected to supporting them, and they always get the 'Rotherham Owls' banner out in games against us to try and stir the pot.

However we seem to discard that the same thing happened with the Blades when we were in our recent dark period and they were performing heroics in the cup and even reached the Premiership.

I guess it's that Wednesday as a group are so much more obnoxious. The whole self-named "Massive" and going around saying WAWAW just makes them pretty hard to stomach as a group.

In South Yorkshire, you obviously have the Sheffield sisters that have a reciprocal rivalry with each other.

Then you have us and Barnsley. Some fierce derbies in the 70s and early 80s but there certainly doesn't seem any animosity these days. Our attention seems to be with Wednesday, and theirs with both Wednesday and the Blades.

Donny absolutely despise Rotherham. Always remember watching their Conference playoff final and being taken aback about the number of anti-Millers songs going on. That hasn't been reciprocated, but we've only played them around four times in the last 17 years. I think it would heat up if we started playing them on a regular basis.

Outside of S Yorks, Chezzy seem to loathe us as do Bradford. With regards the latter, I believe that's more to do with association with Steve Evans than anything else, as we've probably played them more than any other club over the last 20 years.
 

Bobbin'

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Rivalry might not be quite the right word, more of a bit of a dislike for each other.

Years back, we started 'Valley Express' which offered affordable travel to home games for already Charlton fans living in and around the Kent suburbs and the Medway towns. Gillingham took offence to this, and their chairman came out and accused us of infiltrating their catchment area in order to get our own attendances up, which quite simply is not the case. The idea was to get Charlton fans who would/could not normally - get to games, we have quite a big fan base in Kent, which is understandable when Gillingham is the only alternative :cool:
 

HertsWolf

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To be fair, the last one - Northampton v Accrington - is the real heavyweight in the listing. It's the infamous M1/M6/M65 derby. Fucking rough. All police holiday gets cancelled in Lancashire, Northamptonshire and Devon (because of the notorious Ottery St Mary Cobbler Ultras).
Oh, and I think you'll find that the Black Country Derby is always referred to as Wolves v West Brom.

Edit: And Newport v Shrewsbury? Really?
 

Cardsfan

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To be fair, the last one - Northampton v Accrington - is the real heavyweight in the listing. It's the infamous M1/M6/M65 derby. Fucking rough. All police holiday gets cancelled in Lancashire, Northamptonshire and Devon (because of the notorious Ottery St Mary Cobbler Ultras).
Oh, and I think you'll find that the Black Country Derby is always referred to as Wolves v West Brom.

Edit: And Newport v Shrewsbury? Really?
Northampton and Accrington were simply the 2 teams left over
 

The Southbank

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Reading v Oxford is a tricky one.I know some Oxford fans and whilst some do have a dislike of us there are also some who couldnt care less.You could say the same about Reading v Swindon.Historicly Reading V Aldershot would be our main rival but obviously they are not in the 92 league clubs.

I don't think anybody really remotely cares about Aldershot. Oxford and Swindon are the traditional rivals, Oxford more notably after the infamous League Cup game with running battles outside the pubs. Throw QPR into the mixer as well.
 

Madejski

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I don't think anybody really remotely cares about Aldershot. Oxford and Swindon are the traditional rivals, Oxford more notably after the infamous League Cup game with running battles outside the pubs. Throw QPR into the mixer as well.

I think if we were in the same league as Aldershot, Oxford and Swindon for any serious period of time (beyond a season or two) we would easily be bigger rivals with Aldershot. More local and the fact that Aldershot still hate us now, most the time Oxford (and particularly) Swindon don't care about us at all. Though us all being in the same league will never happen..

For me, it's a tough choice between Aldershot and Oxford. I've never cared about Swindon, I have no idea why some of our fans hate them so much, never understood it.
 

EricSabin

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We hate Peterborough
 

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Wonder what the biggest "non local" rivalries are? There's the obvious Man U v Leeds and Man U v Liverpool, but I recall that Wycombe had some long-distance hatred too but can't remember who.
I think Norwich hate Wolves based on someone giving them the wrong directions to Molineux that took them through the subway, ten years ago.
 

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Please don't class us v MK as a rivalry. A rivalry usually means a grudging respect and there's no way that we respect that lot.

I look forward to rekindling a real rivalry next season when we play Crawley again.

Anyway, you can't exclude non-league clubs - Stevenage's rivals are Woking although they haven't played each other in years. Brizzle City's rivals will always be Rovers and Yeovil's Weymouth.

Yeovil and Weymouth? I never knew.
 

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