Britain | Football geography

A country of two halves

England’s beautiful game has gone south

IN 1888 the world’s first football league was launched in England. Half the 12 teams competing in the inaugural season came from the north and half from the midlands; none was from south of Birmingham. Long after, the sport remained “a game of industrial England”, as Roy Hattersley, a deputy leader of the Labour Party, wrote in 1990.

As a new season of the Premier League kicks off on August 13th, that is no longer the case. The four clubs based in Manchester and Liverpool are still forces to be reckoned with: it is rare that one of them is not champion or runner-up. Yet outside those two cities, northern clubs are in decline (see chart). Last season the most successful of the bunch, Sunderland, finished 17th.

Poor management is one reason. Leeds United, who won the league in 1992, were relegated in 2004 after spiralling into debt. Newcastle United, relegated last season, had failed to invest. Sunderland have struggled to find continuity while going through six permanent managers since 2011.

Attracting elite players to the north is another problem. “Sunderland is pretty bleak. So is Newcastle,” wrote Roy Keane, a former Sunderland manager, in his autobiography. “They wanted compensation for the cold and dark nights,” the poor dears. Foreign owners have snapped up clubs all over the country as trophy assets, but the richest and most dedicated have tended to go for clubs that they can visit easily from London, says Jonathan Wilson, a football historian. And these days few local businessmen are able to bankroll their home teams to victory, as Jack Walker, a steel magnate, did with Blackburn Rovers in 1995.

Unlucky Black Cats

Regional economic decline has sapped northern clubs’ revenues. In 2014-15 Sunderland had the sixth-highest attendance in the league but only the 15th-highest revenue, according to the Swiss Ramble, a football finance website. By contrast, clubs in posher parts of the country rake in money from tickets and corporate hospitality. Chelsea, who had a lower average attendance than Sunderland, earned over six times as much from each match day. This season Sunderland have cut their season-ticket prices.

Northern fans have some reasons to be optimistic. All three teams promoted to the Premier League this season are from the north. And a new TV deal that comes into effect this season is so lucrative that the proportion of clubs’ revenue that comes from matchdays will decrease significantly, helping teams in England’s poorer regions to catch up. Nonetheless the pitch looks uneven, a metaphor for England’s growing southern skew.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "A country of two halves"

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