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The changing geography of the top flight

There is a gap on the map. Stare at the 2024-25 Premier League’s geographic make-up and you cannot help but notice that from Newcastle United, in England’s northernmost city, it’s a long way south until you find another club in the division.

Last season’s relegation of Burnley means that, down the west side of the Pennine ridge which splits the North, it is 125 miles from Newcastle to Manchester City. With Sheffield United also relegated in May and Leeds United losing the Championship play-off final to Southampton a week later, down the east side, it’s 160 to Nottingham Forest, who are not even in the North — they’re in the Midlands.

The whole of Yorkshire, England’s largest county, is absent from this edition of the Premier League. Beyond Manchester, Lancashire is empty.

For the first time in the history of a 20-team Premier League, there are only five clubs from the traditional ‘North’ — Everton, Liverpool,  Manchester City, Manchester United and Newcastle. Rewind to season 2008-09 and there were 11 northern clubs in the Premier League’s 20.   Back then, 55 per cent of the Premier League was northern. Now it’s 25 per cent.

Last season, five of the Premier League’s top 10 were London clubs and the three immediately below were Brighton, Bournemouth and Fulham, another side from the capital. There has been a south coast revival featuring Brighton and Bournemouth, and this season Southampton return, too.

Sheffield, meanwhile, England’s ninth-largest population conurbation, has not produced England’s champions since the most recent of Wednesday’s four titles in 1930. 

Among some, there is a broader feeling that England as a country has swung southwards over the past 40 years; that there has been a ‘Londonization’ of the economy, political power and culture. In 2021, the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) think-tank found the median full-time salary in London was £37,500 compared to £29,000 in the North; £20billion was found to build the Elizabeth train line across the middle of London, while the HS2 rail project from the capital to Manchester and Leeds was cancelled.


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