Rivalries

Rivalries - Just like all great things, football wouldn’t be the game we know (well kind of understand) and love (or in some cases tolerate) if it wasn’t for its great rivalries. Think Alien vs. Predator or blondes v brunettes. Football rivalries can be based on many different things, but the main two reasons are:

Religion - Religion has always caused conflict between groups of people and football is no exception to that rule. When two football clubs have such opposing beliefs in their fan base, and are close in location to one and another they seem to gravitate towards each other as natural rivals. The best example of this is Rangers and Celtic (Scottish football) These two Glasgow based clubs have a long running history of hatred. One team is Catholic. The other Protestant. It was never going to end well with the two clubs being in such close proximity.

Location - When two big clubs, or two clubs of similar size, are in the same area, they are always going to be in competition with each other. Like when you are at school, you always seem to hate the school nearest to you, or the one that’s just as good. Normally in cities such as Manchester and Liverpool there are two large clubs, one successful and one not so successful. Manchester United are the big team, Manchester City are the team aspiring to be big. Liverpool are the big team, Everton are the ones aspiring to be big.

Or, and this is essential knowledge for all non Leeds fans, for some perhaps unknown reason, everybody and I mean everybody hates Leeds.

Now these rivalries are not just restricted to League football, they also take place on a nationally and global scale. England as a nation of football fans, have rivalries with many other countries. Notably the ‘home counties’ - Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, due to the location and close proximity of these countries to England, and the success of England in comparison to these countries.

England also have rivalries with Germany, based on the historical conflict with this country, and the fact that we always seem to go out to them in tournaments. “Two World Wars and One World Cup” a popular chant amongst England fans. We also have the same kind of rivalry with Argentina due to the Falklands War.

Rivalries help to make certain games that bit more specially, but a loss to your closest rival hurts more than losing to anyone else, so on the occasion that this happens tread carefully around your man.