mlg57
Well-known member
“Nottingham Forest played Derby on Sunday,” begins Doug Walmsley. “Their head-to-head in major competition is 34 wins to Derby, 37 to Forest with 23 draws. Derby having scored 144, Forest scoring 141. Is there a closer derby record?”
To answer this, first we must define closeness. Clearly it requires both clubs to have won a similar number of all the matches played between them but how important is it that they have also scored a similar number of goals? While clearly adding a little luxurious sheen to the statistics Doug Walmsley quotes, in the Knowledge’s opinion it’s no more than a handy bonus – what we’re really looking for is the smallest difference between the number of wins recorded by rival teams in head-to-head encounters.
So we’ve taken a semi-exhaustive list of the classic rivalries in English and Scottish domestic football, found the teams’ all-time head-to-head records (accepting that in some cases the matches started before the rivalry), worked out the difference between the number of games won by the two teams and expressed it as a percentage of all games won by either team (leaving draws out of it, as they’re even enough already). We’ve then ranked the rivalries by this percentage figure (which we’ve termed the supremacy rating) to find which are the most closely-contested, and which the most one-sided, with the lowest figures indicating the most closely-balanced battles and the highest the most one-sided. We have used all-competition statistics – some might argue that we should only have used the league results, but we think they’d be wrong.
As the questioner suggests, Nottingham Forest and Derby County do have a very well-contested rivalry, with a supremacy rating of just 2.8, but that is only good enough to put them fourth on our list. There are two rivalries that are perfectly poised, with nothing between Crystal Palace and Brighton despite playing 98 matches (they’ve drawn 24 of them) and Fulham similarly conjoined with QPR after 31 games.
How, then, to split these two to decide the most finely-fought derby in the nation? In many ways it would be fairest just to award the honour to the Eagles and the Seagulls for having played more than three times as many games as the two London sides, but in the spirit of the question we’ll go back to goals. In their derby games Fulham have scored 24 times and QPR 17, so the difference between their two tallies (7) amounts to 17.1% of the total; in the M23 derby Palace have scored 139 times and Brighton 131, with the difference between their tallies (8) amounting to just 3% of the total. It is, then, any way you look at it, the closest derby in the land.
British football rivalry wins and ratings
Crystal Palace 37-37 Brighton
Supremacy rating 0
Fulham 13-13 QPR
Supremacy rating 0
Blackburn 41-39 Burnley
Supremacy rating 2.5
Derby 35-37 Nottingham Forest
Supremacy rating 2.8
Bolton 15-16 Wigan
Supremacy rating 3.2
Colchester 28-30 Southend
Supremacy rating 3.4
Sheffield United 45-42 Sheffield Wednesday
Supremacy rating 3.4
Sunderland 49-53 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 3.9
Rangers 160-145 Celtic
Supremacy rating 4.9
Aston Villa 42-38 Birmingham City
Supremacy rating 5
Ipswich 43-38 Norwich
Supremacy rating 6.2
Leeds United 25-29 Huddersfield
Supremacy rating 7.4
Liverpool 64-75 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 7.9
Port Vale 16-19 Stoke
Supremacy rating 8.6
Wrexham 37-31 Chester
Supremacy rating 8.8
West Brom 64-53 Wolves
Supremacy rating 9.4
Middlesbrough 40-49 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 10.1
Cardiff 22-27 Swansea
Supremacy rating 10.2
Watford 28-35 Luton
Supremacy rating 11.1
Brentford 16-20 Fulham
Supremacy rating 11.1
Plymouth 32-25 Exeter
Supremacy rating 12.3
Chelsea 63-49 Tottenham
Supremacy rating 12.5
Nottingham Forest 39-30 Notts County
Supremacy rating 13.0
Middlesbrough 46-60 Sunderland
Supremacy rating 13.2
Everton 66-88 Liverpool
Supremacy rating 14.3
Arsenal 74-54 Tottenham
Supremacy rating: 15.6
Man City 48-68 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 17.2
Bury 24-16 Rochdale
Supremacy rating 20
Blackpool 31-48 Preston
Supremacy rating 21.5
Hereford 9-14 Shrewsbury
Supremacy rating 21.7
Grimsby 47-30 Lincoln
Supremacy rating 22.1
Bristol City 47-29 Bristol Rovers
Supremacy rating 23.7
Dundee 45-75 Dundee United
Supremacy rating 25
Millwall 6-10 West Ham
Supremacy rating 25
Charlton 19-33 Crystal Palace
Supremacy rating 26.9
Hearts 138-79 Hibernian
Supremacy rating 27.2
Manchester United 46-26 Leeds United
Supremacy rating 27.8
Oxford 13-23 Swindon
Supremacy rating 27.8
Portsmouth 9-19 Southampton
Supremacy rating 35.7
To answer this, first we must define closeness. Clearly it requires both clubs to have won a similar number of all the matches played between them but how important is it that they have also scored a similar number of goals? While clearly adding a little luxurious sheen to the statistics Doug Walmsley quotes, in the Knowledge’s opinion it’s no more than a handy bonus – what we’re really looking for is the smallest difference between the number of wins recorded by rival teams in head-to-head encounters.
So we’ve taken a semi-exhaustive list of the classic rivalries in English and Scottish domestic football, found the teams’ all-time head-to-head records (accepting that in some cases the matches started before the rivalry), worked out the difference between the number of games won by the two teams and expressed it as a percentage of all games won by either team (leaving draws out of it, as they’re even enough already). We’ve then ranked the rivalries by this percentage figure (which we’ve termed the supremacy rating) to find which are the most closely-contested, and which the most one-sided, with the lowest figures indicating the most closely-balanced battles and the highest the most one-sided. We have used all-competition statistics – some might argue that we should only have used the league results, but we think they’d be wrong.
As the questioner suggests, Nottingham Forest and Derby County do have a very well-contested rivalry, with a supremacy rating of just 2.8, but that is only good enough to put them fourth on our list. There are two rivalries that are perfectly poised, with nothing between Crystal Palace and Brighton despite playing 98 matches (they’ve drawn 24 of them) and Fulham similarly conjoined with QPR after 31 games.
How, then, to split these two to decide the most finely-fought derby in the nation? In many ways it would be fairest just to award the honour to the Eagles and the Seagulls for having played more than three times as many games as the two London sides, but in the spirit of the question we’ll go back to goals. In their derby games Fulham have scored 24 times and QPR 17, so the difference between their two tallies (7) amounts to 17.1% of the total; in the M23 derby Palace have scored 139 times and Brighton 131, with the difference between their tallies (8) amounting to just 3% of the total. It is, then, any way you look at it, the closest derby in the land.
British football rivalry wins and ratings
Crystal Palace 37-37 Brighton
Supremacy rating 0
Fulham 13-13 QPR
Supremacy rating 0
Blackburn 41-39 Burnley
Supremacy rating 2.5
Derby 35-37 Nottingham Forest
Supremacy rating 2.8
Bolton 15-16 Wigan
Supremacy rating 3.2
Colchester 28-30 Southend
Supremacy rating 3.4
Sheffield United 45-42 Sheffield Wednesday
Supremacy rating 3.4
Sunderland 49-53 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 3.9
Rangers 160-145 Celtic
Supremacy rating 4.9
Aston Villa 42-38 Birmingham City
Supremacy rating 5
Ipswich 43-38 Norwich
Supremacy rating 6.2
Leeds United 25-29 Huddersfield
Supremacy rating 7.4
Liverpool 64-75 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 7.9
Port Vale 16-19 Stoke
Supremacy rating 8.6
Wrexham 37-31 Chester
Supremacy rating 8.8
West Brom 64-53 Wolves
Supremacy rating 9.4
Middlesbrough 40-49 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 10.1
Cardiff 22-27 Swansea
Supremacy rating 10.2
Watford 28-35 Luton
Supremacy rating 11.1
Brentford 16-20 Fulham
Supremacy rating 11.1
Plymouth 32-25 Exeter
Supremacy rating 12.3
Chelsea 63-49 Tottenham
Supremacy rating 12.5
Nottingham Forest 39-30 Notts County
Supremacy rating 13.0
Middlesbrough 46-60 Sunderland
Supremacy rating 13.2
Everton 66-88 Liverpool
Supremacy rating 14.3
Arsenal 74-54 Tottenham
Supremacy rating: 15.6
Man City 48-68 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 17.2
Bury 24-16 Rochdale
Supremacy rating 20
Blackpool 31-48 Preston
Supremacy rating 21.5
Hereford 9-14 Shrewsbury
Supremacy rating 21.7
Grimsby 47-30 Lincoln
Supremacy rating 22.1
Bristol City 47-29 Bristol Rovers
Supremacy rating 23.7
Dundee 45-75 Dundee United
Supremacy rating 25
Millwall 6-10 West Ham
Supremacy rating 25
Charlton 19-33 Crystal Palace
Supremacy rating 26.9
Hearts 138-79 Hibernian
Supremacy rating 27.2
Manchester United 46-26 Leeds United
Supremacy rating 27.8
Oxford 13-23 Swindon
Supremacy rating 27.8
Portsmouth 9-19 Southampton
Supremacy rating 35.7
