At the end of the season, there can be no doubts and no arguments as to the best – and worst – teams in a division… after all, the league table tells no lies.
But how do we rank a club’s fans? What characteristics define a top-notch fanbase, and how do we quantify them?
At kwiff, we like to think we know a thing or two about the beautiful game. From the roar of the Anfield Kop to the undying loyalty of the Old Trafford faithful, and from the passion of St James’s Park to the more analytical hum of the Emirates Stadium, our team of researchers has travelled the length and breadth of the country to unearth English football’s best fanbases.
From the matchday experience to the impact that the club and its fans have had on the local town or city, we’ve ranked the supporters of English football’s top 44 clubs, 20 from the Premier League and 24 from the Championship, to determine the ultimate fan league table.
So who are the best fans in the Premier League? And where does your team rank in kwiff’s supporter standings?
The Top 10 Best Fandoms in English Football
Researchers at kwiff sought to find the top fandoms by looking at aspects that represent a city’s connection to a club and the strength of fan support. This included supporter chants and anthems, match-day sellouts and the club’s impact on the local area, murals, statues, monuments, club-affiliated venues and street names, etc.
Having graded each team in turn, we’ve created our own fandom league table, which has delivered plenty of eye-catching results.
The top ten is dominated by Premier League clubs; however, there is one outlier: Derby County. Derby County (9th) is the only top 10 club not currently in the Premier League. Their remarkable history and heritage, owing much to the late, great Brian Clough, has cemented the Rams’ importance to Derby as a city. There are as many road names, statues and monuments dedicated to Derby County in the local area as there are for many established Premier League powerhouses elsewhere.
There is a clear north-south divide at play, with seven of our top ten based in the north of England and only two clubs located in London.
Anyone that has witnessed the travelling fans of Newcastle United and Sunderland, who invest so much time and money in supporting their team up and down the land, know that they deserve to be in the conversation as the best away support in England.
There are six street names in Sunderland linked to the football club and four murals dotted around the city, while Newcastle is packed with odes to the Magpies: not least four statues/monuments dedicated to the club’s favourite sons, as well as a quartet of affiliated pubs and venues.
Leeds United is a football club that has experienced extreme highs and lows – from winning three top-flight titles in different decades to spells in the third tier, but one constant has remained: their loyal fanbase.
Regarded as some of the most passionate football fans in the country, Leeds has a staggering 22 murals dedicated to its footballing heroes, while the club’s anthem Marching On Together is sung at decibel-demolishing levels both home and away.
Manchester City fans are often lambasted with the ‘where were you when you were [rubbish]?’ chant by opposition supporters. But the truth is that the club has cultivated a passionate fanbase in recent years, it’s amazing what winning scores of trophies does… by fair means or foul.
There’s a whopping ten roads in the blue half of Manchester named after a City legend, with four statues and six murals only serving to solidify the connection between the city and one of its main football clubs – the Cityzens, you could say, own the streets.
Into the Top Five
Liverpool is a fantastic city split into its red and blue enclaves.
The blues of Everton feature in our top five of the best Premier League fanbases. Dedications to the Toffees can be found in parts of the city, and with four matchday anthems and traditions, including the iconic Z Cars walk-out song and the Grand Old Team terrace chant, this is a supporter group steeped in history and passion.
Chelsea holds a unique position in our top five. As per our research, only Fulham has had more complete ticket sell-outs than the Blues have enjoyed at Stamford Bridge over the past decade.
Those fans are lively and vocal too, with three matchday anthems or traditions, only Everton have more.
It might be a surprise to see Liverpool down in third, but they didn’t score as highly in some of our metrics as the top team. That said, there are 41 murals dedicated to the Reds across the city (more than any other club), while few fans could argue that You’ll Never Walk Alone isn’t amongst the most spine-tingling terrace chants in world football.
However, it’s Arsenal that takes second place in our rundown of the best fans in the Premier League. Although not as vocal as some, this is a club that is widely celebrated in Islington and across North London; six statues/monuments, from Herbert Chapman to Thierry Henry, and 11 murals confirm the monumental pride, if you’ll pardon the pun, that the local area has in the Gunners.
And the Winner Is…
All of which leaves just one club left in our study of the best football fans in England: Manchester United.
Given their miraculous downturn of fortunes since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, you have to be made of strong stuff to reveal yourself as a Man Utd supporter these days.
And yet, still their fans turn out in their droves at home games, played at arguably the best stadium in England, despite its quirks, in Old Trafford and away fixtures.
The Red Devils ranked consistently well in most of our categories, with the red half of Manchester a shrine to the club with street name dedications, Sir Matt Busby Way and Nobby Stiles Drive among them, statues and affiliated pubs and venues.
Regularly selling out Old Trafford into the bargain, Manchester United’s fans are unquestionably the best in the land… one day, maybe their team will be good enough on the pitch to justify such fervent support.
The Best Fandoms Outside the Premier League
Our expert team have put the hours in to research the fanbases of the 24 Championship clubs as well.
With success largely escaping the clubs in the second tier, there’s no doubting that the supporters’ groups that follow these teams around the country are amongst the most passionate football fans in the UK.
As we’ve explored already, Derby County really is an extraordinary football club: one that has retained an outstanding fandom despite on-field results being below-par for many a year now.
Just outside our top ten of the best football fans in England are two clubs that descended into the Championship for the 2026/27 season: Wolves and Burnley.
Wolves are the toast of Wolverhampton, with statues dedicated to Sir Jack Hayward, Billy Wright and the 70th anniversary of the club’s famous win over Honved in 1954, a game that effectively led to the creation of the European Cup/Champions League.
Burnley, meanwhile, scored well in a host of categories, including murals and street art, homages to the likes of owner Alan Pace, former head coach Vincent Kompany and Turf Moor can be seen across the town.
A host of other Championship clubs also outperform Premier League teams in terms of their fanbase, with Charlton, West Brom and West Ham chief amongst them.
Watford have four murals dedicated to club icons like Graham Taylor and Sir Elton John around the town, while those visiting Cardiff may just note the three road names that have been dedicated to the Bluebirds – you may just find yourself driving down Fred Keenor Way or Brian Clark Way.
And a walk down Bramall Lane will see you rub shoulders with statues of three Sheffield United legends: Derek Dooley, Jimmy Hagan and Joe Shaw.
The Most Iconic Matchday Traditions
Of course, the focal point for any football fan is the action on the pitch. But there are other matchday traditions that are part and parcel of the experience, some historic, some thought-provoking, and some just downright bizarre.
So when you see vintage footage of Chelsea fans throwing celery onto the pitch, or John Westwood ringing his legendary bells at Portsmouth’s Fratton Park, you’ll know that it’s just part of the tradition.
It’s the songs that perhaps conjure the most fervent emotions amongst football fans. You’ll Never Walk Alone, Blue Moon, I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles… even the most casual of observers might know which clubs they are connected to.
And there are songs written by local bands that have been embraced by the football club’s fans. We’ll Live and Die In These Towns by Coventry-based outfit The Enemy struck a chord with the club’s largely working-class fanbase, while The Stone Roses’ This Is the One certainly gets the blood pumping at Old Trafford.
Some fans have adapted classic lyrics and melodies to fit the club’s name: hence how ‘hi ho silver lining’ has become ‘hi ho Wolverhampton’ at Wolves’ home, Molineux.
And while other connections between fanbases and particular songs are far more tenuous. The true origin of the link between Nottingham Forest and Mull of Kintyre has been debated at length, for example, yet they are no less ingrained into the fabric and heritage of a football club.
Our Methodology
Here at kwiff, we put our researchers to work to discover the most dedicated fanbases across 44 of the UK’s biggest football clubs by measuring active matchday devotion alongside permanent civic heritage.
They conducted desk research and analysed the following eight data points: statues, streets, hospitality venues, stands, memorials, museums, traditions and matchday sellouts, each with affiliations to each club.
Our researchers then assigned the highest index weightings to metrics of ‘Lived Fandom’, such as the number of stadium sellouts across the last ten years (excluding the 2020/2021 season due to COVID) (15%), club-affiliated pubs and restaurants (15%), fan matchday traditions (15%) and permanent statues (15%).
Structural pieces, including club-tied street names, named stadium stands, localised memorials and football museums were each weighted at 10%. To ensure a fair comparison regardless of club size or stadium capacity, every metric was normalised on a 0 to 10 scale based on the highest and lowest performers in each category.
These scaled numbers were then multiplied by their assigned weights and combined to generate a final fandom index score out of 100.
This final ranking is a reflection of football clubs in comparison to the respective metrics within the index, not the size of the football club or the size of the fandom.
