Football rivalry is what keeps the beautiful game prospering. Only the selected few can win silverware each season but, year on year, winning the games that matter that bit more is a key objective for every club in the land. Here’s our quick look at five of the fiercest football derbies in the UK.
5 Most Fierce UK Football Derbies
Football Derbies: Celtic vs Rangers
The only starting place really. Glasgow’s Old Firm derby is famed the world over and routinely attracts a global audience that belies the Scottish domestic scene. Bitter rivals Celtic and Rangers have a modern-day monopoly on the Scottish Premiership crown and their relative financial power ensures it will likely stay that way.
They meet often, with four scheduled league meetings each season, and as Scottish football’s commentator of choice, Ian Crocker, once uttered, the most important Old Firm game is the next one. These tribal battles are always engrossing, although both clubs have managed to take some sparkle off the occasion in recent times with major restrictions – often total lockouts – on away fans at Ibrox and Parkhead on derby day.
Football Derbies: Liverpool vs Manchester United
Liverpool and Manchester United are the two most decorated clubs in English football and they share an unflinching dislike for one another. Not strictly a local derby, but the rivalry between these two north-west industrial cities extends to all facets of life.
Though city neighbours Everton and Manchester City are their closest geographical rivals, this enduring battle for supremacy between the clubs from Anfield and Old Trafford has made this particular rivalry the tastiest in English football by some way. Both clubs have enjoyed periods of extreme dominance domestically and they are both multiple European champions. Whenever they lock horns, it brings a sense of occasion unmatched in English club football.
Football Derbies: Aston Villa vs Birmingham City
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so the saying goes, but that certainly hasn’t proved the case when it comes to the battle for Second City supremacy. Aston Villa and Birmingham City tend to operate at different levels and, therefore, a novelty factor helps contribute to the sense of occasion when they do meet.
In the Premier League era, the Midlands rivals had to wait until 2002 for their first league meeting in 15 years. Famously, Steve Bruce’s Blues stunned Graham Taylor’s Villa, thanks to a helping hand, or rather foot, from goalkeeper Peter Enckelman when he allowed the ball slide under his studs into his own net. Villa have dominated more recently, though the pair haven’t met in the top tier since 2011.
Football Derbies: Sheffield United vs Sheffield Wednesday
Billed as being one of the world’s oldest football rivalries, these Steel City rivals have been showing disdain for each other since 1862. The Sheffield rivals tend to yo-yo between the divisions, meaning United’s 1-0 win over Wednesday in November was the first meeting since 2019 as Tyrese Campbell scored.
The tribalism of the rivalry was on full display in the countdown to that Bramall Lane showdown and the famous red/white vs blue/white stripes of the two clubs makes this an instantly recognisable clash. It peaked in 1993 with an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley watched by 75,364 as Sheffield took over London. Chris Waddle’s iconic free-kick was cancelled out by a scuffed finish from Alan Cork – improbably just 34 at the time – before Mark Bright won it in extra-time for the Owls.
Football Derbies: Newcastle United vs Sunderland
Finally to the north-east, a hotbed of footballing passion embodied by the Tyne-Wear rivalry of Newcastle United and Sunderland. In terms of local bragging rights, few derbies can match it. Former Magpies defender Steven Taylor once got death chants for suggesting that no Sunderland player would get in the Newcastle team ahead of a derby showdown.
Kevin Philips for the Mackems and Alan Shearer for Newcastle scored some crucial goals around the turn of the century, though they haven’t shared the same division since 2015/16.
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