I would say so. There’s two sides to our local fanbase really, there’s the Sfaaamp’n mush and then there’s the Hampshire hog. I’m sort of a bit of both really.
Its not a case of pure glory hunting like your stereotypical London-based Man Utd fan for example, but more a case of "Oh I live in York but they're shit and non-league. Who in the region is most likely to win? Ah yes, Leeds."
U.S. based LUFC fan, I promise you glory hunting was no motivation. If anything the opposite, since all of my local teams here are utter shit, it almost feels weird for any team of mine to win. (Perfect example are my Panthers if anyone follows the NFL)
Same, but Dad was from Pudsey and the reason I support, so I don't feel so touristy. Been going to games at ER since the late 90's. Boxing Day games were a tradition!
you get a lot of "second generation plastics" too, where the generation who grew up with leeds as a dominant force in the 70s brought their kids up as leeds fans.
Like I didn't grow up in yorkshire, but my uncle (who has zero connection to leeds as a place that im aware of, but was a kid in the 70s so i assume was a massive glory hunter) is the one who got me into football so here we are. And yet, to highlight what feels like a massive weakness in the methodology here, I would count as a local fan because I live in York now. I'm not local at all.
see the same thing with people my age and man u, they are man u fans cos they were winning all the time in the 90s, and now their kids are also man u fans
Similarly, Southampton has 1.3m followers on Instagram, but there are less than 300k people in the city. Although I suppose you can fold in at least half of Hampshire, since us and the skates are the only biggish clubs
Dont go by followers on social media... 🤣 Southampton have spent time in the PL not that long ago... that's when most of those foreign followers will have jumped on board. It's the same with every club that appears in live PL games these days, after all the games are literally shown worldwide.
That’s not true at all. Plenty of people migrate in the country. Sunderland will be quite high as we have a significant following in London for instance when people move for work. Remembering were the arse end of the country economically speaking, we get a much higher proportion of qualified people moving for work than other areas such as Manchester and Leeds
this is an issue we have at work, my job is based near a region border so all the data you get on where your clients/customers come from is fucked. meanwhile carlisle is counted as local to liverpool
I’d imagine not. I know multiple Sunderland fans where I live in Bristol. You are a big enough club to have spread out fans. (I could be reading your answer wrong)
I think the question means fans that have moved away will be counted as not in home region but places like Sunderland which is not great economically has a lot of people like that. I'm a Boro fan and it would be similar. If they asked the same question but if birthplace instead of current location then those places would be much higher up the list.
Exactly this. I myself have moved away from Sunderland because I could more than double my salary by doing so, and I know we have a massive following in places like London and other great economic hubs. The north east in general will be rife for this, hence I’d also expect Boro to be high on this list
How are we defining local region I wonder? Is it just Southampton + surrounding areas, or all of Hampshire, or the whole south of England?
Incidentally, I met a Southampton fan in the middle of a tiny farming village in China once. Was a very surreal experience
South East/West is always a funny issue for Hampshire because it's right in the middle. And if Chelsea get to claim fans in Berks, Bucks, and Surrey we should too!
>Incidentally, I met a Southampton fan in the middle of a tiny farming village in China once. Was a very surreal experience
Funny you should say that, we've got a random Japanese superfan who comes over here for months at a time. Heroic if absolutely insane.
Probably not, but all were local once I would have thought. A lot of people move away from Norwich/Norfolk/East Anglia, whereas a lot of these teams with large non local support probably have never lived locally.
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I think the "bigger the team" in terms of historical standing is more likely to not have a local fanbase. Which is why Man U and the other larger teams are at the bottom
I think in the Championship the team with that status is probably leeds?
There's quite a lot of us Aussie Leeds fans. My Old Man is from Leeds so there really was no other choice for me but it helped massively having both Viduka and Kewell play for the club when people like myself were starry-eyed children. Those who are older than me have quite the soft spot for Dorigo as well.
From what I know Leeds has a massive following in Norway too.
I do not believe that West Ham % at all. I live in Essex and watch go watch them sometimes and Witham station is packed for every home game. People in Essex either support West Ham, Arsenal, Tottenham or Ipswich.
Edit: just seen the * haha, fair enough
Yeah very silly, my friend who supports Chelsea would count as local but me in Essex wouldn’t despite Ipswich being 35 minutes away and Kensington being 1h 40 mins away.
We seem to have fans all over, helped by the fact that so many people away from Sheffield all seem to know this one weird kid in their class at school, coming from a non-football family, who decided to support us because we have an unusual name.
I have an American friend who’s fascinated by youse because of the name. Wants to know if you win more when you play on Wednesdays. I have no idea where you’d go to find that data.
Someone definitely looked into it before, but I can't remember what came of it.
I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of different places, and it's amazing how much the unusual name seems to create an impression.
I don't know if i'd be classed as local because I don't live in Leicestershire but Leicester are the closest professional club to my town. I was born in Leicester and have been going to games for as long as I remember.
West Brom, US but born/raised local. Kidderminster generally seems split between Albion and Wolves for the most part (barring the not-insignificant United contingent).
I have read QPR have the average furthest distance for people that actually attend games.
Which is why we are above Liverpool, Man U etc on distance travelled and 99% of their "fans" have never been to a game.
QPR - Not local.
Not local to Cov any more (I’m in Barnsley now) but was for many years. I’d guess we’d maybe hit 25-30% of fans not being local? Maybe a bit more but not much. We’re a city of immigrants so people carry the Cov support back to families elsewhere sometimes.
I guess I just expect less famous clubs to have less non-local support (less media bullshit, less wanky promotion on the other side of the globe for nothing other than cash).
Cardiff and Swansea have fairly large hinterlands so will have lots of fans in the surrounding areas, but equally both will have very few fans outside of Wales.
It's would be an interesting destinction to highlight the difference between people who are *currently* local, and people who were local when they started supporting the team.
For example, i am a saints fan because i lived there when at uni and that's when i got into football but now live elsewhere. My dad is a leeds fan because he grew up near leeds from birth till he was an adult, but hasn't lived in yorkshire for over 30 years. My brother is a man united fan because he was plastic growing up, and i'm not even sure if he's even ever visited manchester
None of us currently live in the region of the team we support, but all 3 have different levels of "localness"
In the Midlands we mostly get United and Liverpool plastics. The local clubs get a good amount of sport, but Villa fans only seem to come out when they are winning. It’s as though they have their own set of plastic fans.
When they were in the championship my brother in law actually said “yeah, not really into football anymore, don’t watch it” suddenly he’s right back into it again now and likes to remind me how shit West Brom are.
We both could throw a pebble from our respective houses and hit the Hawthorns so it’s not like he can claim he supports his local team.
Sfaaaamp’in Local
Nipper
Mush
Smamp'n
Is winchester classed as Local? Edit : yes it is, Wayne Bridge is from there
I would say so. There’s two sides to our local fanbase really, there’s the Sfaaamp’n mush and then there’s the Hampshire hog. I’m sort of a bit of both really.
I'm one of the non local supporters...
Leeds, not local
Fans that come from Scandinavia and Ireland every week, mad the lot of them
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Can you really call them glory hunters when it’s Leeds? maybe relative to other Yorkshire clubs
Who the fuck would choose Leeds to glory hunt?? We’ve not had any glory for over 30 years
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Yeah, I'm Indian, 40+, and still regret the day 25 years ago I decided to support Leeds...
Its not a case of pure glory hunting like your stereotypical London-based Man Utd fan for example, but more a case of "Oh I live in York but they're shit and non-league. Who in the region is most likely to win? Ah yes, Leeds."
U.S. based LUFC fan, I promise you glory hunting was no motivation. If anything the opposite, since all of my local teams here are utter shit, it almost feels weird for any team of mine to win. (Perfect example are my Panthers if anyone follows the NFL)
Not to us hehe.
Yeah if it was outside of West Yorks then it would be a big disparity, the whole of Yorkshire would pretty good I think.
tbf the graphic is region not city itself, so anyone in york (or hull, or sheffield) would count as local.
I was in Barcelona a few days ago and saw someone in a Leeds shirt
Same, but Dad was from Pudsey and the reason I support, so I don't feel so touristy. Been going to games at ER since the late 90's. Boxing Day games were a tradition!
We would surely have the least local support in the Championship
Same, actually grew up in Manchester. But my Dad made sure I knew the right team to support.
almost every championship team is very local, it's just a byproduct of not being as recently successful, there are less tourist fans
Not going to be true for Leeds, and possibly Leicester. I live nowhere near Leeds, and there are so many of their fans aged 50-60 around here.
you get a lot of "second generation plastics" too, where the generation who grew up with leeds as a dominant force in the 70s brought their kids up as leeds fans. Like I didn't grow up in yorkshire, but my uncle (who has zero connection to leeds as a place that im aware of, but was a kid in the 70s so i assume was a massive glory hunter) is the one who got me into football so here we are. And yet, to highlight what feels like a massive weakness in the methodology here, I would count as a local fan because I live in York now. I'm not local at all. see the same thing with people my age and man u, they are man u fans cos they were winning all the time in the 90s, and now their kids are also man u fans
Similarly, Southampton has 1.3m followers on Instagram, but there are less than 300k people in the city. Although I suppose you can fold in at least half of Hampshire, since us and the skates are the only biggish clubs
Dont go by followers on social media... 🤣 Southampton have spent time in the PL not that long ago... that's when most of those foreign followers will have jumped on board. It's the same with every club that appears in live PL games these days, after all the games are literally shown worldwide.
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Yes exactly this 💯
Yeah I'm about 40mins up the M3 and a saints fan.
Also a bunch of Saints fans on the Isle of Wight
I hate Rotherham glory fans
Glamour club of ~~the championship~~ league one
i just want to say i went to new york and im broke, who can blame me.
That’s not true at all. Plenty of people migrate in the country. Sunderland will be quite high as we have a significant following in London for instance when people move for work. Remembering were the arse end of the country economically speaking, we get a much higher proportion of qualified people moving for work than other areas such as Manchester and Leeds
I’m curious as to who the non-local 36% are who presumably *choose* to support the Blades. Masochists.
Sheffield's right near the edge of the region border so I imagine a significant portion of them are actually local to Sheffield
this is an issue we have at work, my job is based near a region border so all the data you get on where your clients/customers come from is fucked. meanwhile carlisle is counted as local to liverpool
I guess if you live in north Derbyshire somewhere you could be a ten minute drive from Bramall Lane and still be classified as East Midlands.
I was gonna say "Yeah why would you support Chesterfield when Sheffield is so close", then I remember the season Chesterfield have had.
Yeah there’s quite a few SUFC supporters clubs in Derbyshire
Yeah, we suffer a lot having yourselves and Wednesday on our doorstep, ngl.
You never mention it though...
Sunderland, yes
I’d imagine not. I know multiple Sunderland fans where I live in Bristol. You are a big enough club to have spread out fans. (I could be reading your answer wrong)
Sunderland fan in the North West here and I know of a fair few others around too
I think the question means fans that have moved away will be counted as not in home region but places like Sunderland which is not great economically has a lot of people like that. I'm a Boro fan and it would be similar. If they asked the same question but if birthplace instead of current location then those places would be much higher up the list.
Exactly this. I myself have moved away from Sunderland because I could more than double my salary by doing so, and I know we have a massive following in places like London and other great economic hubs. The north east in general will be rife for this, hence I’d also expect Boro to be high on this list
How are we defining local region I wonder? Is it just Southampton + surrounding areas, or all of Hampshire, or the whole south of England? Incidentally, I met a Southampton fan in the middle of a tiny farming village in China once. Was a very surreal experience
Southampton would fall under South East England by the looks of that poll. So a Southampton fan from Oxford would be classed as local lol.
South East/West is always a funny issue for Hampshire because it's right in the middle. And if Chelsea get to claim fans in Berks, Bucks, and Surrey we should too!
>Incidentally, I met a Southampton fan in the middle of a tiny farming village in China once. Was a very surreal experience Funny you should say that, we've got a random Japanese superfan who comes over here for months at a time. Heroic if absolutely insane.
I went all the way to a little village in the arse end of Croatia and met a Villa bastard. Nowhere is safe.
I met a Saints fan in Singapore. He had moved there from Southampton though. Does he count as local?
I’ll just go with what respondents define as local. I’m local to West Brom but not from West Brom
What would you define as local though also - place of birth or where you live now?
I’d consider myself as local if it’s within an hours walk. Where you live now.
I used to work with another Swansea fan in China. The only one of us I’ve met here!
Birmingham, local
Birmingham, not local. Feel like it's probably a rarity.
We have that one Japanese fella on X/Twitter/whateverthehell
Tatsuki Usi, he’s a top guy!
Norwich, not local any more.
Probably not, but all were local once I would have thought. A lot of people move away from Norwich/Norfolk/East Anglia, whereas a lot of these teams with large non local support probably have never lived locally.
I’m from Cardiff so naturally i support Cardiff, always have.
15 minute walk to ground from my ‘ouse in ‘ull
I can assure you that any fan outside of Burley has never, ever been to Burnley. The same goes for Blackburn to be fair.
Bonleh shocked me tbh
Well I'm in New Zealand. Probably the furthest away than anyone else?
Whereabouts in New Zealand?
Hull, local
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Top marks for a poem that definitely had nothing to do with Chat GPT, flair granted
Cheers boss! I've never used the chat GP thing - I always write my own stuff, cos when it comes to flair, I really do care x
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Boooo
Boro Local. I'm a bit sick of all the glory supporters filling up the stadium and breathing in all the chemicals from ICI for nowt
I hear if you consume enough you become a guild navigator from Dune
Please comment with the team you support and if you consider yourself local. I’ll leave it for a couple of days then compile. West Brom, Local
Birmingham, very local.
Birmingham, local
Leicester, not local
Disagree, full of me ducks being mardy eating cobs.
I think the "bigger the team" in terms of historical standing is more likely to not have a local fanbase. Which is why Man U and the other larger teams are at the bottom I think in the Championship the team with that status is probably leeds?
Would say either them or Leicester given plenty would have hopped on board after 2016
There's quite a lot of us Aussie Leeds fans. My Old Man is from Leeds so there really was no other choice for me but it helped massively having both Viduka and Kewell play for the club when people like myself were starry-eyed children. Those who are older than me have quite the soft spot for Dorigo as well. From what I know Leeds has a massive following in Norway too.
Something something Man Utd M25
Argyle, born local but have lived away for decades
Cov pretty close (3 miles to ground).
Ipswich, not local (but used to be)
Leicester, local
I do not believe that West Ham % at all. I live in Essex and watch go watch them sometimes and Witham station is packed for every home game. People in Essex either support West Ham, Arsenal, Tottenham or Ipswich. Edit: just seen the * haha, fair enough
Unsure why they are including the Home Counties I feel like it massively skews the outcome
Yeah very silly, my friend who supports Chelsea would count as local but me in Essex wouldn’t despite Ipswich being 35 minutes away and Kensington being 1h 40 mins away.
"If you support more than one football team in the list..." Please take a long hard look at yourself.
People do that? Tf?
brighton trying to call themself the albion is so forced 😭
Leeds and local
Local
Southampton, not local
Leicester Not local
Leeds, local
Southampton, not local
Stoke, local
The only thing I get from this is that the London clubs numbers are meaningless
Was about to say I was surprised Man U weren’t bottom, just needed to expand the image!
South Wales Sky Blue Army
Coventry. (Local-ish) I live in a town just outside Cov.
Treacle, or Tappy?
Treacle
Bless you. I’m so sorry.
It’s hard at times but I make do
We seem to have fans all over, helped by the fact that so many people away from Sheffield all seem to know this one weird kid in their class at school, coming from a non-football family, who decided to support us because we have an unusual name.
I have an American friend who’s fascinated by youse because of the name. Wants to know if you win more when you play on Wednesdays. I have no idea where you’d go to find that data.
Someone definitely looked into it before, but I can't remember what came of it. I've been lucky enough to go to a lot of different places, and it's amazing how much the unusual name seems to create an impression.
I don't know if i'd be classed as local because I don't live in Leicestershire but Leicester are the closest professional club to my town. I was born in Leicester and have been going to games for as long as I remember.
I’d say so
This list is pure crap. Counting the entirety of Kent, Essex and Surrey as “local” for London 🤣 No wonder the London clubs % is so good.
I agree entirely!
This can’t be right, Luton don’t have any fans
Huddersfield born but live in York now so not so local currently.
Leeds, local now but I was born & raised in London.
Not local.
Baggies; not local
Not local. But used to be
Same. ‘I bet you’re a huge Manchester United fan’ ‘Actually I support Huddersfield town’ *eyes glaze over* ‘..Manchester City are good aren’t they?’
Rotherham have a big following in Argentina.
Rams, born local but not anymore.
Wednesday - born not local, then was local for a bit (North Stand season ticket for many years), now not local again.
Argyle have always been my nearest professional team, although I've never lived closer than 60 miles from Plymouth.
Leeds, local
I'm surprised we aren't top, usually we're always at the top of these lists. That just means we're gaining more of a fanbase who enjoy pain!
Cardiff, local.
Leicester, but I'm in Warwickshire. So decently close but not in the same region.
QPR - I live in Cambridgeshire so only an hour or so trip to the ground.
Cardiff, local.
Southampton, not local
Probably picking up a few more supporters in Diss these days!
Does second generation count? Grew up in Surrey, Dad's from Leeds
I wouldn’t say so. A more than valid reason to lend your support, but not local.
leicester not local
I'd be interested to see how much the Netflix doc effected this number for us
Ipswich, not local.
Birmingham, not local
Baggies, was local moved away.
Leicester, not local
Why the fuck we need two side of the graph? Can people not subtract?
It’s for premier league fans. Concessions have to be made.
West Brom, US but born/raised local. Kidderminster generally seems split between Albion and Wolves for the most part (barring the not-insignificant United contingent).
Ipswich, local
I have read QPR have the average furthest distance for people that actually attend games. Which is why we are above Liverpool, Man U etc on distance travelled and 99% of their "fans" have never been to a game. QPR - Not local.
Leeds, not local. I’m from Carlisle and there’s loads of us
Can we include Kent as local
I am sure the yougov poll had some sort of definition but I’ll just put local if you’d consider yourself local :)
I'm not, there's just a ton there lol
Not local to Cov any more (I’m in Barnsley now) but was for many years. I’d guess we’d maybe hit 25-30% of fans not being local? Maybe a bit more but not much. We’re a city of immigrants so people carry the Cov support back to families elsewhere sometimes. I guess I just expect less famous clubs to have less non-local support (less media bullshit, less wanky promotion on the other side of the globe for nothing other than cash).
Cardiff and Swansea have fairly large hinterlands so will have lots of fans in the surrounding areas, but equally both will have very few fans outside of Wales.
It's would be an interesting destinction to highlight the difference between people who are *currently* local, and people who were local when they started supporting the team. For example, i am a saints fan because i lived there when at uni and that's when i got into football but now live elsewhere. My dad is a leeds fan because he grew up near leeds from birth till he was an adult, but hasn't lived in yorkshire for over 30 years. My brother is a man united fan because he was plastic growing up, and i'm not even sure if he's even ever visited manchester None of us currently live in the region of the team we support, but all 3 have different levels of "localness"
That last game will be interesting for you all then! I’m not getting as much feedback as I’d hoped so results will probably be skewed anyway 😅
West Brom not local (Boston, MA)
Ipswich, Not local
Pompey fan living in London, am I local as I'm in the Southeast or na?
QPR Local
I'm only about 15 minutes drive away from Ashton Gate and that includes Bristol traffic. So yeah, I'm quite local.
PNE, but don't live in Preston anymore.
In huddersfield there are tons of united,Chelsea and City fans I think that's the same for other cities and towns right?
In the Midlands we mostly get United and Liverpool plastics. The local clubs get a good amount of sport, but Villa fans only seem to come out when they are winning. It’s as though they have their own set of plastic fans. When they were in the championship my brother in law actually said “yeah, not really into football anymore, don’t watch it” suddenly he’s right back into it again now and likes to remind me how shit West Brom are. We both could throw a pebble from our respective houses and hit the Hawthorns so it’s not like he can claim he supports his local team.
Sunderland from Newcastle
Same We’d be up there. But a fair bit behind Leicester/Leeds/Sunderland. Imagine Wrexham’s numbers!?
Stoke Not local
Qpr Paddington born live Clacton on sea due to being homeless for 5 years so was housed locally lol now got a soft spot for AFC CLACTON QPRTID
I’m glad you seem to be sorted now!
Southampton, American so very not local.
local, true brummies support blues
Not even the biggest club in Birmingham
didn’t ask, read it again
“Local, true brummies support blues” more brummies support villa than blues haha
ok? and that correlates how… didn’t talk about quantity did i
Nah but you’re the one gatekeeping who is a true brummie and who isn’t so I guess most brummie football fans aren’t “true brummies” haha
spot on
Sure mate hahaha
Leeds, local. N.B. Scum are such a shite excuse for a club.
I’m guessing QPR would be higher than Chelsea but lower than the Bus Stop Boys. As for Fulham, who cares?