The Biggest Rivalries In The Coca-Cola Championship

Dur­ing the past decade, the sec­ond tier of Eng­lish pro­fes­sional foot­ball has built the strongest fol­low­ing of any sec­ond divi­sion in world foot­ball. Sup­port for the Foot­ball Cham­pi­onship is so strong that it is able to boast the fourth high­est cumu­la­tive sea­sonal atten­dance fig­ures of any foot­ball league in Europe.

The pri­mary rea­son for the suc­cess of the Foot­ball Championship’s suc­cess is the fact that Cham­pi­onship clubs pro­vide a plat­form for home grown foot­ball tal­ent in Eng­land and Wales, and there­fore draw strong, pas­sion­ate sup­port from amongst the pop­u­la­tions of the towns and cities they represent.

It is there­fore no sur­prise that the der­bies between Cham­pi­onship sides are amongst the most keenly antic­i­pated fix­tures on the Eng­lish foot­ball and Eng­lish Foot­ball bet­ting calendar.

Swansea vs. Cardiff

Both of Wales’ two biggest and best-supported clubs par­tic­i­pate in the Foot­ball Cham­pi­onship, and clashes between the two are volatile affairs. Sup­port­ers of both sides are liable to sub­ject one another to tor­rents of ver­bal abuse, and scenes of phys­i­cal vio­lence are not unusual.

A sig­nif­i­cant police pres­ence is required for the South Wales Derby to ensure that ten­sion dur­ing the matches does not boil over. Fans of each club there­fore have to con­tent them­selves with pro­vok­ing one another by means of chants and songs ridi­cul­ing one another’s teams. Cardiff has thus far dom­i­nated encoun­ters between the two clubs and has also been the more suc­cess­ful in both league and cup competition.

Black­pool vs. Pre­ston North End

The rivalry between the above two clubs at the West Lan­cashire Derby, also known as the M55 Derby due to the loca­tion of both towns next to this high­way, has been con­sci­en­tiously cul­ti­vated by the sup­port­ers of both clubs for over a cen­tury. The ori­gins of this rivalry are uncer­tain, but are most likely based on the close prox­im­ity of the two clubs.

Ten­sion between sup­port­ers of the two clubs is so severe that there have been seri­ous clashes, even with­out sup­port­ers hav­ing first faced– off in matches between Black­pool and Pre­ston North End. One such inci­dent occurred after an Eng­land match in 2006, when ver­bal provo­ca­tion between two groups of sup­port­ers resulted in a riot at Pre­ston Rail­way Station.

Ipswich vs. Norwich

Matches between Ipswich and Nor­wich are described as the Old Farm Derby, in ref­er­ence to the famous Scot­tish rivalry between Celtic and Rangers. Also known as the East Anglian Derby, clashes between Nor­wich and Ipswich are unusu­ally fre­quent, as the two clubs have dis­played a knack for find­ing them­selves in the same league.

While nei­ther club boasts an espe­cially impres­sive record in terms of league per­for­mances, their rivalry ensures that nei­ther set of sup­port­ers lose inter­est in their clubs’ exploits. Matches between the two clubs are always a sell-out, and a strong police pres­ence is required to pre­vent the two sets of pro­tes­tors from clashing.

West Bromwich Albion vs. Wolver­hamp­ton Wanderers

The Black Coun­try Derby is the old­est major rivalry in Eng­lish foot­ball. Dat­ing back to 1886, this rivalry, between two of the found­ing mem­bers of the Eng­lish Foot­ball League, is so ran­corous that match organ­is­ers are care­ful to avoid sched­ul­ing fix­tures at times that encour­age pre-match drink­ing ses­sions by supporters.

It is not unusual to find pubs closed, or their sales closely mon­i­tored and restricted, by police on match days to pre­vent out­breaks of vio­lence. On the pitch, Albion has a slight advan­tage over Wolves, and leads them in the win count after over 150 matches between the two clubs.