Northern clubs face grim future in nation’s new order
Premier League map looks worryingly bare in game’s traditional heartland, writes Luke Edwards
It was once the heartland of the English game, football’s fertile breeding ground in the North, where clubs prospered, teams thrived and internationals were plucked from an apparently never-ending production line of talent. Not any more. The football map of the North has a desolate look. If Huddersfield Town do not beat Reading in the Championship play-off final next weekend, for the first time in the Premier League era, English football could have just two top-flight clubs in the huge land mass north and east of Manchester.
The famous names are no longer relevant. The big-city clubs in Leeds and Sheffield have lost their way, so have those from the old Lancashire towns, Blackburn, Wigan, Preston, Blackpool and Bolton. It is the same in Yorkshire.
Burnley are an exception, but their priority will always be to survive in the Premier League. In fact, that seems to be the extent of the ambition of most clubs outside of London and Manchester. Depressingly, in recent years, the northern ones have not even managed that.
Burnley will not threaten the status quo. It looks increasingly unlikely anyone will in the foreseeable future. Of the 60 domestic trophies given out over the past 20 years, London and Manchester have claimed 47, including 19 league titles. Only Leicester City’s shock success last year broke the monopoly.
As for the North beyond Greater Manchester, there have been three trophies. Blackburn and Middlesbrough lifted the League Cup in 2002 and 2004 respectively, while Wigan, who are now in League One, won the FA Cup three years ago.
In the North East, where football continues to dominate the social landscape, there has been a particularly worrying recent decline.
Sunderland finally lost their perpetual battle against relegation after spending the best part of a decade trying to cling on in the Premier League. A few miles down the road, Middlesbrough fought for seven years to get out of the Championship, but having done so, surrendered meekly to relegation.
They will be replaced by Newcastle United, who, with Rafael Benítez as manager, at least offer a hint of a brighter future.
Newcastle have always had the potential to be a major power but have rarely looked like fulfilling it. It is worth remembering that a club who had never gone down from the Premier League have done so twice in eight years.
Growing influence of the South
The closest thing Newcastle will have to a derby is 2½ hours, 120 miles and three counties away in Burnley.
Football in the North is struggling to come to terms with a new order in a country that has seen two cities, London and Manchester, prosper at the expense of others, sucking in wealth, opportunity and jobs.
It used to only be London and the South East that drained northern cities – 310,000 graduates left for London in the decade leading up to 2016 – but they now have a rival closer to home as Manchester’s rapid growth, excellent transport links and affluent suburbs mean it now dwarfs them.
It is also starting to manifest itself in sport. Just as in the region’s difficult days under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, the North’s big clubs have struggled to attract the best players, and cannot hold on to them – even ones they develop themselves – when they do.
The problem is getting worse because the power and wealth has become focused so heavily on London and Manchester. These are the cities that are booming and are, in turn, able to support the most powerful, wealthy and successful football teams.
Newcastle could buck that trend. They have done so before, of course, under Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson, but until recently they sold themselves to foreign players as a stepping-stone club, a shop window.
Benítez inspires two things on Tyneside, confidence and hope, but the ramifications of Newcastle’s revival stretch way beyond the banks of the River Tyne. A strong, successful Newcastle will help others believe they can do more than just stay in the Premier League and Benítez insists he does not anticipate any problems attracting the players he wants.
“Players want to join a club that is ambitious,” explained Benítez. “They want to join a club that can match their ambitions.
“After that, they look at the [financial] package, the manager, maybe the style of football. Then, maybe, they look at where they will be living. For footballers, I don’t think it is important where they live. For their families, maybe, but I don’t see any problems getting players to come here. If the money is right, they will come.”
It was Newcastle’s stirring under Keegan in the early 1990s, at the start of the Premier League era, that helped rouse Leeds, Sunderland and Middlesbrough from their slumber. The North, downtrodden, beaten and suffering from low self-esteem following the loss of the mining and shipbuilding industries, got its swagger back through football.
Relegation is a huge blow for both Newcastle’s neighbours: they only have to look at Leeds to see what can happen if you do not come straight back up. But it is not necessarily a disaster. Sunderland have been through it and have always finished in the top six after relegation, losing twice in the play-offs but securing automatic promotion three times.
On paper, Boro are more than capable of challenging for promotion next season, with owner Steve Gibson declaring that, with the money they will gain from parachute payments, he wants to “smash the Championship”.
“The Premier League needs the North-East clubs to do well,” argued Sunderland manager David Moyes. “The clubs up here arguably have the best support in the country.
“Other managers know as well as I do that it is not always easy to get players to sign for Sunderland, but I think that is because they are put off by the relegation battles rather than scared of living in the North East. It would be very sad if players did not want to play for clubs because they didn’t want to live up here.”
Given that Sunderland’s hugely inflated wage bill – the 10th-highest in the division this season – is largely down to having to offer more money than rivals in order to win transfer battles, Moyes’s optimism may be misplaced.