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Most exciting rivalries
Now, don’t be angry: providing for the neutrals doesn’t mean we forgot your favourite rivalry. Some classic clashes just didn’t make the cut. As naughty as Millwall vs West Ham can be, they’ve met all of seven times in 25 years. It’s the same, but even more so, for Southampton vs Portsmouth. Elsewhere, the hard-to-fathom rivalry between Brighton and Crystal Palace brought play-off excitement in 2012-13 but little in the two decades before it.
Off-field shenanigans, both fun and furious, can distract some supporters from the actual football. But not FourFourTwo, because we now present Britain’s best derbies by on-pitch entertainment since 1992.
10. Aston Villa vs Birmingham
The Second City Derby’s proud history began with a controversial win on a dodgy pitch in 1879, and featured a League Cup Final clash in 1963 – won by Birmingham – but in terms of pure entertainment its reputation these days only marginally trumps the Black Country Derby across the way.
While England’s top two levels average around 2.75 goals per game, the Birmingham derby manages a pitiful 2.05 in all competitions since 1992.
Still, the contests are usually close (Villa’s 5-1 hammering of the visitors in 2008 aside) and the rivalry did create a hapless Villan in goalkeeper Peter Enckelman, whose pair of cock-ups, six months apart, gifted Birmingham a league double in 2002-03.
9. Cardiff vs Swansea
Not long ago, this was the most passionate (read: violent) derby in the UK. However, Swansea earned the right in recent years to forget their enemies even exist, while Cardiff focus instead on Severnside Derby matches against Bristol City.
Following skirmishes in the third division, regular meetings in the Championship brought last-minute winners for Cardiff, consecutive red cards for Stephen McPhail and goals aplenty for both sides. Their two Premier League meetings produced a win apiece and a full-back (Swansea’s Angel Rangel) in goal.
8. Derby vs Nottingham Forest
The Brian Clough Trophy regularly changes hands between two teams that are falling a long way short of his achievements. Nottingham Forest – back-to-back European champions under Clough – haven’t been in the top flight since 1998-99. Derby – the club he led to promotion, then the league title – have spent eye-watering sums but continually failed in their bid to return to the Premier League.
Even so, the matches are hard-fought, with only five of the last 22 being settled by more than one goal. Don’t leave early: last season you’d have missed Daniel Pinillos’ 94th-minute Forest equaliser, and in 2015 it would’ve been 20-year-old Ben Osborn slamming home a last-minute winner.
7. Sheffield United vs Sheffield Wednesday
Speaking of underachieving clubs, Sheffield’s finest no longer contest the sort of nationally important derbies that they did in the early 1990s. Until their promotion in 2017, United were outside the top two divisions for the longest period in their 128-year history, while Wednesday have also spent time in the third tier in recent seasons.
It’s almost always a close game, partly as both teams seemingly lack a finishing move. United’s 3-2 Championship triumph in September 2009 – revenge for Wednesday derailing their promotion charge the previous season with a first double for 95 years – had seen the Blades lead 3-0 at half-time. In 1993, a dominant Owls side somehow needed extra time to secure a famous Wembley win against United and reach the FA Cup Final.
6. Dundee vs Dundee United
There’s wish fulfilment, then there’s the Dundee Derby of May 2, 2016. Even Leicester becoming unlikely Premier League champions that same night couldn’t distract United fans from the horrible truth: they’d just been relegated by their rivals thanks to a last-minute goal by boyhood Dundee fan Craig Wighton.
A year earlier, the derby had reached a new – ahem – nadir when United’s Nadir Ciftci bit Jim McAlister on the knee. His agent, Pierre van Hooijdonk (the very same), said: “Nadir told me 1000% he has not bitten the other guy and I believe him 1000%.” Nonetheless, Ciftci was 1000% banned.
Before then, United had enjoyed the better of a derby that always promises goals, including a last-gasp winner in the 2014-15 Scottish League Cup after Dundee had missed a penalty.
5. Newcastle vs Sunderland
Naturally, both sides of this rivalry have their heroes. Shola Ameobi, the Mackem Slayer, was never prolific for Newcastle yet averaged a goal every other game against the enemy. In Sunderland, Fabio Borini seems to wake from his slumber only when Newcastle are in town.
Tyneside legend Alan Shearer scored against Sunderland in his final game, while Kevin Phillips lobbed Shay Given to embarrass Magpies manager Ruud Gullit when he infamously dropped Shearer for a no-mark named Paul Robinson. There’s no shortage of memorable moments.
Tyne-Wear matches are usually lively and almost always close. Historically it’s an even contest, each side having defeated the other 53 times.
4. Celtic vs Rangers
Before Rangers’ abrupt disintegration and reformation, their matches against Celtic had lost some of their sheen. The city giants’ duopoly of Scottish football meant they’d faced each other 98 times in the preceding 20 years, with the 2010-11 season featuring seven derbies in six months. Such regular meetings bored most people living outside Glasgow, and even in the city they felt less special. Familiarity breeds contempt, and there was enough contempt to begin with.
The end to Rangers’ exile two years ago hasn’t immediately changed that, but late winners (for Celtic in October 2016) and dramatic penalty shoot-out triumph (for Rangers six months earlier) have brought back some of the lustre.
3. Everton vs Liverpool
While goals are relatively scarce, the Merseyside Derby still serves up memorable matches. September 2014 featured Phil Jagielka scoring a screamer of pure technique to equalise in second-half stoppage time. A year earlier, spectators were treated to a breathless 3-3 draw with both sides scoring almost immediately and match-winning chances still coming after 95 minutes.
The best of the lot came in April 2001: five goals, 12 bookings, Igor Biscan sent off and Gary McAllister scoring the winner in stoppage time by drilling home an inch-perfect free-kick from fully 40 yards. That’s entertainment.
2. Manchester City vs Manchester United
In the Premier League era alone, two of City’s most memorable derby wins came in less moneyed times, from Shaun Goater inspiring a 3-1 victory in the last derby at Maine Road to 2004’s 4-1 triumph. Neither will United fans forget their 1993-94 team coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2 in the blue part of Manchester.
The past decade has only produced more crackers. There was the 4-3 United win in September 2009 that brought a brief purpose for Michael Owen, who scored a 96th-minute winner. There was Wayne Rooney’s famous overhead (mis)kick in 2011, when the ball came closer to hitting his knee than his boot.
And of course there was City’s 6-1 win at Old Trafford later that year, when Mario Balotelli asked, ‘Why always me?'
1. Arsenal vs Tottenham
Off-field narratives have taken this fixture to a new level, with 2017’s title-chasing, stadium-building, homegrown Spurs outfit underscoring Arsenal’s stagnation. Yet it’s the matches themselves that make the North London Derby a classic.
Predicting the outcomes is a fool’s errand. Tottenham’s 5-1 tonking of the Gunners in the 2007-08 League Cup semi-final second leg followed 21 derbies without a Spurs victory. Neither team has scored more than twice in any of their last 10 meetings, yet there’s been only one goalless draw this century.
The modern North London Derby has everything: two teams fighting at the same level, background stories still unfolding for both clubs, tight contests, exotic talent and local stars. Above all, it has an endless capacity to surprise us. What more could you want?
