Clubs Rivals

[BarrieOwl]

This is like two bald blokes fighting over the last comb.

 

[Bartonyellow]

Not a million miles from Cheltenham is Worcester. And that has the potential to be a good football club. Has a proud history, and a large city ( albeit mainly rugby ) they could sustain league football.
Currently at step 5 as they dropped down due to their ground. However a few years ago i remember they won at Coventry in the fa cup and took 4000 fans up there.
Gloucester is the same in my opinion. Think they have a new ground now so something to build on. Worcester are further back on their journey.

 

[FGR-Star]

Not a million miles from Cheltenham is Worcester. And that has the potential to be a good football club. Has a proud history, and a large city ( albeit mainly rugby ) they could sustain league football.
Currently at step 5 as they dropped down due to their ground. However a few years ago i remember they won at Coventry in the fa cup and took 4000 fans up there.
Gloucester is the same in my opinion. Think they have a new ground now so something to build on. Worcester are further back on their journey.

Gloucester get about 600 home fans.

They are a badly supported club. Worcester I agree more on though. Although Rugby is played at a high level in the city, Worcester is not obsessed by Egg-chasing in the same way Gloucester is.

I think Worcester could easily support a decent football league club.

 

[Greenacres]

Worcesters egg has sustained a rather large crack, the insides have spilled out and they are addled...there won't be much rugby played in that city for some time.

 

[Si Robin]

Not a million miles from Cheltenham is Worcester. And that has the potential to be a good football club. Has a proud history, and a large city ( albeit mainly rugby ) they could sustain league football.
Currently at step 5 as they dropped down due to their ground. However a few years ago i remember they won at Coventry in the fa cup and took 4000 fans up there.
Gloucester is the same in my opinion. Think they have a new ground now so something to build on. Worcester are further back on their journey.

Worcester's football scene is currently split in two I think. City sold their St George's Lane ground with absolutely nowhere to go to, and they've been struggling since (hence the drop down the leagues). What then happened was a club called Worcester Raiders were formed - I assume they have some backing - started playing at Sixways (the rugby ground) and has basically split the Worcester support.

It's criminal what happened to Worcester City - their old ground was really old school non-league though. I only went there once, in a pre-season friendly, but it was awesome.

 

[Stroud]

Going back to title thread, someone mentioned Tranmere Rovers as a recent rival of FGR. A comment I support.

Since their 1st ever meeting in 2015, just seven years ago, Tranmere v FGR has seen both clubs win home and away against t’other in league while both clubs have beaten the other one in promotion play-offs.

In January this year when FGR & Tranmere were 1st and 2nd in table, FGR secured a 4-0 away win at Prenton Park that announced to the world that FGR were serious promotion candidates.

Always good crowds when they play each other with generally friendly respect by fans towards opposing supporters and some cracking games/results.

 

[FGR-Star]

Worcester's football scene is currently split in two I think. City sold their St George's Lane ground with absolutely nowhere to go to, and they've been struggling since (hence the drop down the leagues). What then happened was a club called Worcester Raiders were formed - I assume they have some backing - started playing at Sixways (the rugby ground) and has basically split the Worcester support.

It's criminal what happened to Worcester City - their old ground was really old school non-league though. I only went there once, in a pre-season friendly, but it was awesome.

Totally agree with you on this.

 

[eric read]

A survey conducted in August 2019 revealed that Cheltenham fans consider fellow West Country sides Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Oxford United and Swindon Town as rivals (FGR not included). But the only club Cheltenham fans sing against is FGR!!

As for the future it looks as if Cheltenham are inching away from relegation while FGR are heading back to Non-League. Dale Vince’s electricity company is up for sale. The energy crisis possibly lessening its profits and preventing him from fully investing in FGR. Plus also he has split from his partner and she might sue him for half his money.

We're not in the fucking West Country. And we couldn't give a toss about Cheltenham.

 

[Si Robin]

We don't give a monkeys about Oxford either to be fair.

 

[thewwfc]

We don’t have any proper rivals - the closest we came was Colchester, vs whom there was some history which I can’t be arsed to go into back in the 90s.

But given that geographically the clubs are miles apart, and we haven’t played each other regularly for a long time, there’s not really enough to sustain the rivalry, and if you’re a younger fan of either club (say under 20), you wouldn’t really have experienced it.

If there’s any ferocious atmosphere that surrounds an Oxford v Wycombe game, then it’s purely composed of people arguing that it isn’t a local derby - and fair enough, OUFC’s rivals are Swindon.

For some Wycombe fans, Franchise is seen as a derby, but the fixture means nothing to me, and I won’t go to those games. I realise my gesture is pretty meaningless but it is what it is.

As time goes on for future generations, their origin story will be forgotten, but not by me. Not trying to reignite the whole debate though as it’s been done to death.

Even if it weren’t for their origins though, I still wouldn’t see it as a derby - MK may be in the same county as Wycombe, but it’s only the 8th closest club to us.

I’ve never been to MK the town - why would you, same as Wycombe - and never really identified with it as somewhere “local”, particularly.

So yeah, a real derby to me is characterised by history, geography, getting to play each other semi-regularly (doesn’t have to be the case, obviously the Bristol derby will always be a derby, for example), and the rivalry being mutual.

On that basis I just can’t see us ever having a proper derby - football is based on traditions, and you can’t just grow these things overnight.

 

[UppaTowen_ITFC]

Every season a "student" comes here with a faux survey for what real reason ?......."an academic researcher working at Loughborough University along with those at UMass (a world-leading sports management university)" ??? If they're "world leading" then they already know this mundane stuff ................anyways, if this article is anything to go by then these University of Massachussetts dorks can go boil their heads https://qoshe.com/the-daily-signal/...s-liberty-university-with-pride-day/146761906 ..............................as an aside , this 'student's mentor has been going at this since before Sept 2021......I think he ought to know all this stuff by now.................... https://www.sportbusiness.com/2021/09/david-b-tyler-umass-the-conflict-and-cash-of-rivalries/ ......... compelling subject to discuss over an awayday prematch pint no doubt

For a university dissertation, you have to have shown you’ve made a clear effort to research the field. So forums such as this are excellent evidence for that. I’ve had to do similar, albeit not on here.

The actual replies are almost irrelevant for the hypothesis but it’s purely about showing you’ve tried to gain research in the right areas.

 

[UppaTowen_ITFC]

This is like two bald blokes fighting over the last comb.

I bet the lad who posted this won’t even check the thread again to find out such in depth discussion that he’s created on the ‘El Glossico’ that is the titans of Cheltenham and FGR. *





*For what it’s worth I go to the Cheltenham Festival every year for the week and love the place. So I always hope to see them as a club doing well. Albeit never quite invisaged us both playing in the same league but that’s neither here nor there.

 

[Si Robin]

We don’t have any proper rivals - the closest we came was Colchester, vs whom there was some history which I can’t be arsed to go into back in the 90s.

But given that geographically the clubs are miles apart, and we haven’t played each other regularly for a long time, there’s not really enough to sustain the rivalry, and if you’re a younger fan of either club (say under 20), you wouldn’t really have experienced it.

If there’s any ferocious atmosphere that surrounds an Oxford v Wycombe game, then it’s purely composed of people arguing that it isn’t a local derby - and fair enough, OUFC’s rivals are Swindon.

For some Wycombe fans, Franchise is seen as a derby, but the fixture means nothing to me, and I won’t go to those games. I realise my gesture is pretty meaningless but it is what it is.

As time goes on for future generations, their origin story will be forgotten, but not by me. Not trying to reignite the whole debate though as it’s been done to death.

Even if it weren’t for their origins though, I still wouldn’t see it as a derby - MK may be in the same county as Wycombe, but it’s only the 8th closest club to us.

I’ve never been to MK the town - why would you, same as Wycombe - and never really identified with it as somewhere “local”, particularly.

So yeah, a real derby to me is characterised by history, geography, getting to play each other semi-regularly (doesn’t have to be the case, obviously the Bristol derby will always be a derby, for example), and the rivalry being mutual.

On that basis I just can’t see us ever having a proper derby - football is based on traditions, and you can’t just grow these things overnight.

Did Wycombe never have a traditional rival when in non-league - say like Aylesbury or someone?

 

[thewwfc]

Did Wycombe never have a traditional rival when in non-league - say like Aylesbury or someone?

Oh yeah, Aylesbury and Slough. So I guess I should say, we don’t have any proper league rivals. But it’s been so long since we’ve played them, even in the local county cup competition, that I’m not sure you can really count them.

 

[GeneralLee]

Club rivalries are historically based on proximity and similarities in performance. Dare I say, I don't feel much towards Swindon. I'm 32, so in my lifetime of supporting OUFC (first game 95/96) we were both competitive near side-by-side before I turned 10 years old. Subsequent to the nineties, we've not for any length of time been in the same division competing at the right end of the table.

I don't mean this as a slight at all, but with Swindon in League Two the rivalry in my view is mostly supporters that were of an age when the rivalry was at its peak. It's hard to sustain a rivalry when both clubs aren't competing in the same division let alone playing one another, for the same reason Reading I don't consider to be anything of a rivalry. Arguably both Oxford and Swindon haven't been all that similar for some time. When we've been faltering in the Conference, Swindon were performing and vice versa ourselves competing in League One playoffs and Swindon struggling in League Two. In 20+ years we haven't played one another consistently at any level for more than a season or two let alone at the same end of the table.

We have played Wycombe far more than Swindon over the last ten years. Whilst I don't consider the fixture a derby, in more recent times we have played at the same level, competed at the top-end of the table so I could see how the next generation of supporters for both clubs may favour Oxford-Wycombe as a derby over Oxford-Swindon in years to come.

 

[valefan16]

Some rivalry’s seem to come and go. Obviously Vale - Stoke is massive for both clubs as it’s a cross city rivalry. The scenes when we played their U23s in the Pizza Cut were nuts. Is nice we’ve been unbeaten against them in 7 or 8 meetings now and won the last El Ceramico at the Brit 20 years ago.

The hatred is intense, recall the day they went down from the Prem our kids got pumped 5-0 at Cambridge and their fans couldn’t understand why we were partying!

That’s the only real hatred.

You have other smaller rivalries, obviously Crewe is local but they seem to hate us more than vice versa but they are one of those clubs in the middle of other bigger rivalries so haven’t got that two way one.

Walsall and Vale had a huge rivalry years ago, many older fans talk about it but anyone under 50 didn’t really experience it… that had risen on the Walsall side after we poached Clarke off them (they went massively bitter despite saying how glad they were he has gone), so much so they doubled their usual Saturday following to us on a midweek last season!

We had a bit of one with Shrewsbury when we first went down to L2. We won there just after relegation in the 96th minute after a shocking run of results and our fans spilled onto the pitch which they didn’t take well and the games after that were petty tense. Ended up with early kick offs but it died off after a few seasons and didn’t note any issues the other week.

Aside from that obviously a large section of Swindon hate us post PO win and some of their behaviour hasn’t gone down well with our fans but obviously we have a year without crossing paths and the very least so may die off, and McKirdy and Garner have left any way!

Teams that are local like Burton and Macclesfield in recent years we’ve always have a general respect for as a decent away day and clubs. In fact we’ve often looked at Burton as a decent example of what can be done and many seem to have a soft spot for.

 

[kieran_vale]

Some rivalry’s seem to come and go. Obviously Vale - Stoke is massive for both clubs as it’s a cross city rivalry. The scenes when we played their U23s in the Pizza Cut were nuts. Is nice we’ve been unbeaten against them in 7 or 8 meetings now and won the last El Ceramico at the Brit 20 years ago.

The hatred is intense, recall the day they went down from the Prem our kids got pumped 5-0 at Cambridge and their fans couldn’t understand why we were partying!

That’s the only real hatred.

You have other smaller rivalries, obviously Crewe is local but they seem to hate us more than vice versa but they are one of those clubs in the middle of other bigger rivalries so haven’t got that two way one.

Walsall and Vale had a huge rivalry years ago, many older fans talk about it but anyone under 50 didn’t really experience it… that had risen on the Walsall side after we poached Clarke off them (they went massively bitter despite saying how glad they were he has gone), so much so they doubled their usual Saturday following to us on a midweek last season!

We had a bit of one with Shrewsbury when we first went down to L2. We won there just after relegation in the 96th minute after a shocking run of results and our fans spilled onto the pitch which they didn’t take well and the games after that were petty tense. Ended up with early kick offs but it died off after a few seasons and didn’t note any issues the other week.

Aside from that obviously a large section of Swindon hate us post PO win and some of their behaviour hasn’t gone down well with our fans but obviously we have a year without crossing paths and the very least so may die off, and McKirdy and Garner have left any way!

Teams that are local like Burton and Macclesfield in recent years we’ve always have a general respect for as a decent away day and clubs. In fact we’ve often looked at Burton as a decent example of what can be done and many seem to have a soft spot for.

Obviously it’s only really Stoke for us. Bloody long time since we played them in a proper Potteries Derby. Same applies to the Bristol derby as well, they are so infrequent (can’t even remember when them two would have last played in the league) it would add to it when the time does come. All I know is the first reaction of the dibble when us and Stoke would play each other was to move it to a lunchtime Sunday kickoff and most of the pubs in the city on lockdown, Bristol no doubt would be similar. Without wishing to diminish the obvious intense hatred of El Glosico there is nothing that quite matches a same city rivalry.

The other ones mentioned are pretty much meh. West Brom can go chew on a bag of dicks though for the 93 playoff final.

 

[valefan16]

Obviously it’s only really Stoke for us. Bloody long time since we played them in a proper Potteries Derby. Same applies to the Bristol derby as well, they are so infrequent (can’t even remember when them two would have last played in the league) it would add to it when the time does come. All I know is the first reaction of the dibble when us and Stoke would play each other was to move it to a lunchtime Sunday kickoff and most of the pubs in the city on lockdown, Bristol no doubt would be similar. Without wishing to diminish the obvious intense hatred of El Glosico there is nothing that quite matches a same city rivalry.

The other ones mentioned are pretty much meh. West Brom can go chew on a bag of dicks though for the 93 playoff final.

We rested that West Brom ghost a few months ago with an almost identical game flipped in our favour…

I was at the last Potteries Derby, crazy to think it’s 20 years ago! Still remember willing Micky Cummins flick header over the line!

Assume Rovers/City would be possibly early 2010s?

As you say a cross city Derby is something else as I’m sure the resident Owls and Rovers fans here would equally testify. Especially at the levels where it’s not sustained top flight rivalries which seem more diluted with say the Manchester or Liverpool ones (can you imagine Vale and Stoke sat together like you see in the Merseyside!)

 

[BarrieOwl]

We rested that West Brom ghost a few months ago with an almost identical game flipped in our favour…

I was at the last Potteries Derby, crazy to think it’s 20 years ago! Still remember willing Micky Cummins flick header over the line!

Assume Rovers/City would be possibly early 2010s?

As you say a cross city Derby is something else as I’m sure the resident Owls and Rovers fans here would equally testify. Especially at the levels where it’s not sustained top flight rivalries which seem more diluted with say the Manchester or Liverpool ones (can you imagine Vale and Stoke sat together like you see in the Merseyside!)

Spot on.

Sky have created so many fake rivalries and hype up games that previously was just another fixture to most folk.

Our rivals are the Blades but like many clubs from within an hour of Sheffield there's a depth of other clubs around the local area and other grudge matches pop up. Before Wednesday got relegated from the PL in 2000 I had wanted to see Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield etc do well till I realised how much they hated us.

 

[UppaTowen_ITFC]

Obviously it’s only really Stoke for us. Bloody long time since we played them in a proper Potteries Derby. Same applies to the Bristol derby as well, they are so infrequent (can’t even remember when them two would have last played in the league) it would add to it when the time does come. All I know is the first reaction of the dibble when us and Stoke would play each other was to move it to a lunchtime Sunday kickoff and most of the pubs in the city on lockdown, Bristol no doubt would be similar. Without wishing to diminish the obvious intense hatred of El Glosico there is nothing that quite matches a same city rivalry.

The other ones mentioned are pretty much meh. West Brom can go chew on a bag of dicks though for the 93 playoff final.

Our rivalry with the Scum can be abit tasty and that isn’t same city (see also Newcastle/Sunderland). Our derby only really gets respect when neutrals get to the game. Can be vicious in and out of the ground. Last time the game was midweek, 28 arrests and 2 stabbings (though the latter is disputed by some). Grim. Sunday 12 o clock kickoffs now unsurprisingly though which is a shame.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Without wishing to diminish the obvious intense hatred of El Glosico there is nothing that quite matches a same city rivalry.

I don't think you realise that one time there was close on a dozen teenagers puffing their chests then running off near a bus stop.

 

[BarrieOwl]

I don't think you realise that one time there was close on a dozen teenagers puffing their chests then running off near a bus stop.

The state of affairs when the brie and cranberry pastries have sold out

 

[Laker]

Our rivalry with the Scum can be abit tasty and that isn’t same city (see also Newcastle/Sunderland). Our derby only really gets respect when neutrals get to the game. Can be vicious in and out of the ground. Last time the game was midweek, 28 arrests and 2 stabbings (though the latter is disputed by some). Grim. Sunday 12 o clock kickoffs now unsurprisingly though which is a shame.

Back in the 70s, my father in law got jumped by a load of Ipswich fans. He didn’t have colours on but they could tell he was from Norfolk rather than Suffolk because of his accent.

Yeah, Norwich and Ipswich don’t like each other very much.

 

[Sh*tOnTheCobblers]

We had a similar “rivalry” with Histon for the three years they were in the Conference with us, but Histon is even closer. It’s really hard being the bigger club in that scenario!

Posh know the 'bigger club feeling as well'...Cambridge get all het up about Posh, but we just see them as akin to the irritating liitle cousin that you have to entertain every few years or so