On a holiday note linking the location of football clubs to what happened at GE2019 & the referendum

On a holiday note linking the location of football clubs to what happened at GE2019 & the referendum


Prospect

CON & Leave areas more likely to be lower down

The above table has been prepared by academics Phil Cowley and Matthew Bailey and appears under the grand title “How football grounds explain the election result” in Prospect Magazine. As they observe:

Premier League clubs are mostly in big cities, and big cities largely return Labour MPs and voted Remain. As you move down the leagues, you get smaller cities and towns, which are more likely to be Conservative and/or Leave-voting.

Indeed, since everyone is talking about the electoral importance of towns at the moment, note that in the top two divisions there are just two clubs with the word “Town” in their title (and none in the Premier League), compared to eight with “City” in their title. Whereas in the bottom three divisions, there are 14 “Town”s, and five “City”s.

We’ve underlined the seats that changed hands on 12th December. There were 13, predominantly in the lower leagues, all but one going from Labour to Conservative. Elections are not won or lost in the sort of constituencies that host Premier League or Championship clubs. Just two changed hands in the top two divisions. These were Burnley (Burnley FC, obviously) and Wolverhampton South West (Wolves, equally obviously).”

Note that it is the location of the ground that matters here so Brighton does not appear Green because its stadium is in a Labour constituency.

For all other explanatory points read full article.

Mike Smithson


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