The Premier League has not exactly been a golden age for either Liverpool or Everton.
While the Anfield outfit has twice finished runners-up since the rebranding of the top flight in 1992, the best their Goodison neighbours have managed during the last 19 years is fourth place.
It’s a far cry from the 1980s when Merseyside ruled the roost. But there is one league table in which the city can still claim to be champions.
A recent study has discovered the city of Liverpool has produced more top-flight footballers than any other English provincial city during the Premier League era.
The tally of 62 players who have gone on to appear in the elite division of English football betters the 55 from second-placed Birmingham and the 42 who have come from down the East Lancs Road in Manchester.
Players such as former Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler, Everton defender Tony Hibbert, Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney and Newcastle United midfielder Kevin Nolan are among those to have emerged from the city.
Boffins at the Cambridge-based website TrueKnowledge.com, who use specially-designed software to search the internet for questions asked by users, analyzed the 1,383 English-born players who have appeared in the Premier League.
Merseyside was ranked third when statistics for counties were assessed, producing 6.59 players per 100,000 of its population, which was less than North Yorkshire (7.69) and leaders County Durham (8.70).
Liverpool may have lost to Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals yesterday, but there is still plenty of encouragement in the Academy ranks on both sides of Stanley Park.
Everton are top of the FA Premier Academy League Group C division with their neighbours in fourth, 10 points behind with three games in hand and a goal difference of 21 which is two more than Everton and considerably better than everyone else in the 10-team North West section.
And Everton Academy coach Neil Dewsnip says: “It is great that the two teams are at the top of their section. It is good for both clubs and the city.
“Hopefully it will carry on to the end of the season. It is not quite the first teams, but it is still good for everyone.”
On Liverpool having produced the most Premier League players, Dewsnip adds: “It is massive pat on the back to the raw quality here. And also a good sign for both clubs and Tranmere as well.
“Football is a big part of life here and it is great to see so many doing well. They don’t all make it here, but it shows they get a good grounding and can go elsewhere and still do well.”
The study was headed by TrueKnowledge programmer and Liverpool fan Matthew Mason in response to a conversation with his colleagues one day.
And he agrees with Dewsnip that the fact football plays such a central role in Liverpool city life largely explains why so many footballers emerge from its boundaries, support passed down through the generations.
“That has got a lot to do with it,” says Mason. “If you are a big football fan yourself it has got to be your dreams to have your kids playing for your team.”
Of the idea for the survey, he adds: “It started when we were having a discussion about where the hotbeds of footballing talent were in England.
“I am pleased with the result. I am not too sure that Liverpool can lay much claim to any sort of victory at the moment, but we will take anything we can get.”
To ensure a fair comparison, only footballers born within the boundaries of the City of Liverpool were included in its total, and not those from neighbouring Merseyside boroughs such as Sefton, St Helens or Knowsley, which meant the likes of Kirkby-born Leighton Baines and Billinge-born Leon Osman did not count towards the city’s total.
Surprisingly, Liverpool’s Scouse heartbeat of Jamie Carragher (born in Bootle, which is in Sefton) and Steven Gerrard (born in Whiston and brought up in Huyton, both of which are in Knowsley) are also not included in the city’s 62-player count.
But the same strict boundary rules were applied to Manchester and Birmingham, and were why London – with a population of more than seven million – was broken down into boroughs, the leading of which is Lambeth.
The research also discovered those English counties in the bottom half of the country’s median weekly wage table more often than not produced the most Premier League footballers.
County Durham is one of England’s poorest counties with a median weekly wage of £419.90 – only Cornwall, with £408.60, has a lower figure – Merseyside’s is £452.60.
The exceptions are London and Berkshire, which have both produced a large proportion of top-flight footballers and have higher median weekly wages of £598.20 and £569 respectively.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sport business strategy and marketing at Coventry University, believes there could be two main reasons for Berkshire’s appearance in the top 10 – despite npower Championship side Reading, who have spent just two years in the English football’s top-flight in their 140-year history, being the county’s only professional football club.
“One explanation for this could be that football has much broader appeal and reach than might have been the case in previous decades,” says Chadwick.
“It may nevertheless also indicate that Premier League football is becoming a career option and a sport that is potentially appealing much more to a middle-class audience.
“As such, one might conclude that the socio-demographic composition of Premier League players has changed somewhat over the last two decades.”
Without putting any restrictions on the data, London (322 players) comes out as the county where most Premier League players have been born, with Greater Manchester (115) second and West Midlands (96) third.
And Trueknowledge.com founder, William Tunstall-Pedoe, says: “If our data helps Premier League scouts uncover the next generation of Rooneys, Gerrards and Beckhams and years from now England win the World Cup thanks in some small part to our data, it would be fantastic.”
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