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Okay so today I wanted this quick way to see where all the Premier League teams hang out and figure out who hates who nearby. Ain’t nobody got time for scrolling tables and Wikipedia deep dives when you just wanna know who’s Chelsea’s real rival down the street, right?
The Big Idea
Started simple. Get a map. Pin the teams. See the pins close together. Boom. Derbies found. Also thought maybe color-coding for the fierce rivals would be neat, like red pins or something. Figured I could just steal – um, borrow – stadium coordinates online.
Finding the Data (The Annoying Part)
Thought finding stadium addresses would be easy. Wrong! Typed “Premier League teams stadium locations list” like a madman. Found one, but it was messy:
- Some addresses were incomplete.
- Coordinates in weird formats.
- Missing like three new teams that just got promoted. Typical.
Spent way too long copy-pasting and correcting this stuff into a basic spreadsheet. Columns: Team Name Stadium Town/City Latitude Longitude Main Rival (maybe). Forgot how Luton was even spelled for a hot minute.
Choosing the Map Thing (More Annoyance)
Opened Google My Maps first. Seemed okay, kinda clunky though. Dropped my first pin for Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. Cool. Added Tottenham’s ground in North London. Noticed they were super close together on the map. Thought “Ooh, North London Derby right there!”.
Then I tried adding Man City and Man United. Plopped them both in Manchester. Even closer pins! Felt kinda clever just seeing that physical proximity.
But then… wanted more. Just pins wasn’t enough. Needed more context. Clicked around. Found how to add labels. Decided to label each pin with just the club name – short and sweet. Tried making the pin icons the club badges. Nope. Too much work. Settled for boring generic pins. Made the North London pins red. Made the Manchester pins red.
Scrolled around London. Saw Chelsea, Palace, West Ham, Brentford, Fulham… all piled up! Put a red dot on Chelsea vs Spurs too because that’s a nasty one. Felt like I was really finding things just by moving the map around.
Hit a snag with Newcastle and Sunderland. Sunderland ain’t even in the Prem this year! Had to stick a note near Newcastle’s pin saying “Rivals: Sunderland (Usually!)”. Messy.
What Worked (Kinda)
The absolute best part was just dragging the map around. Seriously. Spotting clusters in London, Manchester, Liverpool? Instant understanding. Seeing Villa and Wolves kinda close? Not a huge derby but still interesting. It clicked way faster than reading lists.
- London is Packed: Zoomed into London and was like “Whoa!”. Teams everywhere.
- Manchester Double Act: Seeing just Man City and Man United’s grounds basically on top of each other was clear as day.
- Merseyside Split: Everton and Liverpool aren’t that far, makes sense.
- Midlands Muddle: Villa, Wolves, Forest… bit of a group.
Adding those red pins for the big hated rivalries helped visualise the hate.
What Sucked
Loads of stuff sucked big time.
- Finding and cleaning the data was a proper chore. Hated every minute of copy-pasting.
- Google My Maps felt slow and limited. Customizing stuff beyond simple pins? Forget it.
- The promoted teams always mess things up. Gotta remember to update this thing next season.
- Biggest problem? Historical rivals who aren’t geographically close! Like Man United vs Liverpool. Or Arsenal vs Man United. They’re miles apart! My map didn’t show that hate at all. Just looks like two random teams far away. My system kinda broke there.
Also, just relying on “close pins” missed stuff like Brighton vs Palace – it’s fierce but the towns ain’t that crazy close on a national map.
So… Was it Useful?
For a super quick gut check? Yeah, actually. Dragging the map around really hammered home where the local derbies come from. The geography makes it obvious why Arsenal and Spurs scrap so much. Or why Tyne-Wear is intense when Sunderland’s around. The big gaps down south help explain why Bournemouth or Brighton ain’t got an obvious local rival in the league right now.
But it ain’t perfect. Missed a ton of the bigger, non-local rivalries that come from history, not postcodes. Also, the setup was a faff. If you just wanna see the clusters for 5 minutes, it’s cool. For anything deeper, like why United hate Liverpool? Gotta go read some grumpy old fan’s blog instead. The map shows the ground wars, not the century-long feuds.