The M69 Derby

This weekend I watched Coventry City FC vs Leicester City FC in the “M69” derby (formerly the “A46” derby). It was a great game, but I’ve always found the name a bit odd, but then it isn’t the only football match referred to by a road name, but there seems to be no consistent reason why we do or do not.

Since the naming of these derbys is essentially arbitrary I’ve decided that a match between two teams is the “something” derby if more than half the journey (by road) between the two teams stadia is on one road.

For all English Premier League, Championship, League 1, League 2 and Scottish Premier League teams that results in the following matrix of derby names

Which gives rise to a lot of potential derby’s, most of which would be called the “M1” or “M6” derby. To narrow it down, only unique road matches will be called derby’s (e.g. the only appearance of the M69 in the table is between Cov and Leicester; green in the previous image).

• The A19 Derby: Newcastle United v Middlesbrough
• The A23 Derby: Brighton & Hove Albion v Crawley Town
• The A4040 Derby: Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion
• The A59 Derby: Harrogate Town v Accrington Stanley
• The A6010 Derby: Manchester City v Salford City
• The A630 Derby: Sheffield United v Rotherham United
• The A66 Derby: Middlesbrough v Carlisle United
• The M23 Derby: Crystal Palace v Crawley Town
• The M27 Derby: Southampton v Portsmouth
• The M55 Derby: Blackpool v Preston North End
• The M69 Derby: Coventry City v Leicester City

The Tees–Wear derby between Middlesbrough and Sunderland has been called the A19 derby, but our research shows it would be better for Newcastle v Middlesborough. Also the “M27 Derby” as defined above between Southampton and Portsmouth is more commonly called the South Coast Derby.

If you want to download the Spreadsheet with all the data in, it is available here.