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Brighton V Palace the closest derbys



mlg57

Active member
Oct 20, 2006
985
Milton Keynes
“Nottingham Forest played Derby on Sunday,” begins Doug Walmsley. “Their head-to-head in major competition is 34 wins to Derby, 37 to Forest with 23 draws. Derby having scored 144, Forest scoring 141. Is there a closer derby record?”

To answer this, first we must define closeness. Clearly it requires both clubs to have won a similar number of all the matches played between them but how important is it that they have also scored a similar number of goals? While clearly adding a little luxurious sheen to the statistics Doug Walmsley quotes, in the Knowledge’s opinion it’s no more than a handy bonus – what we’re really looking for is the smallest difference between the number of wins recorded by rival teams in head-to-head encounters.

So we’ve taken a semi-exhaustive list of the classic rivalries in English and Scottish domestic football, found the teams’ all-time head-to-head records (accepting that in some cases the matches started before the rivalry), worked out the difference between the number of games won by the two teams and expressed it as a percentage of all games won by either team (leaving draws out of it, as they’re even enough already). We’ve then ranked the rivalries by this percentage figure (which we’ve termed the supremacy rating) to find which are the most closely-contested, and which the most one-sided, with the lowest figures indicating the most closely-balanced battles and the highest the most one-sided. We have used all-competition statistics – some might argue that we should only have used the league results, but we think they’d be wrong.

As the questioner suggests, Nottingham Forest and Derby County do have a very well-contested rivalry, with a supremacy rating of just 2.8, but that is only good enough to put them fourth on our list. There are two rivalries that are perfectly poised, with nothing between Crystal Palace and Brighton despite playing 98 matches (they’ve drawn 24 of them) and Fulham similarly conjoined with QPR after 31 games.

How, then, to split these two to decide the most finely-fought derby in the nation? In many ways it would be fairest just to award the honour to the Eagles and the Seagulls for having played more than three times as many games as the two London sides, but in the spirit of the question we’ll go back to goals. In their derby games Fulham have scored 24 times and QPR 17, so the difference between their two tallies (7) amounts to 17.1% of the total; in the M23 derby Palace have scored 139 times and Brighton 131, with the difference between their tallies (8) amounting to just 3% of the total. It is, then, any way you look at it, the closest derby in the land.

British football rivalry wins and ratings


Crystal Palace 37-37 Brighton
Supremacy rating 0

Fulham 13-13 QPR
Supremacy rating 0

Blackburn 41-39 Burnley
Supremacy rating 2.5

Derby 35-37 Nottingham Forest
Supremacy rating 2.8

Bolton 15-16 Wigan
Supremacy rating 3.2

Colchester 28-30 Southend
Supremacy rating 3.4

Sheffield United 45-42 Sheffield Wednesday
Supremacy rating 3.4

Sunderland 49-53 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 3.9

Rangers 160-145 Celtic
Supremacy rating 4.9

Aston Villa 42-38 Birmingham City
Supremacy rating 5

Ipswich 43-38 Norwich
Supremacy rating 6.2

Leeds United 25-29 Huddersfield
Supremacy rating 7.4

Liverpool 64-75 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 7.9

Port Vale 16-19 Stoke
Supremacy rating 8.6

Wrexham 37-31 Chester
Supremacy rating 8.8

West Brom 64-53 Wolves
Supremacy rating 9.4

Middlesbrough 40-49 Newcastle
Supremacy rating 10.1

Cardiff 22-27 Swansea
Supremacy rating 10.2

Watford 28-35 Luton
Supremacy rating 11.1

Brentford 16-20 Fulham
Supremacy rating 11.1

Plymouth 32-25 Exeter
Supremacy rating 12.3

Chelsea 63-49 Tottenham
Supremacy rating 12.5

Nottingham Forest 39-30 Notts County
Supremacy rating 13.0

Middlesbrough 46-60 Sunderland
Supremacy rating 13.2

Everton 66-88 Liverpool
Supremacy rating 14.3

Arsenal 74-54 Tottenham
Supremacy rating: 15.6

Man City 48-68 Manchester United
Supremacy rating 17.2

Bury 24-16 Rochdale
Supremacy rating 20

Blackpool 31-48 Preston
Supremacy rating 21.5

Hereford 9-14 Shrewsbury
Supremacy rating 21.7

Grimsby 47-30 Lincoln
Supremacy rating 22.1

Bristol City 47-29 Bristol Rovers
Supremacy rating 23.7

Dundee 45-75 Dundee United
Supremacy rating 25

Millwall 6-10 West Ham
Supremacy rating 25

Charlton 19-33 Crystal Palace
Supremacy rating 26.9

Hearts 138-79 Hibernian
Supremacy rating 27.2

Manchester United 46-26 Leeds United
Supremacy rating 27.8

Oxford 13-23 Swindon
Supremacy rating 27.8

Portsmouth 9-19 Southampton
Supremacy rating 35.7
 


Dougie

Well-known member
Jan 11, 2012
5,694
We win the important and the memorable ones :clap2:
 












COYP

New member
Oct 1, 2012
503
I'd love to relegate your lot. I'm happy to settle on beating you 2-0 at your gaff in the playoff semi when the majority of your fans were already claiming you were one a half feet in the premiership. That or being the first team to beat you at the Amex in the league. That or being the first team in 25 years to score 5 past you. That or... well you get the picture.

However, I do like that its just more proof that our rivalry is far more important than that of Man utd v City, Newcastle v Sunderland, Fulham v Chelski, Arsenal v Spurs etc.
 


SAC

Well-known member
May 21, 2014
2,532
Real rivalry used to be about winning matches, then it became who could win the fights, then who sings the loudest. Now it's about how many people attend and how comfy the seats are!
 






Vegas Seagull

New member
Jul 10, 2009
7,782
I'd love to relegate your lot. I'm happy to settle on beating you 2-0 at your gaff in the playoff semi when the majority of your fans were already claiming you were one a half feet in the premiership. That or being the first team to beat you at the Amex in the league. That or being the first team in 25 years to score 5 past you. That or... well you get the picture.

However, I do like that its just more proof that our rivalry is far more important than that of Man utd v City, Newcastle v Sunderland, Fulham v Chelski, Arsenal v Spurs etc.

What about your winless run of 10 (ten)?
 


PILTDOWN MAN

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Sep 15, 2004
18,606
Hurst Green
"M23 derby" is such a shite name

It is considering it bears no relevance Brighton's 21 miles from it and 9 miles from Palace
 












Everest

Me
Jul 5, 2003
20,741
Southwick




Everest

Me
Jul 5, 2003
20,741
Southwick
Why would I want to go on there?

Have they counted the two Div 3S cup matches back in the 30s?
 


dougdeep

New member
May 9, 2004
37,732
SUNNY SEAFORD
Why compare Fulham with QPR and not with Chelsea?
 




Del Fenner

Because of Boxing Day
Sep 5, 2011
1,431
An Away Terrace
Props for giving our recent spat with the Albion the limelight, but no mention of our oldest and most geographically relevant rivalry with Millwall. Poor show.
 


Miami Seagull

Grandad
Jul 12, 2003
1,460
Miami Florida, USA
In recent times maybe palace do have the most memorable victories, but for many of us in our 40's and 50's who remember the rivalry in the 70's and 80's that isn't true. BHA dominated the games between the two sides in the late 70's and throughout the 80's with palace failing to win a game at the Goldstone through each of those decades.
 



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