Study uncovers the existence of football talent hotspots in England

A recent study into the best current English footballers and those deemed to be the best-ever English footballers has revealed a very real geographical bias from the two groups.

One of the major draws from the study was the power of the North West. As shown by an infographic on Betting.net, 14 of the 53 best English players right now hail from the North West. All 14 of these players went to academies in the area, and three more top players moved to the region to hone their skills.

The study also revealed that the locations of the stars of today are much more widespread than it has been historically. From the top 50 all-time greatest English footballers, a massive 16 come from London, and London academies developed a total of 17 from the top 50.

Within the all-time greats list, London and the North West dominated for hosting the hometown of English legends as well as developing them. The North East also managed to produce a decent amount, with eight coming from the area, but only four developed there.

A trend which remained throughout all-time to the current top batch of footballers was the lack of talent being picked up from the East of England and the South West. These areas appear to have been unable to produce or develop the most elite of English footballers – which is suggested to be the result of a number of socioeconomic reasons.

But, that doesn’t mean that the regions can’t turn their fortunes around. Historically, the South East has been very poor at producing top talent, with only one all-time great from the area and two trained in the region. But, in the current batch of top players, a very sizeable six players are from the South East and nine have been developed there.

Among the many insights uncovered in this study, one ring the loudest: the North West continues to sprout and grow top English talent. Other areas of the country are pushing up their numbers, but the North West remains England’s football talent hotspot.

We decided to run a query on all the English nationals playing int he Premier League in 2017-18 – of which there were 170 in total to see how the information in the survey relates to places of birth.

The results in the table below show counties of birth (where applicable) and regions, confirming the strength of London and the North-West:

Study uncovers the existence of football talent hotspots in England