Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Derby days, big or small, are all unique

The proximity of the teams involved or the ferocity of the occasion? Maybe the competitiveness of the fixture?

There are so many facets to derby games that judging one ahead of another is a pointless exercise. Sticking purely to the four English leagues, there are qualities in all of them but fans will argue to the last degree about which is the best.

It came to mind this week during filming of a Sky Sports documentary to be broadcast next week called EFL Rivalries – The East Anglian Derby. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, to make a half-hour programme on the rivalry between Ipswich Town and Norwich City, but over the course of our filming I became a convert to a fixture that hadn’t really registered too far into my consciousness.

The Old Farm derby – and not every fan of Ipswich and Norwich appreciates that title – is a relatively new clash, with the first league game not taking place until 1946.

It covers a vast territory – the whole of East Anglia – and there are more than 40 miles between Norwich and Ipswich. It is an inter-county battle too: Norfolk versus Suffolk.

As the two major metropolises in the area, surrounded for miles by rural land, the fixture certainly stands out in a geographical sense.

Derby games between two teams from different cities can be fiercer than ones settled within the city walls. Liverpool against Manchester United this weekend will have a spiteful bite to it, as always.

These are two great northern cities, who share so much in common but have always found plenty to compete over. Liverpool was formerly one of the major ports in Europe whereas the industrial revolution saw Manchester became one of the leading cotton mill centres.

Liverpool was able to impose a trading tax on the raw materials that went into the port before they arrived in Manchester. So when the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, bypassing the need to trade with Liverpool, an economic shift occurred and a rivalry was born.

Few fans will enter the turnstiles with that historical baggage hanging over them but it sparked a civic pride that lingers in their football.

When Sir Alex Ferguson talked of his greatest challenge being ‘knocking Liverpool off their f****** perch’ it was an admission of an obsession that coursed through many at Old Trafford when he first took charge in the 80s and had to watch on as England’s then-most successful club stacked up the trophies at Anfield.

Liverpool against Everton is a more traditional rivalry, a ‘real’ derby as it were, based within the city. But it doesn’t produce the same hatred.

From a personal point of view I haven’t seen a rivalry among the 92 any stronger than the South Wales derby between Cardiff and Swansea. Again, distance seems to add to the intensity, separated as they are by an hour’s travel down the M4.

One infamous incident springs to mind that perhaps sums up the lengths opposing supporters will go to in order to get one over their rivals.

After a 1988 League Cup fixture at The Vetch, where Cardiff had come away with a 2-0 victory, a group of their celebrating supporters were chased across the nearby beach and into the sea before the police intervened.

The ‘Swim Away’ chant often sung by Swansea fans during recent derby fixtures is a slight exaggeration of how far into the water the visiting fans had to retreat, but it does conjure up a bizarre picture.

There is a vicarious pleasure to be gained from watching a derby involving teams you don’t support. I remember working at a Burnley v Blackburn fixture several years ago at Turf Moor and being more pre-occupied with what went on in the stands than the quality of the entertainment on the pitch.

Being able to sit back without a care in the world which team won, yet surrounded by tens of thousands of people whose lives appeared to depend on the outcome, made for an interesting afternoon.

When a whole season can come down to a derby day fixture it really is something special. Bristol Rovers fanzine ‘The Second of May’ was spawned from a famous result for the Gasheads over their arch rivals.

In 1990 the entire campaign boiled down to the outcome of the Bristol derby. Homeless Bristol Rovers met Bristol City at Bath’s Twerton Park, the ground they rented after moving from Eastville, in a winner-takes-all fixture on the final day of the season. At stake was the Division Three title – that’s League One in new money.

Gerry Francis’s Rovers had sold their best players and didn’t have a proverbial pot to take a leak in, whereas Joe Jordan’s City slickers were the favourites for the title.

Twerton Park was packed to the rafters and Rovers ran out 3-0 winners, clinching the title. City were promoted that day too, in second place, but you wouldn’t have known it at full-time as visiting fans tore down hoardings and fencing as Jordan tried to placate them from the side of the pitch.

These are just a handful of the many derbies that enhance the leagues, each with its own history, colour and intensity. But to rank any one as bigger than the other really is a futile exercise.