London...because they have - what - some six clubs in the first two divisions ? Only Buenos Aires comes close. But as far as achieving anything on the European scale, well, not much...
Re: Re: best football city in Europe i no what u mean Millwall being Friendly wot a joke. Rivalry:Celtic/Rangers Football:ACMilan/Inter
Milan, no doubt. Why? because they have two clubs (Inter and AC) in the second round of this champions league. Both of them top the group in the second round. Even in Serie A both teams are top. They are really great this season.
I think the question was what city has the best football tradition, not what city currently has the best teams. I'd say Glasgow. Is there any other city in the world where there are three teams who have had home crowds of 90000? (OK, one of them now regards 900 as a good crowd). The record European crowd of 149,547 (Scotland v England) was also set in Glasgow.
St Mirren and Partick Thistle both enjoy decent sized crowds, St Mirren are in the first division as well.
It has to be London. What other city has 12 professional clubs? Leyton Orient Brentford Watford Millwall Crystal Palace Wimbledon (although not for much longer!) Fulham Charlton Spurs Arsenal West Ham Chelsea
As I said before it also has a population of around 12 million so it has far fewer professional teams per head of population than for example, Manchester or Liverpool. The Greater Manchester region has 2.5 million people and 8 professional clubs: Man Utd Man City Bolton Wigan Stockport Rochdale Oldham Bury The cities of Liverpool and Manchester have populations of around 500,000 yet support 2 professional clubs (Althought strictly speaking Manchester United shouldn't count as they are in Salford, a City in its own right, and hence it's population is not included as part of Manchester proper)
Besiktas Istanbul Galatasaray Istanbul Fenerbahce Istanbul ...derby for first place every week. (not to forget Istanbulspor)
As much as I hate to stick up for London, its population is a long way short of 12 million, I think about 7.5 million. The strange thing is how poorly represented South London is. North London also has in Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea & West Ham four clubs who are traditional top division clubs, while Greater Manchester only has 2. Five of those Manchester clubs are poorly supported, drawing no more (and often less) than London's smallest pro club. Buenos Aires has something like 21 teams, but many of them are very very poorly supported, and many others have fans rattling around in oversized stadiums. The Number of teams doesn't necessarily prove a lot. Budapest has 6 teams (all in Pest as well) but when I was there in August only a couple of hundred Honved fans bothered making the journey to Ferencvaros, and it's only about 3 stops on the metro. I'd love to see how many away fans would travel for a BKV Elore v MTK Hungaria derby though as the two grounds are side-by-side (separated by a narrow road). I wonder if they'd run a coach?
Ok I correct myself. You fans may think I am a glory hunter, but I am not. I like all gret teams. Best city football in Europe London (in terms clubs), because they have four clubs in the premiership plus 8 other clubs in the lower division Milan (in terms of status)- having the two best teams in the world. Best football cities in the world- Sao Paulo, Rio de Janerio and Bueno Aries, these cities have many clubs, some of which have great rivalry.
kanasai100, You are of course entitled to support whatever team(s) you like. But if you only follow 'great' teams or teams that are successful, you will leave yourself open to 'glory-hunter' accusations. Put it this way - I am willing to bet that Real Madrid are not your local team. Now your local team may be of a very low standard - but if your only reason for not supporting them is "because they are not very good", then that puts you firmly in the 'glory-hunter' category, I am afraid. You will find that fans from England are more sensitive than most about this, where there are 92 professional clubs and a very strong tradition of supporting your local side, no matter how small or crap they may be. Of course we have glory hunters too. We call them Man Utd fans.
Central London has a population of just over 7 million but many of the 'London' clubs are in Greater London which has a population of 12 million. Given that Greater London has roughly 1 million people per pro club and Greater Manchester around 312,000 people per pro club it's obvious that the support in Greater Manchester should be significantly lower, however a larger percentage of the population in Greater Manchester goes to games compared with London. Add that to the fact that English football's two most successful teams, Liverpool and Manchester United (not to mention Everton and Blackburn), are within spitting distance of everyone in Greater Manchester then you can understand the supporter drain on the less successful clubs.
London is the greatest football city with Istanbul coming very close after. There are no cities in Europe that come close to them.
From the 2001 census. Pop of central london - 2,765,975. Outer London - 4,406,061, Greater London total - 7,172,036. Don't forget that in London, Manchester is only 200 miles away, causing a natural move towards supporting Man Utd among many of London's population.
Oi!! Make that 13. You missed the mighty QPR off the list. Don't do it again or I'll get angry - and you wouldn't like it when I'm angry. And that goes for the rest of you.