The Reign of Champions: Tracing England's Most Dominant Football Teams

With Manchester City lifting the Premier League crown at the end of the 2022/23 season, the honour of champions has been handed out on 124 separate occasions. From Preston North End’s invincible season in 1889 to Pep Guardiola’s all-stars 134 years later.

The Etihad outfit may be the current champions of England, but their recent wave of success in the past decade gets nowhere near to crosstown rivals United. The Red Devils have won double that number of titles and another two for good measure.

20 league crowns at the Theatre of Dreams, 13 of those were won by Sir Alex Ferguson and his most crowning moment must have been when the Old Trafford finally surpassed Liverpool’s then record tally of 18.

A tally that has since been added to by Jurgen Klopp and with the Merseyside men having won the Premier League at the end of the 2019/20 season, their celebrations will be best remembered for being rather muted. 

Covid-19 for title 19 and as much as success should be celebrated in any form, there is always a sense that the Liverpool supporters were denied the chance to truly show appreciation towards their footballing heroes.

Then again, many heroes have been fortunate to get their hands on either the Football League First Division trophy (as it was up to including 1992) or the Premier League crown since and now we are going to look at what region of England has been the most dominant. 

First we will look at the list of English champions and the number of times each club has finished top of the shop: 

League Titles by Club

As we mentioned earlier it is Manchester United who rule the individual roost, with Liverpool just one league title behind. From there it is Arsenal who find themselves stuck on the rather unlucky 13, as Everton and Manchester City share fourth with nine titles each.

This may show dominance in isolation, but how does it look when geographical rivals have to work together?

With the same data, we can now look at league winners by county:

Englands Top Football Regions

Just as before, it is Greater Manchester that has pipped Merseyside to the post. This time United and City have joined forces to lift 29 league titles – just under a quarter of all English top-tier champions to date. 

20 for United, nine for City but just enough to keep local rivals Merseyside at bay. The combined powers of Liverpool and Everton chipped in with 19 and nine respectively and are responsible for 22.58% of all champions.

Next in the list is London and this is the first region that has shown more in the way of teamwork. Their 21 overall titles sees Arsenal supply 13, Chelsea six and then Tottenham adding another two to the list. More teams as champions but only 16.94% of the full data sample.

If you were to add Greater Manchester and Merseyside together, they would be responsible for 57 of the 124 champions – 45.96% of every prize that has been climbed and reinforcing the notion that the North West is a hotbed for English football. 

Best of the Rest

Only three counties or geographical regions have won 20 titles or more, the next two regions in the list have only won 11 each. Here the West Midlands and Yorkshire find themselves finishing joint fourth in the table.

The West Midlands supply their champions from Aston Villa, Wolves and West Brom. Yorkshire’s 11 comprise of Sheffield Wednesday, Huddersfield, Leeds and Sheffield United. You have to go back to 1981 for the last time the West Midlands were top (Aston Villa), it is 1992 for Yorkshire (Leeds)

The region of Tyne and Wear makes up 10 wins overall and although Newcastle may have the riches these days, it is Sunderland who are responsible for six league titles – the Magpies having to make do with four but will look far more likely to add to their tally sooner.

We mentioned that the North West is a hotbed for English football, we have not even referenced the county of Lancashire yet. The historical might of Preston North End, Blackpool and Blackburn have been responsible for seven titles in the county. The last being Blackburn’s in 1995.

If you were to fuse Greater Manchester and Lancashire together, this extended region would be responsible for 36 title wins or 29.03% in total. Then again, it only looks like a team from Manchester will be crowned as English champions in the future.

You have to go back to the past to see when Hampshire and Derbyshire were the dominant counties in English football. Both Portsmouth and Derby have won two titles – the former at the end of the 1940’s and the start of the 1950’s, the latter seeing their success come about in 1972 and 1975.

From there, it is the counties who have had single success. Here it is the trio of Suffolk, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire which round of the list. Ipswich, Nottingham Forest and Leicester have all climbed the summit once, it may be a long wait for these regions to win again. 

Editorial Information and Methodology

All data was gained from 

https://www.myfootballfacts.com/world-football/world-football-league/list-of-english-football-champions/

Correct as of 7th September 2023

Who Wrote this Article?

This article was researched and fact-checked by Dan Tracey who also then added the words - Dan is a multi-talented writer, data analyst and podcaster whose six-year career in the sports data sphere has seen incredible successes. From helping UEFA create their annual technical reports to writing articles for Sports Betting Websites, including sites like TheLinesUS and Goal