Mapping the Birthplaces of Premier League Footballers: UK's Top-Producing Towns and Cities

Homegrown Premier League Footballers By County, Town, City & Borough | Football Hotbeds

Discover the surprising UK towns and cities nurturing Premier League and EFL talent. Our detailed analysis of 1,437 homegrown footballers showcases the stark geographical spread of budding stars and uncovers untapped homegrown potential in the English football pyramid.

Premier League clubs urged to shop local to save their nearest footballing highstreet.

The English footballing pyramid is one of the most historic organisations in the world. Awash with billions of pounds of money and irresistibly magnetic to the prodigiously talented world over.

Many dream of becoming an elite footballer, playing a game they love and earning staggering sums of money in the process.

There is no doubt that luck plays a major role in youngsters making it as professional footballers. Only 180 of the 1.5 million boys and girls playing organised youth football at any one time, will make it as a Premier League professional. Stark is the commonly accepted 0.012% success rate, more break than make!

And while developing more and better home-grown players is supposedly at the heart of everything that the Premier League, and its 20 top-flight clubs, do, the requirement of at least eight homegrown players out of a squad of 25 could easily be perceived as box ticking.

“He’s one of our own”: is the chant that has come to define football through most of the last decade, but is its pertinence warranted? 

Past all of the romanticism and rich history of four professional divisions comprising 92 clubs, the structure also has a genuine purpose and clear direction. And given the riches now present in the Premier League, player development often takes place in the Championship, League One or League Two.

Lower leagues in the EFL in particular have provided good building blocks for young talents; the likes of Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa, Brentford, Exeter City), Ben White (Brighton, Leeds, Peterborough, Newport County), and Jamie Vardy (Leicester, Fleetwood, Halifax, Stocksbridge Park Steels) developing their trade – helping clubs to improve but also enhancing their chances of first-team football nearer the top of the pile.

So there is a clear path, but is it anywhere near as worn as it could, or should, be?

In all, OLBG’s Football Hotbeds has analysed the birth towns and cities of 1,437 home-grown stars and the results were startling, with 453 of a total 1,186 towns and cities across the UK represented, equating to a 38.19% geographical spread. To be clear that leaves 61.81% of the UK as unharnessed potential.

Highest Producing Town or City for UK Born Premier League or EFL Footballers

The highest producing town or city for Premier League or EFL players is Manchester, the sixth largest English district by population, with 551,938 residents, that has accounted for 40 top-flight stars, or 2.78% of the total British representation.

In second place is Liverpool. The city is also home to two football clubs, Liverpool and Everton and is just one player behind, with a total count of 39. This means 2.71% of players are born in earshot of either Anfield or Goodison Park. 

Sheffield (29), Birmingham (27) and Nottingham (22) make up the top five, as Glasgow and Lambeth share 20 each in joint sixth. Rounding out the top 10 on the list are Warrington (17), Coventry (16) and Leeds (15).

Which London Boroughs Have Produced The Most Premier League or EFL Players?

Top of the league in London is the borough of Lambeth. With 25 representatives, it makes up 9.09% of all players that were born in the English capital. That quarter-century of talent has managed to edge out Southwark, who must make do with second.

21 players were born within the borough of Southwark, 7.64% of all the 275 players that met the London-born criteria. The top two boroughs in our table surpassed 20 in terms of quantity; Lewisham just missed out in third place with 19.

Which Areas of The UK Have Produced The Most Premier League or EFL Footballers?

As revealed above, 275 players were born in London, and therefore, it is no surprise that the amalgamation of all 32 boroughs puts the region at the top of the table. However, if we take the capital out of the equation, it is Greater Manchester which rules the roost. 

London itself represents 19.14% of our data sample; the offering of Greater Manchester’s 113 players is responsible for 7.86%. The North West is undoubtedly a hotbed of English football, as Merseyside is not far behind in fourth.

70 Premier League or EFL players have come from this region; were it not for another nine more, it would have seen Merseyside pip the West Midlands into third. Add Greater Manchester and Merseyside together, and it is the birth region of 203 separate players. 

Then again, one cannot overlook Yorkshire either. For the purposes of the data collection, we have split the country into further regions. The South offers up 48 players; the West is not far behind with 41 of their own. 

Another way we can look at this is by Premier League club representation. If we look at the 20 clubs that finished the 2022/23 season, here is how things look from a homegrown point of view. 

To clarify, this is not saying that 17 players were born in Bournemouth. Instead, it is 17 UK players within the Bournemouth squad. There are 189 in total when looking at this sample and considering there were 1.437 players analysed, it shows how continental the Premier League is these days. 

Just 13.1% of the players plied their trade in the 2022/23 edition of the Premier League, just short of 1 in 7 in terms of ratio for all UK-based players in our data sample. A figure that is likely to erode further as the race to stay top tier only intensifies further.

Unsurprisingly, the more competitive the team, the less reliance on domestic talent. League runners up Arsenal could call upon eight players last year. Champions Manchester City and their crosstown rivals United relied on just seven.

The argument here is that the UK-based stars has more minutes, they would be more beneficial to those clubs chasing the biggest prizes. Then again, the one commodity these team do not have is time and with no time to spare when it comes to the title race, the likes of Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta have a habit of going continental.

Methodology

Player data collected from FBREF and top four English leagues. All players who played in the 2022/23 season and were born in either England, Scotland or Wales. 

Birth Data collected from Wikipedia .

Data correct as of 31st August 2023

Editorial Information

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