Which Premier League Team Travels The Most

In a world where carbon emissions are constantly under scrutiny, the game of football is never ignored and with travel being part and parcel of any league or cup competition, clubs are aware of what they must do to help the environment.

Because with home and away fixtures taking place across nine frantic months of the season, the ability to rack up the miles is one that is afforded to teams both up and down the Premier League table.

When it comes to a Premier League table, we have looked at which clubs have to travel the most per season and by calculating all the postcode data from one club to another, we can now see who is always on the move and who is rather stationary by comparison.

This means without further ado, here is what our miles league table looks like for the upcoming 2023/24 season.

While to the surprise of perhaps not many at all, it is Newcastle who has to log the most miles on the clock once the season has finished and at 4427.6, the Magpies travel 977.4 more than that of Bournemouth in second. 

With St James’ Park being the most northern ground in the Premier League this season, it stands to reason that they must do the most travelling. Then again, putting in the miles has not been an issue for Eddie Howe’s men as Champions League football was secured at the end of the previous campaign. 

Hot on their travelling heels are Bournemouth and with just under 200 miles more to travel than the team that is next on the list, the Vitality Stadium outfit will now be preparing for another tilt at the top flight - albeit with a new manager in charge, as Spaniard Andoni Iraola has been installed. 

Although when it comes to coastal clubs, both the Bournemouth and Brighton coach drivers would have been kept rather busy. Come the end of the season, the Cherries will wrack up 3450.2 miles and the Seagulls 3268.5

LESS TO TRAVEL

When it comes to any league table there are both winners and losers and if we consider that the teams at the top of ours are punished by distance, then those at the bottom can at least have something to celebrate.

Arsenal will be hoping to celebrate winning the 2023/24 edition of the Premier League title but if they fail to reach the top step of English football, they can at least celebrate winning a consolation prize.

The consolation comes in the shape of having to travel the fewest miles by the end of this season. Mikel Arteta’s men will total up just short of 2140 by next May; Aston Villa are second bottom with just 23.6 miles more.

Premier League new boys Luton will not have to travel a great deal compared to Newcastle and Bournemouth. The Hatters will look to stay in the division during their debut stint and must travel 2205.7 miles in the process. 

The Hatters will travel just 8.1 total miles than that of Brentford who find themselves lying 17th in terms of overall distance across the season - one of the benefits of being one of the many London clubs in the division. 

AN AVERAGE BASIS

Of course, we can add further context to this by seeing just how many average miles each club travels on any given awayday in the 2023/24 Premier League season, and with the same data sample, here are the findings.

Ultimately, the order will be the same as the first table. Still, here we can get a better idea of individual travel and with Newcastle putting in 233.03 miles on average for an away day, you know that the Magpies staff put in an incredible amount of effort when leaving St James’ Park.

Here we can also see very little distance between clubs in the Premier League and West London, which offers a perfect example. With Fulham travelling 118.19 miles per away day on average, this is just 1.57 miles more than that of Brentford

Not to mention that there is very little difference when it comes to the two Manchester giants, and with United travelling 142.75 miles per away day on average, this is just 0.72 miles more than that of neighbours City.

Staying on the topic of neighbours, there also little difference when it comes to Merseyside and with Everton travelling 155.59 miles per away day on average, they clock up 1.56 miles more than local rivals Liverpool.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

Now that we know the total and average miles that each Premier League club has to travel on an away day, we can now look at the more extreme ends of the data and see which trips are the shortest and longest per season.

Once again, the same postcode data has been utilised and here we can first look at who has to make the shortest individual away trips.

As you can see, there is some form of duality here and this can be explained by two local rivals playing each other home and away and with Everton and Liverpool the closest neighbours of all, they only have to travel 0.9 miles respectively for the Merseyside derby.

Not to be undone, the Manchester derby is a pretty close affair, and with either outfit travelling 4.2 miles to the other, this is 0.3 miles more than that of the North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham.

However, there are some instances where teams get overlooked, and the perfect example of this is West Ham. They only need to travel 5.9 miles to get to the Emirates, but 11.9 miles to get to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by comparison.

As for exact pairings, there are a handful more in the Premier League as the West London pair of Fulham and Chelsea travel 1.8 miles to each other, and the Midlands duo of Aston Villa and Wolves travel 21.2 miles to either Villa Park or Molineux.

While Bournemouth will be bemoaning the lack of a Southampton trip this season, now their nearest away day is Brighton. They may both reside on the South Coast, but they are a good 97 miles away. 

Worst still for Newcastle, who have to travel 115.9 miles just to play their closest away game. A trip to Burnley's Turf Moor being their nearest away day for 2023/24.

Of course, we can always look at this from the longest individual point of view and with the same data sample, this is what our findings are:

As you can see, it is Brighton and Newcastle who share a joint top position, and this is by having to go from one end of the country to the other and at 348.4 miles between the pair, it is a fair old journey in either direction.

Also, 348.4 miles is the only shared distance between the two clubs, as the rest of the individual most extended trips are a measure of travel to Newcastle, Brighton, or the other Premier League outpost Bournemouth. 

Of the 20 clubs that have competed in the division, 12 of them have a furthest trip to Newcastle, and the other remaining eight, seven are looking forward to a trip to the beach and a subsequent visit to Brighton., the other is taking their bucket and spade to Bournemouth. 

The Cherries and their local rivals, Brighton will have to travel more than 300 miles to reach St James’ Park this season. By comparison, Wolves’ longest journey to the same ground will be only 204.5 miles long. 

Finally, to bring it all back to a total figure and when combining all of the 20 Premier League clubs for this season, there would have been 53706.4 miles travelled by the time the final ball of the campaign was kicked. 

Whether that is by coach, air, or even train, there is a considerable amount of distance covered in any single season and if you are a supporter who follows your team on the road every other week, then hats off to you as well.

Distance data was collected from Google on August 14th 2023.

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Meet The Author

Researched and written by Dan Tracey ahead of Publishing by Steve Madgwick

Dan Tracey 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 - there's no shortage of areas where his expertise shines through! In addition he can be heard on podcasts lending an insightful voice as well as providing weekly betting angles - all culminating with him teaming up OLBG.com in the present day. Simply put: wherever you find angled data being crunched? You'll also likely find Dan not far behind!