The Premier league restarts tomorrow!
But what would happen if everyone forgot about past attachments and lower league teams, and simply supported the Premier League team whose ground they live closest to?
A map-based thread 1/n
Daniel Timms
592 posts
Daniel Timms
@djstimms
Editor and journo at Mill Media. Data fan. Shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award 2026.
Sheffield
Joined March 2014
- Could we have a proportionally representative parliament… *and* keep "one constituency, one MP" *without* needing lots of "top-up" MPs to make up the numbers? Yes! Introducing Best Fit Proportional Constituency Allocation (BFPCA). Here's how it works… 🧵
- Replying to @djstimmsIf there was a Premier League by land area, it would look like this. Wolves do very well from closeness to Wales. Bournemouth’s grip of the South West takes them to second. The London teams are floundering 4/n
- Replying to @djstimmsIn terms of fans, Bournemouth take it by a whisker, the combination of Bristol & Cardiff edging out Leeds. More than 10x Fulham. London clubs split - some get population boost (esp West Ham 16th -> 5th), others not. Wolves lose top, sadly realise mid-Wales is basically empty 6/n
- Replying to @djstimmsIn GB, Johnson's Conservatives won 45%, so they get 283 seats. Labour (33%) get 209. Lib Dems 76, SNP 26, Greens 18, Brexit Party 14, Plaid Cymru 4, which just leaves one seat for THE YORKSHIRE PARTY (0.1% of vote) (excluding NI for brevity and simplicity, as no party overlap)
- Replying to @djstimmsPremier league grounds are not evenly distributed. Concentrations in London, the North West (Anfield and Goodison Park are 1km apart), and South Coast. None in East Anglia, most of the South West, or Wales (where teams could play in PL but currently don’t) 2/n
- Replying to @djstimmsIn 2019, just over three quarters of constituencies would still have got their first choice. Almost all the rest get their second. 5% get their 3rd choice, and 1% get their 4th. And there's just one seat which gets its 5th choice... you guessed it, it's the Yorkshire Party
- Replying to @djstimmsAnd MPs actually have to work *harder* for their areas, as they need to maximise vote share, not just get more votes than the next party. It strips out safe seat complacency.
- Replying to @djstimmsBut of course, land doesn’t support teams, people do. And the population of the UK is also not evenly distributed. This map shows the national population density. Some heavily populated places have plentiful PL clubs (London, Manchester) but not all do (Bristol, Sheffield) 5/n
- Replying to @djstimmsAnd this is what the world map looks like. North America for Everton, South America for Bournemouth. Newcastle take Scandinavia. Russians are dedicated Hammers. But Brighton definitely have the most fans. India, China, most of Africa... no contest
- Replying to @djstimms… and the @Conservatives get the rest. By now, you'll have noticed the... *ahem*... quirk in the system: in any constituency the candidate who got the most votes doesn't necessarily get elected... BUT MOST OF THE TIME THEY ACTUALLY DO ...
- Replying to @djstimmsSo why is this a better system than First Past the Post? 🏇 When someone votes they could be doing one (or both) of two things: 1) Supporting a local candidate 2) Supporting a national party FPTP is only designed for 1). If your fave party are small locally, tough - vote wasted
