London is a football hotbed, and it's partly down to infrastructure
ASK any fan from the north and they will tell you the real passion in the game is found in cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. It is true these locations have long been at the heart of the sport and to some extent, the capital city was an underachieving metropolis for many years.
In fact, according to historian and stadium expert Simon Inglis, only Argentina's Buenos Aires can boast a greater football presence. Inglis was speaking at an event at the London Transport Museum, "London and the Beautiful Game", on the importance of an extensive transport infrastructure to the development of football.
Given that on any one weekend, a quarter of a million people could travel to football matches in London, a good network of buses, trains and tube trains is always going to be vital. Indeed, the railways have a far greater influence on football than many people realise.
Some clubs in England have always had strong links with the rail industry, such as Manchester United and Crewe Alexandra, but in London, some football grounds have been built on land previously owned by the railway. Inglis pointed out the phenomenum of the "Y" stadium, a ground that sits in the middle of railway lines on relatively cheap land unlikely to be assigned for house-building.
The spectator experience is that much more enjoyable if a ground is near railway links. Clubs like Arsenal, Brentford, Charlton, Chelsea and Millwall are all in close proximity to a station of some kind.
Space is at a premium in the city, so car-parking is near impossible, so public transport has to play its part in delivering over 30,000 people to the top grounds in London. Curiously, football is one of the few events where people start to leave leave 10 minutes before the end in order to steal a march on a large percentage of the stadium's audience moving in the same direction.
If squeezing thousands of people into railway stations and trains is challenging, building new grounds is a logistical problem. Inglis suggested there is an unmarked overlapping of traditional club territories.
"Travel half a mile from one ground and you almost step into the neighbourhood of another club." With the shift of London's population to new towns and modern developments in post-war Britain under the Abercrombie Plan, London football's birthright fanbase was dispersed across southern England, into Essex, Hertfordshire and other home counties. Hence, many fans of Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham often commute into London for their fortnightly fix, something that would be virtually impossible without the rail system.
Football still has a role in making people from other countries feel part of the community.