Football Study: Where Are the Premier League’s Home Grown Stars Born?

The home grown Premier League star is fast becoming a rare commodity in this day and age, some of the top flight clubs now enlisting only a handful of English born players in their first-team squads per season. Hence why the English grass roots system is all the more precious to the sport and holds the key to the future of the next wave of future international players.

Ticket-Compare ran an independent study to ascertain the geographical backgrounds of each player in the current Premier League season. The results proved that the modern footballer is more likely to be born in Greater London or the North West than in any other area of England, and given that they have the highest concentration of people at eight million, and seven million respectively, the numbers make sense.

Here is a snapshot of the results

Greater London and the North West of England share the highest number of English born players amongst the current Premier League crop with 38, which accounts for a joint total of over 40%.

Names of those born in the Greater London area include Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Jermain Defoe (Sunderland), Chris Smalling (Manchester United) and Mark Noble (West Ham).

The North West is home to Premier League stars such as Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Ross Barkely (Everton), Danny Drinkwater (Leicester) and Peter Crouch (Stoke). This region is placed joint first with London with 38 English born players.

The greatest chasm in the turnout of home grown talent is evident in the West Midlands vs East Midlands. The former boasting a total of 18 English born stars, inclusive of Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool), Troy Deeney (Watford) and Jack Butland ((Stoke); East Midlands has produced the fewest number of of players born in England with seven, a sample of those names are: Simon Francis (Bournemouth), Gary Cahill (Chelsea) and Tom Huddlestone (Hull).

Regional Map of English Born Premier League Stars 2016/2017

Football Study Unveils True Grass Roots Heritage of Premier League Stars (And It’s Not East Midlands…)

An independent study was conducted to analyse the hometown of every current Premier League footballer born in England, which revealed that almost half of the total number of players were born in either Greater London of the North West. Both the London and North West regions account for 38 players each (21%).

The Yorkshire area was placed third as the birthplace of 24 current Premier League stars, this equates to 13% of the overall total.

Not such good news for the South West and East Midlands who fell short in the study; the former can boast of only eight English born players in the modern game and almost three times fewer than the South East.

Likewise, East Midlands (seven players) paled in comparison to its neighbouring region of West Midlands (18 players), finishing bottom of the study and the lowest performing area for producing English Premier League players.

The data was compiled by ticket-compare.com. All 2016/2017 teams were analysed, a total of 177 players were inducted through independent research and official club websites.