It was meant to show that derby matches aren’t neccessarily proper rivalries if there is a gulf in quality between the two teams. This makes the example I gave shoddy because 1) There is not that much of a gulf and 2) They are in different cities, unlike York and St John. I should have gone for Arsenal or Chelsea against one of the lesser London teams.

Unfortunately, I believe you have missed the point of my article. Nowhere do I claim that the worst rivalries are between teams in the same city/town. I am not even trying to make any broad, sweeping statement. I don’t talk about national trends in any way - this is a student-written article primarily about York’s rivalries. It is unfortunate that the one outside example I included was probably a poor one.

Please read and understand the whole article in future, instead of jumping on one remark that had little to do with the rest of the article and claiming that I have made a ‘theory’ out of it.

Thank you for your comment