HomeUnited KingdomDo the East and West Midlands have any kind of rivalry or separate identities from each other? Or are the two halves of the Midlands quite united?
Do the East and West Midlands have any kind of rivalry or separate identities from each other? Or are the two halves of the Midlands quite united?
September 24, 2024
Do the East and West Midlands have any kind of rivalry or separate identities from each other? Or are the two halves of the Midlands quite united?
by Dragonfruit-18
15 comments
I don’t really think the West Midlands exists. You have the Welsh Marches and the Black Country. Staffordshire, meanwhile, I’d consider pretty much the same as most of the East midlands.
On the other side, Lincolnshire is an oddity which doesn’t fit the rest of the EM (but is welcome).
I don’t feel any Midlands solidarity really, definitely not in the way that northerners are said to.
Also Birmingham is enormous and a shit hole so I wouldn’t imagine residents of Ross-On-Wye would feel solidarity with them even within their own half! East Mids is definitely more balanced.
I’ve always lived on the border. Grew up in West Midlands, now live in East Midlands. Never experienced any sort of rivalry. If anything, there’s more rivalry between areas within each region (I.e. Birmingham vs Black Country or Notts vs Derby vs Leicester).
If course, we’re all united by the rest of the country thinking we don’t exist. Southerners think we’re dirty northerners, northerners think we’re softy southerners.
I live in Nottingham. I identify as an East Midlander. I think I’d probably identify as a Mercian before I identified as a midlander. I do not think about the West Midlands at all, except when people from outside the region tell me I’m from the midlands.
Zero rivalry between east and west midlands. East midlands has its own rivalries between Derby and Nottingham and Leicester thinks it has a rivalry with both. Places like Northampton and Lincoln don’t even feel like the east midlands.
The west midlands is basically a load of Brummies fighting the black country and everything else is desolate wasteland
no, no unity at all with the west midlands except, “least we arnt southeners”, theres barely unity within the east midlands itself.
Nottingham, Derby and Leic, are probably the closest in any form of cultural history, coal, textile, farming.
and I think of these when it comes to the east midlands.
granted when it comes to football they hate each other
Lincoln is cool they are just not in contact much, like a distant brother
Remove these from being in the east midlands and we are culturally more like the Northeners due to history and connection to the Danelaw / 5 boroughs / industry and dialects (A toned down version of south yorkshire least with older people in north Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and north Lincolnshire).
Northampton is the black sheep and comes across as southern in culture, and does anyone think about Northampton from the midlands, no not really.
Edit: why dont we, the bigger midlands, Simply eat the west midlands?
Double edit: Rutland, beautiful place, pretentious as fuck, southern culturly
Nah no rivalry at all between us. There’s also not too much of a cultural identity to the region as a whole, certainly not in most of the east midlands anyway. People from Derbyshire would see more similarities between them and people from Staffordshire than they would people from Northamptonshire or Lincolnshire.
There’s no rivalry but it’s chalk and cheese in terms of identity. The west midlands- certainly around the black country have their own distinct customs and dialect, with the further west seeming more In line with Wales/ Somerset etc.
The east Midlands is completely different in terms of accent and customs- feeling more northern centric- our accents are not too dissimilar to that of south Yorkshire for example. The counties that make up the east Midlands were once part of the viking Danelaw so that makes sense.
My county of Derbyshire borders Yorkshire, Cheshire, Nottingham, Staffordshire and Leicestershire but much of our lives are focused on the Nottingham and Leicester borders in terms of transport links, local cities to visit, shopping, work etc. I don’t see a great deal of trade and transport between Staffordshire and the west Midlands, as we do with the others.
They’re pretty much isn’t Midland pride or anything like that. Different places feel like North like Derbyshire and other places feel like the South like Northamptonshire. In general the counties have much stronger regional identities than the general Midlands identity. I feel like I’ve got more in common with Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire than Leicestershire or fucking N*ttingham.
I’m a blow in to Lincs, and thus a Midlander. I feel massively more solidarity with Brum and its environs having started taking international cricket seriously – no crowd in England supports as hard as the gang at Edgbaston.
In contrast, I’d be happy for Derbyshire to disappear completely.
The West often forgets the East Midlands exists and thinks anything around Brum is the midlands. The East Midlands don’t really distinguish between the East and West. Most wouldn’t really be able to tell you where the East ends and the West begins and vice versa.
Some facts for you..
West Midlanders (Birmingham inparticular) sound ridiculous and are a complete tier unto themselves with most depressing accent. The East Midlands is bossed by Leicester, followed by its smaller sister cities of Nottingham and Derby, both of which think Leicester has a footballing rivalry with them born out of the fact Leicester fans love to better them. In actual fact Leicester fans enjoy far more to shit on Coventry City who are all a bunch of inbred chavs from just down the road. People north of the River Trent in Nottingham start talking like they’re from up norf’ and is seen as the true north/south divide in England, and Derby is a car park surrounded by incredibly beautiful countryside enjoyed by the rest of us.
Hope this helps somewhat.
One side’s Danish, the other’s Welsh. One side has Robin Hood, the other Lady Godiva. One side Duck, the other Bab.
In all seriousness though, the people of Ross-on-Wye and Mablethorpe seldom think about each other. Likewise with the people of Oswestry and Boston, Glossop and Shipston, or Evesham and Retford. There’s certainly no animosity between the two sides, though, if anything, they each (unintentionally) claim to be the de facto Midlands and forget the other exists, but that’s about it. It’s mainly the cities and towns that have rivalries (Derby/Nottingham/Leicester, Coventry/Birmingham/Wolverhampton, etc.).
Not a rivalry and not united
Leicestershire, Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire don’t even think of the West Mids
Mind, they don’t even think of Lincolnshire and Northampton as being EastMids
To the East Midlands, the WM is no different than any other territory like south west or north east
Born in Birmingham, have family in Northampton and went to uni there. Worked in Derby and Nottingham and I currently live in Oldbury in Sandwell (The Black Country). From personal experience, and putting football/sporting loyalties to one side, The West Midlands as a conurbation is united, but the wider East Midlands are quite disparate and have more insular localised identities. Putting Northampton, Milton Keynes, with Derby and Nottingham is very much like chalk and cheese. Sandwell and Birmingham, have separate identities but to many people outside of the area they seem interchangeable and often people just go with that. If you were to go purely by that map the WM includes Hereford, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and so there needs to be a distinction of the collection of counties which are in the west of the midlands, and that is different from the West Midlands which a conurbation of Birmingham,and Sandwell.
15 comments
I don’t really think the West Midlands exists. You have the Welsh Marches and the Black Country. Staffordshire, meanwhile, I’d consider pretty much the same as most of the East midlands.
On the other side, Lincolnshire is an oddity which doesn’t fit the rest of the EM (but is welcome).
I don’t feel any Midlands solidarity really, definitely not in the way that northerners are said to.
Also Birmingham is enormous and a shit hole so I wouldn’t imagine residents of Ross-On-Wye would feel solidarity with them even within their own half! East Mids is definitely more balanced.
I’ve always lived on the border. Grew up in West Midlands, now live in East Midlands. Never experienced any sort of rivalry. If anything, there’s more rivalry between areas within each region (I.e. Birmingham vs Black Country or Notts vs Derby vs Leicester).
If course, we’re all united by the rest of the country thinking we don’t exist. Southerners think we’re dirty northerners, northerners think we’re softy southerners.
I live in Nottingham. I identify as an East Midlander. I think I’d probably identify as a Mercian before I identified as a midlander. I do not think about the West Midlands at all, except when people from outside the region tell me I’m from the midlands.
Zero rivalry between east and west midlands. East midlands has its own rivalries between Derby and Nottingham and Leicester thinks it has a rivalry with both. Places like Northampton and Lincoln don’t even feel like the east midlands.
The west midlands is basically a load of Brummies fighting the black country and everything else is desolate wasteland
no, no unity at all with the west midlands except, “least we arnt southeners”, theres barely unity within the east midlands itself.
Nottingham, Derby and Leic, are probably the closest in any form of cultural history, coal, textile, farming.
and I think of these when it comes to the east midlands.
granted when it comes to football they hate each other
Lincoln is cool they are just not in contact much, like a distant brother
Remove these from being in the east midlands and we are culturally more like the Northeners due to history and connection to the Danelaw / 5 boroughs / industry and dialects (A toned down version of south yorkshire least with older people in north Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and north Lincolnshire).
Northampton is the black sheep and comes across as southern in culture, and does anyone think about Northampton from the midlands, no not really.
Edit: why dont we, the bigger midlands, Simply eat the west midlands?
Double edit: Rutland, beautiful place, pretentious as fuck, southern culturly
Nah no rivalry at all between us. There’s also not too much of a cultural identity to the region as a whole, certainly not in most of the east midlands anyway. People from Derbyshire would see more similarities between them and people from Staffordshire than they would people from Northamptonshire or Lincolnshire.
There’s no rivalry but it’s chalk and cheese in terms of identity. The west midlands- certainly around the black country have their own distinct customs and dialect, with the further west seeming more In line with Wales/ Somerset etc.
The east Midlands is completely different in terms of accent and customs- feeling more northern centric- our accents are not too dissimilar to that of south Yorkshire for example. The counties that make up the east Midlands were once part of the viking Danelaw so that makes sense.
My county of Derbyshire borders Yorkshire, Cheshire, Nottingham, Staffordshire and Leicestershire but much of our lives are focused on the Nottingham and Leicester borders in terms of transport links, local cities to visit, shopping, work etc. I don’t see a great deal of trade and transport between Staffordshire and the west Midlands, as we do with the others.
They’re pretty much isn’t Midland pride or anything like that. Different places feel like North like Derbyshire and other places feel like the South like Northamptonshire. In general the counties have much stronger regional identities than the general Midlands identity. I feel like I’ve got more in common with Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire than Leicestershire or fucking N*ttingham.
I’m a blow in to Lincs, and thus a Midlander. I feel massively more solidarity with Brum and its environs having started taking international cricket seriously – no crowd in England supports as hard as the gang at Edgbaston.
In contrast, I’d be happy for Derbyshire to disappear completely.
The West often forgets the East Midlands exists and thinks anything around Brum is the midlands. The East Midlands don’t really distinguish between the East and West. Most wouldn’t really be able to tell you where the East ends and the West begins and vice versa.
Some facts for you..
West Midlanders (Birmingham inparticular) sound ridiculous and are a complete tier unto themselves with most depressing accent. The East Midlands is bossed by Leicester, followed by its smaller sister cities of Nottingham and Derby, both of which think Leicester has a footballing rivalry with them born out of the fact Leicester fans love to better them. In actual fact Leicester fans enjoy far more to shit on Coventry City who are all a bunch of inbred chavs from just down the road. People north of the River Trent in Nottingham start talking like they’re from up norf’ and is seen as the true north/south divide in England, and Derby is a car park surrounded by incredibly beautiful countryside enjoyed by the rest of us.
Hope this helps somewhat.
One side’s Danish, the other’s Welsh. One side has Robin Hood, the other Lady Godiva. One side Duck, the other Bab.
In all seriousness though, the people of Ross-on-Wye and Mablethorpe seldom think about each other. Likewise with the people of Oswestry and Boston, Glossop and Shipston, or Evesham and Retford. There’s certainly no animosity between the two sides, though, if anything, they each (unintentionally) claim to be the de facto Midlands and forget the other exists, but that’s about it. It’s mainly the cities and towns that have rivalries (Derby/Nottingham/Leicester, Coventry/Birmingham/Wolverhampton, etc.).
Not a rivalry and not united
Leicestershire, Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire don’t even think of the West Mids
Mind, they don’t even think of Lincolnshire and Northampton as being EastMids
To the East Midlands, the WM is no different than any other territory like south west or north east
Born in Birmingham, have family in Northampton and went to uni there. Worked in Derby and Nottingham and I currently live in Oldbury in Sandwell (The Black Country). From personal experience, and putting football/sporting loyalties to one side, The West Midlands as a conurbation is united, but the wider East Midlands are quite disparate and have more insular localised identities. Putting Northampton, Milton Keynes, with Derby and Nottingham is very much like chalk and cheese. Sandwell and Birmingham, have separate identities but to many people outside of the area they seem interchangeable and often people just go with that. If you were to go purely by that map the WM includes Hereford, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and so there needs to be a distinction of the collection of counties which are in the west of the midlands, and that is different from the West Midlands which a conurbation of Birmingham,and Sandwell.