The Roses Rivalry: Yorkshire vs Lancashire

The Roses rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire is older than English football itself, dating back to the medieval Wars of the Roses. When clubs from these two counties meet in the Premier League, the matches carry a weight that the league table rarely captures, with intensity and pride often producing tighter, scrappier results than form would suggest.

If you are picking through the fixtures on ScoreBadger and a Yorkshire-Lancashire match comes up, here is how to read it.

Who Plays Whom

The Roses fixtures cover a wide cast of clubs depending on the season. On the Yorkshire side: Leeds United, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday in the cups and on the way up. On the Lancashire side: Liverpool, Everton, Manchester United, Manchester City, Burnley, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End, and others when they are in the top flight.

In any given Premier League season, the most common Roses matches are:

• Leeds United vs the Manchester clubs
• Leeds United vs Liverpool or Everton
• Leeds United vs Burnley
• Sheffield United vs any Lancashire club when they are in the league
• Burnley vs Leeds when both are in the Premier League

Each of these has its own flavour, but they share the broader pattern that we cover in derby day predictions. Local and regional rivalries lift intensity in ways that affect the scoreline.

The Cultural Weight

Yorkshire and Lancashire are two of the most football-obsessed counties in England, and supporters take these fixtures more seriously than the neutral observer might assume. For Leeds fans, a match against Manchester United is closer to a derby than the league fixture against, say, Bournemouth. For Burnley fans, a trip to Liverpool or the Manchester grounds carries weight. For Sheffield fans on the rare occasions they are in the Premier League, fixtures against any Lancashire side bring out the regional pride.

This matters for predictions because cultural intensity does not show up in the form table. A side that has been losing 4-0 every week can put in a derby performance that holds the bigger team to 1-0 or 1-1. The reverse is also true: a side coasting in form can come unstuck when emotion is the only thing the opposition has.