20 Sports Rivalries That Divided Entire Cities

Celtic and Rangers are two Glasgow-based Scottish football clubs. Celtic was established by Brother Walfrid, a Catholic Marist brother, in 1887 to raise funds for Glasgow’s impoverished Irish migrants. Rangers, founded in 1872, became associated with Protestant Unionism, with the club maintaining an unofficial ban on signing Catholic players until 1989, when the club signed the Catholic striker Mo Johnston. The term “Old Firm,” however, originally referred to how the two clubs controlled the game’s finances rather than their religious affiliation.

Real Madrid, founded as Madrid FC in 1902, was given the royal title by Spanish King Alfonso XIII in 1920, long before Francisco Franco came to power. Atlético Madrid, founded in 1903 by Basque students, later merged with an air force side after the Civil War and enjoyed early success under the new regime. Over time, however, the clubs developed sharply different identities within Madrid, with Real increasingly associated with prestige and establishment while Atlético cultivated a more working-class image. These contrasting identities helped turn a football rivalry into a divide within the Spanish capital.

Everton Football Club originally played their home games at Anfield, a stadium owned by John Houlding. When Houlding asked Everton’s directors to increase the rent in 1892, they refused and moved to Goodison Park. Houlding was left with an empty stadium, and in order to occupy it, he formed Liverpool FC that same year. So yes, one of English football’s biggest rivalries partly exists because of a disagreement with the landlord. Contrary to what many people believe, sectarian hatred has never really characterized the derby; it has even been called the “family derby” because many residents had family members who supported both clubs.

Arsenal Football Club’s 1913 move from Woolwich, south London, to Highbury in north London put them only four miles away from their new rival, Tottenham Hotspur, on White Hart Lane. Arsenal had come in sixth place in Division Two in 1915, but when the Football League expanded Division One in March 1919, Arsenal’s chairman, Sir Henry Norris, campaigned hard for his club’s election, and with 18 votes to eight, Arsenal got in ahead of Tottenham.

Founded in 1899, AC Milan was split in March 1908 when a faction of dissenting members walked out over the signing of non-Italian players; the group became Internazionale, known today as Inter Milan. The division was at first socio-economic: Inter attracted Milan’s wealthy upper class, known as the bauscia, whereas AC Milan became the club of the trade unionists, or casciavit, named for the screwdrivers carried by factory workers.

Italo Foschi, a Fascist functionary, combined three Roman clubs into a single new team, AS Roma, in June 1927, which was intended to compete with the great teams of northern Italy. Lazio’s official, General Giorgio Vaccaro, refused to succumb to the pressure and remained autonomous. Roma drew support from working-class central Rome; Lazio pulled from the outlying suburbs and regional elites.

The founding dates of River Plate (1901) and Boca Juniors (1905) are mere years apart, and the teams started out within a few blocks of each other in La Boca, the Italian-immigrant working-class dock area of Buenos Aires. But River left first, relocating to Recoleta in 1923 and then to the northern suburb of Núñez in 1938, where it opened the Estadio Monumental and earned the nickname Los Millonarios, or “The Millionaires.” Boca remained, proudly maintaining its dockland roots.

Long before the Cubs became synonymous with Wrigley Field, the 1906 World Series featured the North Side Chicago Cubs and the South Side Chicago White Sox, also known as the Hitless Wonders, who won the series 4 games to 2. West Side Grounds and South Side Park were the true home fields for these two teams, not Wrigley Field, which was not constructed until 1914 as Weeghman Park.

Belfast Celtic, established in 1891 in the Catholic Falls Road area, and Linfield, associated with Protestant Unionist Windsor Park, played in one of British football’s most heated rivalries. After Linfield supporters invaded the pitch during the 1948 Boxing Day derby, Belfast Celtic striker Jimmy Jones, despite being Protestant himself, was left with a fractured leg. The club quit the league and disbanded in 1949.

Fluminense, originally established in 1902 as an exclusive high-society club, experienced an uprising in October 1911 when 10 of its players quit due to internal problems and defected to Flamengo, a rowing club founded in 1895. The new arrivals created Flamengo’s first football department, and Flamengo went on to become a multi-class, populist team supported by Rio’s working-class and favela residents. Losing 10 players at once was bad enough; watching them build your future rival was another matter entirely.

Galatasaray was established in 1905 at a high school in Istanbul’s European district; Fenerbahçe was set up in 1907 in the nearby district of Kadıköy on the Asian side. The initial games were friendly encounters, but a violent match in February 1913, which descended into a pitch brawl, put an end to amicable relations. Spectators ferried across the Bosphorus Strait to attend the games because the Bosphorus Bridge was not built until 1973. Supporting your team literally required crossing continents.

The origins of Peñarol can be traced back to the Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club, which was established in 1891 by British railway workers and immigrant laborers. Nacional was formed in 1899 by university students as a locally rooted alternative. Their first encounter was in May 1900, and the railway club won 2-0. While FIFA and Uruguay’s football federation recognize Peñarol’s continuity with the railway club, supporters of the other side deny it.

The Carlton club was founded in 1864 and indeed backed Collingwood’s application to join the Victorian Football Association when Collingwood was formed in 1892, before tensions developed. Collingwood’s grounds were in an impoverished, mostly Irish-Catholic, inner-city working-class Melbourne suburb, while Carlton was in a rich, largely Protestant, upper-middle-class suburb. In their 1910 Victorian Football League Grand Final match, a huge on-field fight occurred that required police intervention to separate the players. So much for the friendly welcome!

Corinthians was established in 1910 by working-class cobblers and railwaymen in São Paulo. In 1914, the city’s Italians opened a rival club called Palestra Itália. When the Brazilian government issued its wartime decree in 1942 prohibiting any reference to Axis countries in sports club names, Palestra Itália became Palmeiras. The rivalry between Corinthians and Palmeiras was already decades old by the time of the name change.

Juventus was established in 1897 by a group of high school students in Turin. In December 1906, club president Alfred Dick resigned following a conflict regarding the relocation of the club, and established a new team, Football Club Torino. During their inaugural derby on January 13, 1907, when Torino won 2-1, Juventus supporters held Dick captive in the locker room for the duration of the match. His former club’s fans clearly weren’t taking the breakup well.

In 1904, a working-class side, Benfica, was established, and two years later, Sporting CP, a well-financed club created by the Viscount of Alvalade, a Portuguese nobleman and patron of sport, was launched. Ahead of the first derby in December 1907, Sporting had recruited eight Benfica players by offering them superior conditions, such as their own locker rooms and hot water showers, rather than money. Eight players for hot showers sounds ridiculous now, but indoor plumbing had recruiting power. The first derby was won by Sporting 2-1.

In their first official match, played in Bohemia on March 29, 1896, Slavia (founded 1892 and associated with intellectuals) faced off against Sparta (founded 1893 and associated with industrial workers). Sparta scored late, but by the rules at that time, a goal scored as the match ended required endorsement from both team captains before it counted. The Slavia captain declined, and the referee, Josef Rössler-Ořovský, awarded a 0-0 tie. Having to get your opponent to approve your goal sounds like a system built specifically to start arguments. This incident poisoned relations forever.

In 1924, anglophone investors built the Montreal Forum for the Montreal Maroons, a hockey team created to attract the city’s English-speaking fans. The Montreal Canadiens, a team meant to represent French-speaking Montreal, soon became co-tenants of the arena. For 14 years, the two teams shared the ice and split the allegiance of Montreal hockey fans along linguistic lines. The Maroons won Stanley Cups in 1926 and 1935, and folded in 1938 as a result of losses in the Depression.

Prior to both franchises heading to California following the 1957 season, the Giants had played at Manhattan’s Polo Grounds while the Dodgers had called Ebbets Field, located across the East River in Brooklyn, home. Brooklyn had been legally annexed to New York City in 1898; however, it maintained a strong working-class character which separated it from the more affluent image of Manhattan, further contributing to the civic flavor of the rivalry.

Panathinaikos was established in 1908 in the center of Athens, representing the city’s educated upper class. Olympiacos was established in 1925 in the port city of Piraeus, initially drawing on a fanbase of dock workers and working-class people in that city. As Athens and Piraeus slowly merge into a single metropolitan zone, the clubs’ derby match has developed into one of the most passionate and long-standing rivalries in Greek football.

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