Where are England footballers born?

With the UEFA men's Championships now in full swing we ask an important question: which part of England can claim the bragging rights for producing the most England international football players?

England players

In order to answer the above question we should first create a list of the men who have played for the England 1st team. (Let's keep it to those born post WWII, i.e. after 1945, as that is often considered the modern era). We can then tally them according to which region of England they were born in.

*As of May 31, 2021.

Region	No. of England players*
East	25
East Midlands	25
London	89
North East	39
North West	89
South East	30
South West	11
West Midlands	36
Yorkshire and Humber	33
Outside of England	16
Total	393

We can see that 393 men born after 1945 played for England. The joint highest contributors were London and the North West, each producing 89 England players. Interestingly, more men played for England who were born outside England (16), than those who were born in the South West (11).

However, these figures don't tell the whole story. Some regions have larger populations than others so have a greater opportunity for producing international players. This should be taken into account.

Births in regions

We can obtain the number of boys born in each region by filtering the databases produced by the Office for National Statistics. (Unfortunately, the relevant data only go back to 1991 but nevertheless we can use this to help estimate the relative birth rates in the different regions).

Then, for each year, for each region, we can calculate

$$\mbox{\% of boys born in that region} = 100 \times \frac{\mbox{no. of boys born in that region}}{\mbox{total no. of boys born in England}}.$$

The most recent birth of someone who has played for England was 2003, so calculations are only needed up until that point.

We can see that the relative birth rates in the regions remained reasonably steady over the period 1991-2003. (Actually, London did appear to be on a slight upward trend during that period and the North West on a slight downward trend, but for ease of calculation let's assume that these changes are ironed out pre-1991). Hence, we can obtain an approximation for a constant to represent each region's relative birth rate:

$$\mbox{Relative birth rate} =100 \times \frac{\mbox{total no.of boys born in the region 1991 to 2003}}{\mbox{total no.of boys born in England 1991 to 2003}}.$$

	No. of boys born 1991-2003	Relative birth rate (%)
East	429739	10.7
East Midlands	327719	8.1
London	680739	16.9
North East	198287	4.9
North West	557567	13.8
South East	630397	15.6
South West	358761	8.9
West Midlands	440201	10.9
Yorkshire and Humber	406114	10.1
Total	4029524	100

So, of boys born in England during 1991-2003, 16.9% were born in London but only 4.9% were born in the North East. We should incorporate this variation into our quest to find the most proliferate England player-producing region.

England player density

By dividing the number of England players born in the region by the relative birth rates in each region, we can obtain a fair measure of each region's ability to produce an England player. Let's call this measure the region's England player density.

$$\mbox{England player density} = \frac{\mbox{No. of England players}}{\mbox{Relative birth rate}}.$$

	No. of England players	Relative birth rate	England player density
East	25	10.7	2.34
East Midlands	25	8.1	3.07
London	89	16.9	5.27
North East	39	4.9	7.93
North West	89	13.8	6.43
South East	30	15.6	1.92
South West	11	8.9	1.24
West Midlands	36	10.9	3.30
Yorkshire and Humber	33	10.1	3.27

We can see that the North East has the highest England player density and so could lay claim to being the region most likely to produce an England international player, whereas the South West takes the wooden spoon.

So if you currently live in Cornwall and are planning to bet on a future son playing for England, you might be tempted to move to, say Newcastle. However it is worth remembering that only 393 boys born after 1945 went on to play for England. The total number of boys born in England between 1946 and 2003 was approximately 20 million! Hence, upping sticks 500 miles across the country might be considered a little rash in this scenario.

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About the author

Slim Khan is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick, and is particularly interested in mathematics and statistics related to games and sports.