Spurs Arsenal, Liverpool Everton, Manchester or North East – which is the biggest derby in England?

Football FanCast
columnist Davis Lowe relishes the blood and thunder of the derby
game but is at pains to work out whether it's the Newcastle/Sunderland,
Merseyside, Manchester United/City, Aston Villa/Birmingham, North London or
even the East Anglian derby that can be considered the biggest in England.

If there is one great thing about the derby game, it is the
one day your team actually plays for their supporters. After weeks of rubbish
half hearted displays, your team finally grows itself a conscience and realise
that they actually may have to put in some effort for those 1000s of people who
pay their wages every week and afford them the all the luxuries they enjoy. It
is one of the infuriating traits in modern football and one we have grown use
to.

Bill Nicholson use to brief his Tottenham team that if they were only going to
win two games all season then make them the derby. Billy Nick was one of those unique
men in football who understood the importance and value of fans, so much so
that he gave his own team a huge dressing down after they beat Fulham 6-0
because the manner of the performance. I whole heartedly agree with his
standpoint, there is certainly nothing worse than fronting work having lost and
having those smarmy smiles at you all week. It is the most gut wrenching
feeling and one you never ever really learn to deal with.

Manchester City and Arsenal fans probably are smiling ear to
ear for achieving the double over their great rivals, but both opposing clubs
are likely to turn around and present the silverware they have won this season
- where did those victories get you and who is smiling now?

I guess the derby games means a lot to some people and
little to others. I know a lot of my friends who absolutely hate the week prior
to the game, on the day of the match casually drop off in the lavatory at every
opportunity, but I actually enjoy it. This is not because I'm some adrenaline
junkie who gets off the high intensity and hostility the game creates but for
me it is the one occasion, I feel my team is going to turn up and give 100% -
if they lose they lose but they are not going to get rolled over, which I think
is what those who fear derby games most worry about.

It is a subject that we have been talking about work in
recent weeks and one which has no seemingly definitive answer. Each club has
their fair share of arguments to why their game may take on greater importance,
so I open the debate up to you, which is the biggest derby in English football?