Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > UK Membership distribution

[Eamonn]

As there's been some discussion of where the members are in another thread, there's now a webpage that will give you the currrent info :

Membership count by region



There's been a few comments on north/South divide (when isn't there any comment ? ) and I just like to put forward my observations.
I spent the first 20 years of my life in Essex and consequently had no idea of what people were on about with a North/South divide. As a southerner you don't experience it unless someone else mentions it.
I then moved to Yorkshire for 9 years and only then did I become aware of the divide. It's little things like the BBC presenters always giving a southern focus to events, the weather reports classifying anything north of Birmingham as 'the North' (what do you classify Cumbria as then? ) and as you drive up the M1 you see signs indicating 'The North'. How many signs do you see saying 'The south' ?
It's all these little things that antagonise, and then you see major events all being based around London with the occasional 'northern event' at the NEC area !!

And what about a new olympic stadium being built just a few miles away from a new Wembly stadium - does London really need two large stadiums/ Wouldn't it have fairer to the UK population to at least have the new stadium further north ? What happens to the new stadium after the 2012 olympics - does London have enough events to utilise both stadiums or will one fall into disrepair like the dome?

As I said at the beginning, if you've never experienced it, it's because you haven't lived north of Birmingham. Personally I think things have become more even than they were say 20 years ago - more events being held in Manchester for example. However I don't think the divide will ever totally disappear - it's a simple truism that the majority of people live south of Birmingham so if you put on an event that needs to attract a large number of people, you organise it near those people. However much you dislike it, it isn't going to change until more people live in the northern counties, and that won't happen until there are more jobs available in those counties which means employers have to set up base there. but that won't happen too quickly because employers see there is more population to work with in the southern counties - it's a circular dependancy.

Just my 2p worth - I'm sure there will be others