Rivalries renewed! Championship derbies to look out for in 25/26

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The start of the 2025/26 Sky Bet Championship season is just around the corner where rivalries will be renewed…

South London derby

• Charlton vs Millwall – September 13, 12.30pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Millwall vs Charlton – January 24 2026, 12.30pm

The first derby of the new season comes on September 13, when Charlton welcome Millwall to The Valley for the first time since July 2020, shortly after football resumed following the first Covid lockdown.

The Lions won 1-0 that day, thanks to Jake Cooper’s late goal, pushing their rivals towards eventual relegation back to League One.

The Addicks fans will be out for revenge – but will it come? On March 9, it will be 30 years since Millwall last lost a competitive game against Charlton. They have been waiting a long, long time.

The rivalry will ensure this is competitive, but there has been so much in the way of squad movement for both of these teams over the summer that it is likely to be an intriguing encounter regardless.
Dan Long

South coast derby

• Southampton vs Portsmouth – September 14, 12pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Portsmouth vs Southampton – January 25 2026, 12pm

This rivalry runs so deep that 10 years ago, when Emirates struck a sponsorship deal with Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower and announced plans to paint the towering landmark red and white – the colours of Southampton FC – more than 10,000 people signed a petition in opposition.

The voice of the public was heard. Red and white was swiftly ditched for blue and gold, with paint donated to local charities.

Even so, since the turn of the millennium, unbelievably, there have been just 10 south coast derbies.

Pompey and Saints were both in the Premier League across 2003/04 and 2004/05, but it would be another six years until they played again in the league, when both were in the Championship.

And, owing to their ducking and diving through the divisions, they have met just once since April 2012, when Saints won a Carabao Cup third round match 4-0 at Fratton Park. That night has been described as the biggest football police operation in Hampshire.

Now, they are back in the same division, with the upcoming derby matches among the most hotly anticipated of the season, somewhat owing to their hugely contrasting fortunes in 2024/25.

One year after winning the League One title – and finally escaping the clutches of the third tier after seven seasons – John Mousinho’s Portsmouth recorded their highest finish since 2010/11 (16th) and laid down a platform from which to build.

Meanwhile, Southampton – who sacked both Russell Martin and successor Ivan Juric – finished bottom of the Premier League with not only the second-lowest points tally in the competition’s history (12), but the most defeats by a team in a single season, too.

For fans on the south coast, what has become a rare meeting cannot come quickly enough.
Dan Long

East Anglian derby

• Ipswich vs Norwich – October 5, 12pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Norwich vs Ipswich – April 11 2026, 3pm

There will be added intrigue as “The Old Farm Derby” returns to the Championship this season with Norwich’s new head coach Liam Manning possessing more than a few links to their arch rivals.

Having begun his youth career at Carrow Road, Manning then moved south where he found himself part of the same Ipswich youth team as Richard Keogh before being released in 2005 after a year as a professional.

At one time, many Town fans may well have looked on Manning as the ready-made replacement for Kieran McKenna had Premier League clubs successfully tempted him away in the summer of 2024.

In addition, Manning’s long term assistant Chris Hogg, who looks set to join him in the coming days at Norwich, is literally married into Ipswich legend being the son-in-law of former Town manager George Burley.

Both clubs head into the new season undergoing rebuilds of different types, Norwich looking to put the unsuccessful reign of Johannes Hoff Thorup behind them and Ipswich eyeing nothing less than a push for the automatic promotion places while they benefit from Premier League parachute payments.

While Ipswich’s sensational promotion to the top flight in 2023/24 at the first attempt saw them collect 96 points, only one of those was taken off the Canaries over their two league meetings.

They were forced to come from behind at Portman Road in a see-saw 2-2 draw in December and then fluffed their lines in a 1-0 defeat at Carrow Road in April. What that means is Norwich’s unbeaten run over their East Anglian foes now stands at 14 league meetings, stretching back to 2009.

Ipswich fans will be more than desperate to get that particular monkey off their backs when the rivalry resumes.
Adam Williams

Steel City derby

• Sheffield Wednesday vs Sheffield United – November 23, 12pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Sheffield United vs Sheffield Wednesday – February 21 2026, 3pm

The goals may have been in short supply in recent meetings – just two in the last five encounters – but the fuel for a bristling old rivalry has not.

Chris Wilder celebrated Tyrese Campbell’s lone goal at Bramall Lane with a late-night pub singalong (including a chant about then-counterpart Danny Rohl) that went viral. After a social media spat with Barry Bannan, Rhian Brewster had the last laugh at Hillsborough in March with a tap-in that for plenty of the visitors was return enough for £23.5m.

But winds of change – and of more sobering uncertainty – have swirled through Sheffield this summer.

Despite a 92-point haul and a first league derby double in two decades, Wilder has been replaced in the dugout by Ruben Selles following United’s latest play-off final failure.

The Blades’ continued city dominance should be expected, even if their promotion credentials look less certain as Selles attempts to plot a new data-powered course with, for now at least, a thinner squad.

Questions around Wednesday are more existential.

The Owls have been characterised by chaos and financial strife under Dejphon Chansiri but with Rohl gone, wages unpaid, EFL sanctions and no takeover in sight, the situation is spiralling, the threat to the club’s very existence seemingly more perilous than ever.

On both sides of the city, through ownership despair, transfer embargoes, docked points and neglected infrastructure, the fervour persists and the ardour endures. It always does here.

But for Wednesday right now, when Sunday feels precarious, November may seem a lifetime away.
Kate Burlaga

West Midlands derby

• West Brom vs Birmingham – November 26, 8pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Birmingham vs West Brom – February 14 2026, 3pm

Owing to Birmingham’s relegation to League One in the summer of 2024, this year is the first since 2017 where there has not been a meeting between the Blues and West Brom.

Granted, it is not the most fiercely-contested derby in the region – Birmingham vs Aston Villa in the Second City derby undoubtedly takes that crown. But that is not to say it will not be contested fiercely; the last five meetings have produced 12 goals and 21 yellow cards. The West Midlands bragging rights are on the line, after all.

And plenty has changed since February 2024, when Andreas Weimann’s late goal gave the Baggies their first home win in the derby in almost two-and-a-half years.

Chris Davies’ Birmingham – with their US ownership group, for which NFL legend Tom Brady is the face – sauntered to the Sky Bet League One title last term, picking up 111 points. It is the outright record for an EFL team in a single season and to carry the momentum that comes with it will be a priority.

The Baggies, meanwhile, had their usual flirtation with the play-offs, but missed out by four points. The writing was on the wall in April, when Tony Mowbray was sacked just three months into a two-and-a-half year contract. Ryan Mason – the third-youngest manager in the top four divisions – is at the helm now.

With mutual ambition to reach the Premier League again, these two could come to blows this term.
Dan Long

Welsh derby

• Swansea vs Wrexham – December 19, 8pm – Live on Sky Sports
• Wrexham vs Swansea – March 14 2026, 3pm

Derby or not? Whatever your opinion, these are the only games that will be contested by two Welsh clubs in the Sky Bet Championship in 2024/25, after Cardiff were relegated to League One.

It has been more than two decades since the last meeting between Wrexham and Swansea, which came in March 2003, when both teams were in Division Three. A lot has changed since then.

Five seasons later, Swansea were playing in the Championship and between 2012/13 and 2017/18, they were in the Premier League. They have not dropped below the second tier since.

Within four seasons, Wrexham had dropped into non-league. Following 15 seasons away, they only returned to League Two for 2023/24. But in May, the club backed by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, secured an unprecedented third straight promotion.

Swansea have lost seven of the last nine meetings, with their last win all the way back in August 1993. But this is a new era – and the slate is clean.
Dan Long

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