I travel from Leeds a lot by train. Last week Manchester Utd played Villareal and I got an evening train from Leeds to Manchester. It really p'ssed me off the number of Man Utd fans that came from West Yorkshire: Leeds, Dewsbury, Huddersfield. 100s of the rats. Leeds is not Newcastle of course but I am beginning to think that the only area that is really Man Utd free is Merseyside and South Manchester.I lived in Durham between 2004 to 2009. There are a few rags and dippers fans there. In fact in my office alone there were two rags and a dipper all from up there. On my first day they asked me immediately who I supported. I replied that I would let them guess. They replied you are a City fan aren’t you? They could’nt say owt. The rags fans had never been to the swamp. They had a supporters club in Peterlee.
Football clubs are built over generations not over a decade and so it's going to take ages for city to build the national fanbase that Man Utd have.