The big heart of football?

I mention this because you'd be amazed how rarely it happens that the majority of our teams, certainly the big-time ones, win over a weekend.
I began to notice the phenomenon about five years ago, when Albion and Blues first started to yo-yo between the Premier League and the Championship/old First Division. I'd come into the office on a Sunday afternoon, having looked forward to reading our writers' thoughts on West Midlands successes, to be confronted with the same old tales of gloom and despondency; injuries, sendings-off, bad refereeing, relegation battles starting in November and so on.
It got so bad that it became a mantra with both ourselves and our colleagues on the Birmingham Mail: "How the **** do they expect us to use football to sell newspapers when they keep losing all the time?"
Here's another amazing statistic; in six of the nine seasons this millennium, at least one of the 'Big Six' has been relegated. Judging from afar by the way they defended against Villa on Sunday, the Baggies could well make that seven out of ten.
All these musings are prompted by something Rob Tanner wrote in his column in The Post on Tuesday of last week. Hailing the impressive start to the season made by Blues and Wolves (and thus prompting the former to fall flat on their faces against Blackpool), Rob wrote "A lot is made in the national media about football being a religion in the North-east, how the cream of English football is in the North-west and how London is the capital of the Premier League, but our region is the heart of football in more ways than one and it would be wonderful if Wolves and Blues can prove that this season."
Well, as someone who has lived in this region all his life and followed its' football on a personal and professional level for almost all of it, I'm as keen as the next man to blow our own trumpet. After all, I keep telling our lords and masters that local sporting success sells newspapers. But I couldn't and still can't see the basis for that statement, so I went hunting through the record books.
Organised competitive football in England began in 1888-89 with the inauguration of the Football League. Guess how many times since then a club from the West Midlands has won the top division?
Eleven. That's eleven out of 120 and Villa won five of those in the first 12 seasons. Albion have won it once, in 1919-20 and Wolves won it three times in the 1950s. The heart of football? Possibly not.
So here's a question. Are we living in the heart of football? If not, why are we so ordinary at it? Is it because our talent is spread more thinly across the region, although there are just as many professional clubs in the north-west, for instance?
Is it because we have fared less well in nurturing the talent we have? Does the relative economic success of the West Midlands have something to do with it?
I don't know, but it has the making of a fascinating debate. Over to you...........