Features

. Still pining for a festival of sport after the London Olympics and Paralympics lit up the summer? Pine no more. The next Olympics begin in 500 days – in Sochi, Russia, from 7 February 2014. MARK STANIFORTH, left, ardent admirer of all things Winter Games, explains why it’s a big deal, and why there […]

By Brian Sears 20 September 2012 I’m no entomologist and I’m certainly no apiologist but as a statistician with an eye for the weird and wonderful in football, I can’t help but notice a lack of Bs in the Premier League this season. The relegation last season of Bolton and Blackburn following hard on the heels […]

By Brian Sears 14 September 2012 Arsenal have started the 2012-13 Premier League season with three games in which they haven’t conceded a goal: against Sunderland,  Stoke and Liverpool. This means they are already inside the top 20 best defensive starts in the Premier League’s history. To be precise (and see table below for details), […]

By Brian Sears 14 September 2012 The 20 clubs in the Premier League have won 14,570 points between them in their stints in the Premier League in the past 20 years. Of those, 8,809 points have been won at home, or 60.5 per cent – but some clubs are much more reliant than others on […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 9 September 2012 Isatou Nyang is a single mum of two from The Gambia, a small country in West Africa where the average income is around £1,200 per year, or £23 a week. Nyang, 28, makes about half that much, or around £10 per week, […]

 * ALEXANDRA WILLIS is a multimedia tennis journalist who flits between Wimbledon, SportingIntelligence, the TennisSpace and a few other outlets, while tweeting copiously and trying to improve her (terrible) backhand in her spare time.   .   . By Alexandra Willis 31 August 2012 With two Grand Slam champions on her tennis conquests sheet, a first Grand Slam fourth round, […]

By Brian Sears 31 August 2012 West Ham, bolstered by their £1m loan man Andy Carroll, will welcome Fulham to Upton Park this weekend in the knowledge that they’ve won more Premier League points per game against Fulham than against any other current PL club. In their eight seasons (and 16 games) playing each other […]

By Brian Sears 30 August 2012 They roll from the tongues of Southampton fans like hallucinogenic recollections: three home league wins on the bounce against the mighty Manchester United, between April 1996 and January 1998. And what score lines they were: 3-1, 6-3 (that’s SIX-three) and, errm, 1-0. The point of this being what exactly? […]

By Micah Hall 26 August 2012 The long saga of Portsmouth football club’s turbulent ownership drama is set to reach a climactic denouement this week, as administrator Trevor Birch chooses between bids from former owner Balram Chainrai and the Pompey Supporters’ Trust. If the Trust succeeds in taking control of their long-suffering club, it will […]

By Brian Sears 23 August 2012 Of the 7,857 Premier League games played since the revamped top division began 20 years ago, 2,109 have ended as draws, or just over a quarter of all games, or 26.8 per cent. The club with most draws Premier League draws (absolute total) is Aston Villa, with 240 from […]