By Nick Harris 17 April 2013 Cardiff City’s guaranteed promotion to the Premier League means that half of the 92 clubs in English football’s four main divisions next season will have tasted Premier League football at some point since 1992. That means being in the Premier League is on the brink of being a ‘majority […]

* Jamie Carragher and Phil Brown have taken up arms for those countless young hopefuls who are told they will be football stars, promised the earth, encouraged to dream – and then cut adrift. Ian Herbert asks why no-one is likely to listen to them. . By Ian Herbert 11 February 2013 Tell me why […]

* In his first Monday column of 2013, Ian Herbert, The Independent’s man in the north-west, asks why we only remember Ronnie Radford when 21st century giant killers are far more up against it; why ITV’s Splash! was a car crash; and why the Premier League chairmen won’t take Fergie on. . By Ian Herbert […]

. 31 DECEMBER 2012 A Sportingintelligence survey of almost 1,000 fans from more than 60 different clubs has been published on this website today (link here), with those taking part voting SWANSEA CITY as the club in English football with the best owners, and BLACKBURN ROVERS as the club with the worst owners. These are […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 13 December 2012 Barcelona have produced more footballers currently earning a living as first-team players across Europe’s elite ‘Big 5’ divisions than any other club in the world, Sportingintelligence can reveal. The Spanish giants have been responsible for the development of 38 players at top-flight […]

* In the first instalment of a new weekly Monday column, Tell Me Why, the Independent’s brilliant man in the north-west, Ian Herbert, asks why Manchester United needed to unveil a statue of their remarkable manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, even before Fergie has left the building. What does it tell us about Sir Alex, and […]

By Janine Self 24 October 2012 First, a scene-setter. One jumbo-sized sofa (red), one TV studio, one journalist-broadcaster-author with a vision. Despite Boris Johnson’s nudge-wink post-Olympic speech, the BT Life’s a Pitch sofa tends not to witness too much in the way of paroxysms of tears and joy. But, thanks to Michael Calvin, a whole […]

By Brian Sears 16 August 2012 In the 20 years of the Premier League, Arsenal have played 386 home league games and lost just 48 of them. Seven clubs in the current Premier League have never won in the PL era at Arsenal, and the first visitors of this season, Sunderland, are among them. They […]

By Brian Sears 15 August 2012 So the Olympic Games are over and football is facing the inevitable brickbats that will come its way ahead of the new season, which begins in England on Saturday. Of course the beautiful game can learn things from London 2012 and the Olympics as a whole, but let’s not […]

By Brian Sears 11 May 2012 So another Premier League season, the 20th since the top flight of the English game was revamped into the cosmopolitan cashfest of today, is coming to a close. And yet there is still so much to be resolved, not least from a statistical point of view the following eight […]