* By Alex Miller Follow Alex on Twitter @AlexMiller73 22 July 2014 Despite Premier League clubs collecting massively enhanced payments last season, […]
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Woeful 2012 for QPR points to unlucky 2013 (and relegation)
By Brian Sears 2 January 2013 Queens Park Rangers had the joint worst record in the calendar year 2012 of any club in English professional football (four main divisions). With just seven wins in 39 matches and just 30 points from those games, QPR’s average tally of points was 0.77 points per game. This was […]
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The story behind a story: how The Sun got lucky with its ‘Krakow dump’ tale
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 5 December 2011 The England football team are always big news in England because football is so important, and because so many England fans care about every spit and cough, and because the media know this, hence cover every angle in detail. That is the […]
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Unlucky: Blackpool were the best ‘one-season wonders’ for 13 years
By Brian Sears 27 May 2011 When their relegation was confirmed last Sunday, Blackpool became the 26th side in the Premier League’s history to be relegated in the first season after coming up from the Championship. In this regard, they are ‘One-season wonders’ (OSWs), and though it won’t be much solace to them, their 39 […]
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‘Sometimes life’s riches are found the hard way’
By Nick Harris 10 January 2021 It was about 10pm on Friday 19 August 2016, and Great Britain’s women’s hockey team were playing in the Olympic final in Rio de Janeiro. I was in my car on the forecourt of a petrol station in the west of Scotland, crying. Eight hours earlier we had been for a ‘precautionary’ MRI scan […]
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‘I’ve never understood what’s special about Centre Court’s crowd’
Brought to you in association with the UK Concrete Show (“The whole of the concrete industry under one roof!“) . By Martin Kelner 10 July 2016 Now begins the annual task for the BBC’s Wimbledon team of extricating themselves from John McEnroe’s bottom. I’m often reminded of a comedy western I saw years ago, The Three […]
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Letter from America: Happy 130th birthday to English ‘soccer’
A ‘soccer’ lesson (Or … A few words from the States on the most contentious of words) PDF here to read offline . By Steve Hendricks 6 December 2015 This month marks the 130th anniversary of one of the most traumatic events in British football. Lay historians may think I’m referring to the English Football Association’s […]
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Believing in miracles: Cloughie, Forest and all that
BOOK REVIEW By Daniel Storey 16 November 2015 I Believe In Miracles, Daniel Taylor’s account of Nottingham Forest’s European Cup-winning team, could not differ more greatly from the stereotype of non-fiction books accompanying films. So often they act as an extended advert for the cinematic production, DVD sales where profits are typically made. They adhere […]
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Bankers and bookies oust FIFA as best bets for World Cup forecasts
* This post has been updated on 27 June, UK time, an earlier version of same story is below Yesterday’s games at the World Cup mean the World Cup group games (48 of 48) have been completed. There have been expected victories for some nations, big upsets for others – Adios Spain! Bye-bye England! – and more […]
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World Cup prediction special: ‘The BBC will flood the airwaves with Gangnam Style and fat men everywhere will pretend to lasso women’
* By Jonnie Baker 6 December 2013 Anticipation is obviously reaching fever pitch over the unspeakably complicated group-stage draw for the 2014 Fifa World Cup (TM), which hasn’t been obsessing too many people at all. Certainly not to the extent that anyone would come up with a draw simulator, like the one linked here, […]
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